About seven o'clock we landed to cook our supper on an island which is
commemorated by Henry as the Isle des Outardes, and is now Goose
Island. Mrs. Schoolcraft undertook the general management with all the
alertness of one accustomed to these impromptu arrangements, and I did
my best in my new vocation--dragged one or two blasted boughs to the
fire, the least of them twice as big as myself, and laid the cloth upon
the pebbly beach. The enormous fire was to keep off the mosquitoes, in
which we succeeded pretty well, swallowing, however, as much smoke as
would have dried us externally into hams or red herrings. We then
returned to the boat, spread a bed for the children (who were my
delight) in the bottom of it with mats and blankets, and disposed our
own, on the lockers on each side, with buffalo skins, blankets, shawls,
cloaks, and whatever was available, with my writing-case for a pillow.
After sunset, the breeze fell: the men were urged to row, but pleaded
fatigue, and that they were hired for the day, and not for the night
(which is the custom). One by one they sulkily abandoned their oars, and
sunk to sleep under their blankets, all but our young captain: like
Ulysses when steering away from Calypso--
"Placed at the helm he sat, and watched the skies,
Nor closed in sleep his ever-watchful eyes."
He kept himself awake by singing hymns, in which Mrs. Schoolcraft joined
him. I lay still, looking up at the stars and listening: when there was
a pause in the singing, we kept up the conversation, fearing lest sleep
should overcome our only pilot and guardian. Thus we floated on beneath
that divine canopy--"which love had spread to curtain the sleeping
world:" it was a most lovely and blessed night, bright and calm and
warm, and we made some little way, for both wind and current were in our
favour.
As we were coasting a little shadowy island, our captain mentioned a
strange circumstance, very illustrative of Indian life and character. A
short time ago a young Chippewa hunter, whom he knew, was shooting
squirrels on this spot, when by some chance a large blighted pine fell
upon him, knocking him down and crushing his leg, which was fractured in
two places. He could not rise, he could not remove the tree which was
lying across his broken leg. He was in a little uninhabited island,
without the slightest probability of passing aid; and to lie there and
starve to death in agonies, seemed all that was left to him. In this
dilemma, with all the fortitude and promptitude of resource of a
thorough-bred Indian, he took out his knife, cut off his own leg, bound
it up, dragged himself along the ground to his hunting canoe, and
paddled himself home to his wigwam on a distant island, where the cure
of his wound was completed. The man is still alive.
Perhaps this story appears incredible. I believe it firmly. At the time,
and since then, I heard other instances of Indian fortitude, and of
their courage and skill in performing some of the boldest and most
critical operations in surgery, which I really cannot venture to set
down. But I will mention one or two of the least marvellous. There was a
young chief, and famous hunter, whose arm was shattered by the bursting
of his rifle. No one would venture the amputation, and it was bound up
with certain herbs and dressings, accompanied with many magical
ceremonies. The young man, who seemed aware of the inefficacy of such
expedients, waited till the moment when he should be left alone. He had
meantime, with pain and difficulty, hatched one of his knives into a
saw; with this he completed the amputation of his own arm; and when his
relations appeared they found the arm lying at one end of the wigwam,
and the patient sitting at the other, with his wound bound up, and
smoking with great tranquillity.
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