I was sitting last Friday, at sultry noon-tide, under the shadow of a
schooner which had just anchored alongside the little pier--sketching
and dreaming--when up came a messenger, breathless, to say that a boat
was going off for the Sault-Sainte-Marie, in which I could be
accommodated with a passage. Now this was precisely what I had been
wishing and waiting for, and yet I heard the information with an emotion
of regret. I had become every day more attached to the society of Mrs.
Schoolcraft, more interested about her; and the idea of parting, and
parting suddenly, took me by surprise, and was anything but agreeable.
On reaching the house, I found all in movement, and learned, to my
inexpressible delight, that my friend would take the opportunity of
paying a visit to her mother and family, and, with her children, was to
accompany me on my voyage.
We had but one hour to prepare packages, provisions, everything--and in
one hour all was ready.
This voyage of two days was to be made in a little Canadian bateau,
rowed by five _voyageurs_ from the Sault. The boat might have carried
fifteen persons, hardly more, and was rather clumsy in form. The two
ends were appropriated to the rowers, baggage, and provisions; in the
centre there was a clear space, with a locker on each side, on which we
sat or reclined, having stowed away in them our smaller and more
valuable packages. This was the internal arrangement.
The distance to the Sault, or, as the Americans call it, the _Sou_, is
not more than thirty miles over land, as the bird flies; but the whole
region being one mass of tangled forest and swamp, infested with bears
and mosquitoes, it is seldom crossed but in winter, and in snow-shoes.
The usual route by water is ninety-four miles.
At three o'clock in the afternoon, with a favourable breeze, we launched
forth on the lake, and having rowed about a mile from the shore, the
little square sail was hoisted, and away we went merrily over the blue
waves.