AJ-127: Carver, Travels through North America (1766)

              [37]
that space, till you arrive at the Winnebago Lake,
it ,is full of rocks and very rapaid. At many places we were
obliged to land our canoes, and carry them a considerable
way, Its breadth, in general, from the Green Bay to the
Winnebago Lake, is between seventy and a hundred yards: the
land on its borders very good, and thinly wooded with
hickery, oak, and hazel.
The Winnebago Lake is about
fifteen., miles long from east to west, and six miles wide.
At its south-east corner, a river falls into it that takes
its rise near some, of the northern branches of the Illinois
River. This I called the Crocodile River, in consequence of
a story that prevails among the Indians, of their having
destroyed, in some part of it, an animal which from their
description must be a crocodile or an alligator.
The land
adjacent to the Lake is very fertile, abounding with,
grapes, plums, and
other fruits, which grow
spontaneously.
The Winnebagoes raise on it, a great
quantity of Indian, corn, beans, pumpkins squash, and water
melons, with some tobacco.  The Lake itself abounds
with
fiSh
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