On thy fair bosom, silver lake,
The wild swan spreads his snowy sail,
And round his breast the ripples break,
As down he bears before the gale.
_Percival_.
The way we travelled along the southern shore of Lake Michigan was
somewhat singular. There being no road, we drove right on the strand,
one wheel running in the water. Thus we travelled thirty miles, at the
rate of two miles an hour. In the lake we saw a great many gulls
rocking on the waves and occasionally flying up into the air, sailing
in circles, and fanning their white plumage in the sunshine.
While thus slowly winding along the sandy margin of the lake we met a
number of Pottowatimies on horseback in Indian file, men with rifles,
women with papooses, and farther on we passed an Indian
village--wigwams of mats comically shaped. This village stood {367}
right on the shore of the lake; some Indian boys half-naked were
playing in the sand, and an Indian girl of about fourteen was standing
with arms folded looking towards the lake. There was, or I imagined
there was, something in that scene, that attitude, that countenance of
the Indian girl, touching and picturesque in the highest degree--a
study for the painter.
Alas--these Indians! the dip of their paddle is unheard, the embers of
the council-fire have gone out, and the bark of the Indian dog has
ceased to echo in the forest. Their wigwams are burnt, the cry of the
hunter has died away, the title to their lands is extinguished, the
tribes, scattered like sheep, fade from the map of existence. The
unhappy remnant are driven onward--onward to the ocean of the West.
Such are the reflections that came into my mind, on seeing the
beautiful Pottowatimie of Lake Michigan.