Once more on board of the Michigan, one of the best vessels on Lake
Erie; as usual, full of emigrants, chiefly Irish. It is impossible not
to feel compassion for these poor people, wearied as they are with
confinement and suffering, and yet they do compose occasionally about as
laughable a group as can well be conceived. In the first place, they
bring out with them from Ireland, articles which no other people would
consider worth the carriage. I saw one Irish woman who had old tin tea
pots; there was but one spout among the whole, and I believe not one
bottom really sound and good. And then their costumes, more
particularly the fitting out of the children, who are not troubled with
any extra supply of clothes at any time! I have witnessed the seat of
an old pair of corduroy trowsers transformed into a sort of bonnet for a
laughing fair-haired girl. But what amused me more was the very reverse
of this arrangement; a boy's father had just put a patch upon the hinder
part of his son's trousers; and cloth not being at hand, he had, as an
expedient for stopping the gap, inserted a piece of an old straw bonnet;
in so doing he had not taken the precaution to put the smooth side of
the plait inwards, and, in consequence, young Teddy when he first sat
down felt rather uncomfortable. "What's the matter wid ye, Teddy; what
makes ye wriggle about in that way? Sit aisy, man; sure enough, havn't
ye a strait-bottomed chair to sit down upon all the rest of your
journey, which is more than your father ever had before you?" And then
their turning in for the night! A single bed will contain one adult and
four little ones at one end, and another adult and two half-grown at the
other. But they are all packed away so snug and close, and not one
venturing to move, there appears to be room for all.
We stopped half an hour at Mackinaw to take in wood, and then started
for Green Bay, in the Wisconsin territory. Green Bay is a military
station; it is a pretty little place, with soil as rich as garden mould.
The Fox river debouches here, but the navigation is checked a few miles
above the town by the rapids, which have been dammed up into a water
power; yet there is no doubt that as soon as the whole of the Wisconsin
lands are offered for sale by the American Government, the river will be
made navigable up to its meeting with the Wisconsin, which falls into
the Mississippi. There is only a portage of a mile and a half between
the two, through which a canal will be cut, and then there will be
another junction between the lakes and the Far West. It was my original
intention to have taken the usual route by Chicago and Galena to St
Louis, but I fell in with Major F---, with whom I had been previously
acquainted, who informed me that he was about to send a detachment of
troops from Green Bay to Fort Winnebago, across Wisconsin territory. As
this afforded me an opportunity of seeing the country, which seldom
occurs, I availed myself of an offer to join the party. The detachment
consisted of about one hundred recruits, nearly the whole of them Canada
patriots, as they are usually called, who, having failed in taking the
provinces from John Bull, were fain to accept the shilling from uncle
Sam.
Major F---accompanied us to pay the troops at the fort, and we therefore
had five waggons with us, loaded with a considerable quantity of bread
and pork, and not quite so large a proportion of specie, the latter not
having as yet become plentiful again in the United States. We set off,
and marched fifteen miles in about half a day, passing through the
settlement Des Peres, which is situated at the rapids of the Fox river.
Formerly they were called the Rapids des Peres, from a Jesuit college
which had been established there by the French. Our course lay along
the banks of the Fox river, a beautiful swift stream pouring down
between high ridges, covered with fine oak timber.
The American Government have disposed of all the land on the banks of
this river and the Lake Winnebago, and consequently it is well settled;
but the Winnebago territory in Wisconsin, lately purchased of the
Winnebago Indians, and comprising all the prairie land and rich mineral
country from Galena to Mineral Point, is not yet offered for sale: when
it is, it will be eagerly purchased; and the American Government, as it
only paid the Indians at the rate of one cent and a fraction per acre,
will make an enormous profit by the speculation. Well may the Indians
be said, like Esau, to part with their birthright for a mess of pottage;
but, in truth, they are _compelled_ to sell--the purchase-money being a
mere subterfuge, by which it may _appear_ as if their lands were not
wrested from them, although, in fact, it is.
On the second day we continued our march along the banks of the Fox
river, which, as we advanced, continued to be well settled, and would
have been more so, if some of the best land had not fallen, as usual,
into the hands of speculators, who, aware of its value, hold out that
they may obtain a high price for it. The country through which we
passed was undulating, consisting of a succession of ridges, covered
with oaks of a large size, but not growing close as in a forest; you
could gallop your horse through any part of it. The tracks of deer were
frequent, but we saw but one herd of fifteen, and that was at a
distance. We now left the banks of the river, and cut across the
country to Fond du Lac, at the bottom of Lake Winnebago, of which we had
had already an occasional glimpse through the openings of the forest.
The deer were too wild to allow of our getting near them; so I was
obliged to content myself with shooting wood pigeons, which were very
plentiful.
