I had hoped, when I began, to bring down the narrative of my voyage to
this moment, but my sheet is full, and I shall give you the remainder in
another letter.
Letter XXXI.
A Trip from Detroit to Mackinaw.
Steamer Oregon, Lake Michigan, _July_ 25, 1846.
Soon after passing the flats described in my last letter, and entering the
river St. Clair, the steamer stopped to take in wood on the Canadian side.
Here I went on shore. All that we could see of the country was a road
along the bank, a row of cottages at a considerable distance from each
other along the road, a narrow belt of cleared fields behind them, and
beyond the fields the original forest standing like a long lofty wall,
with its crowded stems of enormous size and immense height, rooted in the
strong soil - ashes and maples and elms, the largest of their species.
Scattered in the foreground were numbers of leafless elms, so huge that
the settlers, as if in despair of bringing them to the ground by the ax,
had girdled them and left them to decay and fall at their leisure.
We went up to one of the houses, before which stood several of the family
attracted to the door by the sight of our steamer. Among them was an
intelligent-looking man, originally from the state of New York, who gave
quick and shrewd answers to our inquiries. He told us of an Indian
settlement about twenty miles further up the St. Clair. Here dwell a
remnant of the Chippewa tribe, collected by the Canadian government, which
has built for them comfortable log-houses with chimneys, furnished them
with horses and neat cattle, and utensils of agriculture, erected a house
of worship, and given them a missionary. "The design of planting them
here," saidth esettler, "was to encourage them to cultivate the soil."
"And what has been the success of the plan?" I asked.
"It has met with no success at all," he answered. "The worst thing that
the government could do for these people is to give them every thing as it
has done, and leave them under no necessity to provide for themselves.
They chop over a little land, an acre or two to a family; their squaws
plant a little corn and a few beans, and this is the extent of their
agriculture. They pass their time in hunting and fishing, or in idleness.
They find deer and bears in the woods behind them, and fish in the St.
Clair before their doors, and they squander their yearly pensions. In one
respect they are just like white men, they will not work if they can live
without."
"What fish do they find in the St. Clair?"
"Various sorts.
