At Detroit I had purchased Miss Sedgwick's tale of "The Rich Poor Man
and the Poor Rich Man," and this sent away two hours delightfully, as we
were gliding over the expanse of Lake St. Clair. Those who glanced on my
book while I was reading always smiled--a significant sympathising
smile, very expressive of that unenvious, affectionate homage and
admiration which this genuine American writer inspires among her
countrymen. I do not think I ever mentioned her name to any of them,
that the countenance did not light up with pleasure and gratified pride.
I have also a sensible little book, called "Three Experiments in
Living," written by Mrs. Lee, of Boston: it must be popular, and _true_
to life and nature, for the edition I bought is the tenth. I have also
another book to which I must introduce you more particularly--"The
Travels and Adventures of Alexander Henry." Did you ever hear of such a
man? No. Listen then, and perpend.
This Mr. Henry was a fur-trader who journeyed over these lake regions
about seventy years ago, and is quoted as first-rate authority in more
recent books of travels. His book, which was lent to me at Toronto,
struck me so much as to have had some influence in directing the course
of my present tour. Plain, unaffected, telling what he has to tell in
few and simple words, and without comment--the internal evidence of
truth--the natural sensibility and power of fancy, betrayed rather than
displayed--render not only the narrative, but the man himself, his
personal character, unspeakably interesting. Wild as are the tales of
his hairbreadth escapes, I never heard the slightest impeachment of his
veracity. He was living at Montreal so late as 1810 or 1811, when a
friend of mine saw him, and described him to me as a very old man past
eighty, with white hair, and still hale-looking and cheerful, so that
his hard and adventurous life, and the horrors he had witnessed and
suffered, had in no respect impaired his spirits or his constitution.
His book has been long out of print. I had the greatest difficulty in
procuring the loan of a copy, after sending to Montreal, Quebec, and New
York, in vain. Mr. Henry is to be my travelling companion. I do not know
how he might have figured as a squire of dames when living, but I assure
you that being dead he makes a very respectable hero of epic or romance.
He is the Ulysses of these parts; and to cruise among the shores, rocks,
and islands of Lake Huron without Henry's travels, were like coasting
Calabria and Sicily without the Odyssey in your head or hand,--only here
you have the island of Mackinaw instead of the island of Circe; the land
of the Ottawas instead of the shores of the Lotophagi; cannibal
Chippewas, instead of man-eating Laestrigons. Pontiac figures as
Polypheme; and Wa,wa,tam plays the part of good king Alcinous. I can
find no type for the women, as Henry does not tell us his adventures
among the squaws; but no doubt he might have found both Calypsos and
Nausicaas, and even a Penelope, among them.
* * * * *
July 20.
Before I went down to my rest yesterday evening, I beheld a strange and
beautiful scene. The night was coming on; the moon had risen round and
full, like an enormous globe of fire; we were still in the channel of
the river, when, to the right, I saw a crowd of Indians on a projecting
point of land. They were encamping for the night, some hauling up their
canoes, some building up their wigwams: there were numerous fires
blazing amid the thick foliage, and the dusky figures of the Indians
were seen glancing to and fro; and I heard loud laughs and shouts as our
huge steamer swept past them. In another moment we turned a point, and
all was dark: the whole had vanished like a scene in a melodrama. I
rubbed my eyes, and began to think I was already dreaming.
At the entrance of the river St. Clair, the Americans have a fort and
garrison (Fort Gratiot), and a lighthouse, which we passed in the night.
On the opposite side we have no station; so that, in case of any
misunderstanding between the two nations, it would be in the power of
the Americans to shut the entrance of Lake Huron upon us.