Leaving the channel of the river and the cluster of islands at its
entrance, we stretched northward across Lake St. Clair. This beautiful
lake, though three times the size of the Lake of Geneva, is a mere pond
compared with the enormous seas in its neighbourhood. About one o'clock
we entered the river St. Clair, (which, like the Detroit, is rather a
strait or channel than a river,) forming the communication between Lake
St. Clair and Lake Huron. Ascending this beautiful river, we had, on the
right, part of the western district of Upper Canada, and on the left the
Michigan territory. The shores on either side, though low and bounded
always by the line of forest, were broken into bays and little
promontories, or diversified by islands, richly wooded, and of every
variety of form. The bateaux of the Canadians, or the canoes of the
Indians, were perpetually seen gliding among these winding channels, or
shooting across the river from side to side, as if playing at
hide-and-seek among the leafy recesses. Now and then a beautiful
schooner, with white sails, relieved against the green masses of
foliage, passed us, gracefully curtseying and sidling along. Innumerable
flocks of wild fowl were disporting among the reedy islets, and here and
there the great black loon was seen diving and dipping, or skimming over
the waters. As usual, the British coast is here the most beautiful and
fertile, and the American coast the best settled and cleared. Along the
former I see a few isolated log-shanties, and groups of Indian lodges;
along the latter, several extensive clearings, and some hamlets and
rising villages. The facility afforded by the American steam-boats for
the transport of goods and sale of produce, &c., is one reason of this.
There is a boat, for instance, which leaves Detroit every morning for
Fort Gratiot, stopping at the intermediate "landings." We are now moored
at a place called "Palmer's Landing," for the purpose of taking in wood
for the Lake voyage. This process has already occupied two hours, and is
to detain us two more, though there are fourteen men employed in
flinging logs into the wood-hold. Meantime I have been sketching and
lounging about the little hamlet, where there is a good grocery-store, a
sawing-mill worked by steam, and about twenty houses.
I was amused at Detroit to find the phraseology of the people imbued
with metaphors taken from the most familiar mode of locomotion. "Will
you take in wood?" signifies, will you take refreshment? "Is your steam
up?" means, are you ready? The common phrase, "go ahead," has I suppose,
the same derivation. A witty friend of mine once wrote to me not to be
lightly alarmed at the political and social ferments in America, nor
mistake the _whizzing of the safety-valves for the bursting of the
boilers_!