Mackinaw Was, Therefore, For A
Great Part Of The Year, Very Scantily Peopled; But At Certain
Seasons The Traders Arrived From All Points, With Their Crews Of
Voyageurs, And The Place Swarmed Like A Hive.
Mackinaw, at that time, was a mere village, stretching along a
small bay, with a fine broad beach in front of its principal row
of houses, and dominated by the old fort, which crowned an
impending height.
The beach was a kind of public promenade where
were displayed all the vagaries of a seaport on the arrival of a
fleet from a long cruise. Here voyageurs frolicked away their
wages, fiddling and dancing in the booths and cabins, buying all
kinds of knick-knacks, dressing themselves out finely, and
parading up and down, like arrant braggarts and coxcombs.
Sometimes they met with rival coxcombs in the young Indians from
the opposite shore, who would appear on the beach painted and
decorated in fantastic style, and would saunter up and down, to
be gazed at and admired, perfectly satisfied that they eclipsed
their pale-faccd competitors.
Now and then a chance party of "Northwesters" appeared at
Mackinaw from the rendezvous at Fort William. These held
themselves up as the chivalry of the fur trade. They were men of
iron; proof against cold weather, hard fare, and perils of all
kinds. Some would wear the Northwest button, and a formidable
dirk, and assume something of a military air. They generally wore
feathers in their hats, and affected the "brave." "Je suis un
homme du nord!"-"I am a man of the north,"-one of these swelling
fellows would exclaim, sticking his arms akimbo and ruffling by
the Southwesters, whom he regarded with great contempt, as men
softened by mild climates and the luxurious fare of bread and
bacon, and whom he stigmatized with the inglorious name of pork-
eaters.
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