On the night of the third day we encamped upon a very high ridge; as
usual studded with oak trees. The term used here to distinguish this
variety of timber land from the impervious woods is _oak openings_. I
never saw a more beautiful view than that which was afforded us from our
encampment. From the high ground upon which our tents were pitched, we
looked down to the left, upon a prairie flat and level as a
billiard-table, extending, as far as the eye could scan, one rich
surface of unrivalled green. To the right the prairie gradually changed
to oak openings, and then to a thick forest, the topmost boughs and
heads of which were level with our tents. Beyond them was the whole
broad expanse of the Winnebago lake, smooth and reflecting like a mirror
the brilliant tints of the setting sun, which disappeared, leaving a
portion of his glory behind him; while the moon in her ascent, with the
dark portion of her disk as clearly defined as that which was lighted,
gradually increased in brilliancy, and the stars twinkled in the clear
sky. We watched the features of the landscape gradually fading from our
sight, until nothing was left but broad masses partially lighted up by
the young moon.
Nor was the foreground less picturesque: the spreading oaks, the tents
of the soldiers, the waggons drawn up with the horses tethered, all
lighted up by the blaze of our large fires. Now, when I say our large
fires, I mean the _large_ fires of _America_, consisting of three or
four oak trees, containing a load of wood each, besides many large
boughs and branches, altogether forming a fire some twenty or thirty
feet long, with flames flickering up twice as high as one's head. At a
certain distance from this blazing pile you may perceive what in another
situation would be considered as a large coffee-pot (before this huge
fire it makes a very diminutive appearance). It is placed over some
embers drawn out from the mass, which would have soon burnt up
coffee-pot and coffee all together; and at a still more respectful
distance you may perceive small rods, not above four or five feet long,
bifurcated at the smaller end, and fixed by the larger in the ground, so
as to hang towards the huge fire, at an angle of forty degrees, like so
many tiny fishing-rods. These rods have at their bifurcated ends a
piece of pork or ham, or of bread, or perhaps of venison, for we bought
some, not having shot any: they are all private property, as each party
cooks for himself. Seeing these rods at some distance, you might almost
imagine that they were the fishing-rods of little imps bobbing for
salamanders in the fiery furnace.
In the mean time, while the meat is cooking and the coffee is boiling,
the brandy and whisky are severely taxed, as we lie upon our cloaks and
buffalo skins at the front of our tents. There certainly is a charm in
this wild sort of life, which wins upon people the more they practise
it; nor can it be wondered at: our wants are in reality so few and so
easily satisfied, without the restraint of form and ceremony. How
often, in my wanderings, have I felt the truth of Shakespeare's lines in
"As You Like It."
"Now, my co-mates and partners in exile,
Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
More free from peril than the envious court?
Here feel we but the penalty of Adam--
The seasons' difference."
On the fourth day we descended, crossed the wide prairie, and arrived at
the Fond du Lac, where we again fell in with the Fox river, which runs
through the Winnebago lake. The roads through the forests had been very
bad, and the men and horses showed signs of fatigue; but we had now
passed through all the thickly wooded country, and had entered into the
prairie country, extending to Fort Winnebago, and which was beautiful
beyond conception. Its features alone can be described; but its effects
can only be felt by being seen. The prairies here are not very large,
seldom being above six or seven miles in length or breadth; generally
speaking, they lie in gentle undulating flats, and the ridges and hills
between them are composed of oak openings. To form an idea of these oak
openings, imagine an inland country covered with splendid trees, about
as thickly planted as in our English parks; in fact, it is English park
scenery, Nature having here spontaneously produced what it has been the
care and labour of centuries in our own country to effect. Sometimes
the prairie will rise and extend along the hills, and assume an
undulating appearance, like the long swell of the ocean; it is then
called rolling prairie.
Often, when I looked down upon some fifteen or twenty thousand acres of
these prairies, full of rich grass, without one animal, tame or wild, to
be seen, I would fancy what thousands of cattle will, in a few years, be
luxuriating in those pastures, which, since the herds of buffalo have
retreated from them, are now useless, and throwing up each year a fresh
crop, to seed and to die unheeded.
On our way we had fallen in with a young Frenchman, who had purchased
some land at Fond du Lac, and was proceeding there in company with an
American, whom he had hired to settle on it. I now parted company with
him; he had gone out with me in my shooting excursions, and talked of
nothing but his purchase: it had water; it had a waterfall; it had, in
fact, everything that he could desire; but he thought that, after two
years, he would go home and get a wife: a Paradise without an Eve would
be no Paradise at all.
The price of labour is, as may be supposed, very high in this part of
the country. Hiring by the year, you find a man in food, board, and
washing, and pay him three hundred dollars per annum (about 70 pounds
English.)
The last night that we bivouacked out was the only unfortunate one. We
had been all comfortably settled for the night, and fast asleep, when a
sudden storm came on, accompanied with such torrents of rain as would
have washed us out of our tents, if they had not been already blown down
by the violence of the gale. Had we had any warning, we should have
provided against it; as it was, we made up huge fires, which defied the
rain; and thus we remained till day-light, the rain pouring on us, while
the heat of the fire drying us almost as fast as we got wet, each man
threw up a column of steam from his still saturating and still heated
garments. Every night we encamped where there was a run of water, and
plenty of dead timber for our fires; and thus did we go on, emptying our
waggons daily of the bread and pork, and filling up the vacancies left
by the removal of the empty casks with the sick and lame, until at last
we arrived at Fort Winnebago.