Whatever May Be The Cause, I Have Met
With No Person Since I Came To The West, Who Appeared To Have A Catarrh.
From This Region Perhaps Will Hereafter Proceed Singers With The Clearest
Pipes.
Some forty miles beyond Chicago we stopped for half an hour at Little
Fort, one of those flourishing little
Towns which are springing up on the
lake shore, to besiege future Congresses for money to build their harbors.
This settlement has started up in the woods within the last three or four
years, and its cluster of roofs, two of the broadest of which cover
respectable-looking hotels, already makes a considerable figure when
viewed from the lake. We passed to the shore over a long platform of
planks framed upon two rows of posts or piles planted in the sandy
shallows. "We make a port in this manner on any part of the western shore
of the lake," said a passenger, "and convenient ports they are, except in
very high winds. On the eastern shore, the coast of Michigan, they have
not this advantage; the ice and the northwest winds would rend such a
wharf as this in pieces. On this side too, the water of the lake, except
when an east wind blows, is smoother than on the Michigan coast, and the
steamers therefore keep under the shelter of this bank."
At Southport, still further north, in the new state of Wisconsin, we
procured a kind of omnibus and were driven over the town, which, for a new
settlement, is uncommonly pretty. We crossed a narrow inlet of the lake, a
_creek_ in the proper sense of the term, a winding channel, with water in
the midst, and a rough growth of water-flags and sedges on the sides.
Among them grew the wild rice, its bending spikes, heavy with grain,
almost ready for the harvest.
"In the northern marshes of Wisconsin," said one of our party, "I have
seen the Indian women gathering this grain. Two of them take their places
in a canoe; one of them seated in the stern pushes it with her paddle
through the shallows of standing water, while the other, sitting forward,
bends the heads of the rice-plant over the sides of the canoe, strikes
them with a little stick and causes the grain to fall within it. In this
way are collected large quantities, which serve as the winter food of the
Menomonies, and some other tribes." The grain of the wild rice, I was
told, is of a dark color, but palatable as food. The gentleman who gave me
this account had made several attempts to procure it in a fit state to be
sown, for Judge Buel, of Albany, who was desirous of trying its
cultivation on the grassy shallows of our eastern rivers. He was not
successfull at first, because, as soon as the grain is collected, it is
kiln-dried by the Indians, which destroys the vegetative principle. At
length, however, he obtained and sent on a small quantity of the fresh
rice, but it reached Judge Buel only a short time before his death, and
the experiment probably has not been made.
On one side of the creek was a sloping bank of some height, where tall old
forest trees were growing. Among these stood three houses, just built, and
the space between them and the water was formed into gardens with regular
terraces faced with turf. Another turn of our vehicle brought us into a
public square, where the oaks of the original forest were left standing,
a miniature of the _Champs Elysees_, surrounding which, among the trees,
stand many neat houses, some of them built of a drab-colored brick. Back
of the town, we had a glimpse of a prairie approaching within half a mile
of the river. We were next driven through a street of shops, and thence to
our steamer. The streets of Southport are beds of sand, and one of the
passengers who professed to speak from some experience, described the
place as haunted by myriads of fleas.
It was not till about one o'clock of the second night after leaving
Chicago, that we landed at Mackinaw, and after an infinite deal of trouble
in getting our baggage together, and keeping it together, we were driven
to the Mission House, a plain, comfortable old wooden house, built thirty
or forty years since, by a missionary society, and now turned into an
hotel. Beside the road, close to the water's edge, stood several wigwams
of the Potawottamies, pyramids of poles wrapped around with rush matting,
each containing a family asleep. The place was crowded with people on
their way to the mining region of Lake Superior, or returning from it, and
we were obliged to content ourselves with narrow accommodations for the
night.
At half-past seven the next morning we were on our way to the Sault Ste.
Marie, in the little steamer General Scott. The wind was blowing fresh,
and a score of persons who had intended to visit the Sault were withheld
by the fear of seasickness, so that half a dozen of us had the steamer to
ourselves. In three or four hours we found ourselves gliding out of the
lake, through smooth water, between two low points of land covered with
firs and pines into the west strait. We passed Drummond's Island, and then
coasted St. Joseph's Island, on the woody shore of which I was shown a
solitary house. There I was told lives a long-nosed Englishman, a half-pay
officer, with two wives, sisters, each the mother of a numerous offspring.
This English polygamist has been more successful in seeking solitude than
in avoiding notoriety. The very loneliness of his habitation on the shore
causes it to be remarked, and there is not a passenger who makes the
voyage to the Sault, to whom his house is not pointed out, and his story
related. It was hinted to me that he had a third wife in Toronto, but I
have my private doubts of this part of the story, and suspect that it was
thrown in to increase my wonder.
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