We landed to boil our kettle, and breakfast on a point of the island of
St. Joseph's. This most beautiful island is between thirty and forty
miles in length, and nearly a hundred miles in circumference, and
towards the centre the land is high and picturesque. They tell me that
on the other side of the island there is a settlement of whites and
Indians. Another large island, Drummond's Isle, was for a short time in
view. We had also a settlement here, but it was unaccountably
surrendered to the Americans. If now you look at the map, you will
wonder, as I did, that in retaining St. Joseph's and the Manitoolin
islands, we gave up Drummond's Island. Both these islands had forts and
garrisons during the war.
By the time breakfast was over, the children had gathered some fine
strawberries; the heat had now become almost intolerable, and unluckily
we had no awning. The men rowed languidly, and we made but little way;
we coasted along the south shore of St. Joseph's, through fields of
rushes, miles in extent, across Lake George, and Muddy Lake (the name, I
thought, must be a libel, for it was as clear as crystal and as blue as
heaven; but they say that, like a sulky temper, the least ruffle of wind
turns it as black as ditchwater, and it does not subside again in a
hurry), and then came a succession of openings spotted with lovely
islands, all solitary. The sky was without a cloud, a speck--except when
the great fish-eagle was descried sailing over its blue depths--the
water without a wave. We were too hot and too languid to converse.
Nothing disturbed the deep noon-tide stillness, but the dip of the oars,
or the spring and splash of a sturgeon as he leapt from the surface of
the lake, leaving a circle of little wavelets spreading around. All the
islands we passed were so woody, and so infested with mosquitoes, that
we could not land and light our fire, till we reached the entrance of
St. Mary's River, between Nebish island and the mainland.