In September, 1855, I first saw the St. Clair Flats. Owing to Raymond's
determination, we stopped there.
'Why go on?' he asked. 'Why cross another long, rough lake, when here is
all we want?'
'But no one ever stops here,' I said.
'So much the better; we shall have it all to ourselves.'
'But we must at least have a roof over our heads.'
'I presume we can find one.'
The captain of the steamer, however, knew of no roof save that covering
a little lighthouse set on spiles, which the boat would pass within the
half hour; we decided to get off there, and throw ourselves upon the
charity of the lighthouse-man. In the meantime, we sat on the bow with
Captain Kidd, our four-legged companion, who had often accompanied us on
hunt-expeditions, but never so far westward. It had been rough on Lake
Erie,--very rough. We, who had sailed the ocean with composure, found
ourselves most inhumanly tossed on the short chopping waves of this
fresh water sea; we, who alone of all the cabin-list had eaten our four
courses every day on the ocean-steamer, found ourselves here reduced to
the depressing diet of a herring and pilot-bread. Captain Kidd, too, had
suffered dumbly; even now he could not find comfort, but tried every
plank in the deck, one after the other, circling round and round after
his tail dog-fashion, before lying down, and no sooner down than up
again, for another choice of planks, another circling, and another
failure. We were sailing across a small lake whose smooth waters were
like clear green oil; as we drew near the outlet, the low, green shores
curved inward and came together, and the steamer entered a narrow, green
river.
'Here we are,' said Raymond. 'Now we can soon land.'
'But there isn't any land,' I answered.
'What is that, then?' asked my near-sighted companion, pointing toward
what seemed a shore.
'Reeds.'
'And what do they run back to?'
'Nothing.'
'But there must be solid ground beyond?'
'Nothing but reeds, flags, lily-pads, grass, and water, as far as I can
see.'
'A marsh?'
'Yes, a marsh.'
The word 'marsh' does not bring up a beautiful picture to the mind, and
yet the reality was as beautiful as anything I have ever seen,--an
enchanted land, whose memory haunts me as an idea unwritten, a melody
unsung, a picture unpainted, haunts the artist, and will not away. On
each side and in front, as far as the eye could reach, stretched the low
green land which was yet no land, intersected by hundreds of channels,
narrow and broad, whose waters were green as their shores. In and out,
now running into each other for a moment, now setting off each for
himself again, these many channels flowed along with a rippling current;
zigzag as they were, they never seemed to loiter, but, as if knowing
just where they were going and what they had to do, they found time to
take their own pleasant roundabout way, visiting the secluded households
of their friends the flags, who, poor souls, must always stay at home.
These currents were as clear as crystal, and green as the water-grasses
that fringed their miniature shores. The bristling reeds, like companies
of free-lances, rode boldly out here and there into the deeps, trying to
conquer more territory for the grasses, but the currents were hard to
conquer; they dismounted the free-lances, and flowed over their
submerged heads; they beat them down with assaulting ripples; they broke
their backs so effectually that the bravest had no spirit left, but
trailed along, limp and bedraggled. And, if by chance the lances
succeeded in stretching their forces across from one little shore to
another, then the unconquered currents forced their way between the
closely serried ranks of the enemy, and flowed on as gayly as ever,
leaving the grasses sitting hopeless on the bank; for they needed solid
ground for their delicate feet, these graceful ladies in green.
You might call it a marsh; but there was no mud, no dark slimy water, no
stagnant scum; there were no rank yellow lilies, no gormandizing frogs,
no swinish mud-turtles. The clear waters of the channels ran over golden
sands, and hurtled among the stiff reeds so swiftly that only in a bay,
or where protected by a crescent point, could the fair white lilies
float in the quiet their serene beauty requires. The flags, who
brandished their swords proudly, were martinets down to their very
heels, keeping themselves as clean under the water as above, and
harboring not a speck of mud on their bright green uniforms. For
inhabitants, there were small fish roving about here and there in the
clear tide, keeping an eye out for the herons, who, watery as to legs,
but venerable and wise of aspect, stood on promontories musing,
apparently, on the secrets of the ages.
The steamer's route was a constant curve; through the larger channels of
the archipelago she wound, as if following the clew of a labyrinth. By
turns she headed toward all the points of the compass, finding a channel
where, to our uninitiated eyes, there was no channel, doubling upon her
own track, going broadside foremost, floundering and backing, like a
whale caught in a shallow. Here, landlocked, she would choose what
seemed the narrowest channel of all, and dash recklessly through, with
the reeds almost brushing her sides; there she crept gingerly along a
broad expanse of water, her paddle-wheels scarcely revolving, in the
excess of her caution. Saplings, with their heads of foliage on, and
branches adorned with fluttering rags, served as finger-posts to show
the way through the watery defiles, and there were many other
hieroglyphics legible only to the pilot. 'This time, surely, we shall
run ashore,' we thought again and again, as the steamer glided, head-on,
toward an islet; but at the last there was always a quick turn into some
unseen strait opening like a secret passage in a castle-wall, and we
found ourselves in a new lakelet, heading in the opposite direction.
Once we met another steamer, and the two great hulls floated slowly past
each other, with engines motionless, so near that the passengers could
have shaken hands with each other had they been so disposed. Not that
they were so disposed, however; far from it. They gathered on their
respective decks and gazed at each other gravely; not a smile was seen,
not a word spoken, not the shadow of a salutation given. It was not
pride, it was not suspicion; it was the universal listlessness of the
travelling American bereft of his business, Othello with his occupation
gone. What can such a man do on a steamer? Generally, nothing. Certainly
he would never think of any such light-hearted nonsense as a smile or
passing bow.
But the ships were, _par excellence_, the bewitched craft, the Flying
Dutchmen of the Flats. A brig, with lofty, sky-scraping sails, bound
south, came into view of our steamer, bound north, and passed, we
hugging the shore to give her room: five minutes afterward the
sky-scraping sails we had left behind veered around in front of us
again; another five minutes, and there they were far distant on the
right; another, and there they were again close by us on the left. For
half an hour those sails circled around us, and yet all the time we were
pushing steadily forward; this seemed witching work indeed. Again, the
numerous schooners thought nothing of sailing over-land; we saw them on
all sides gliding before the wind, or beating up against it over the
windows as easily as over the water; sailing on grass was a mere trifle
to these spirit-barks. All this we saw, as I said before, apparently.
But in that adverb is hidden the magic of the St. Clair Flats.
'It is beautiful,--beautiful,' I said, looking off over the vivid green
expanse.
'Beautiful?' echoed the captain, who had himself taken charge of the
steering when the steamer entered the labyrinth,--'I don't see anything
beautiful in it!--Port your helm up there; port!'
'Port it is, sir,' came back from the pilot-house above.
'These Flats give us more trouble than any other spot on the lakes;
vessels are all the time getting aground and blocking up the way, which
is narrow enough at best. There's some talk of Uncle Sam's cutting a
canal right through,--a straight canal; but he's so slow, Uncle Sam is,
and I'm afraid I'll be off the waters before the job is done.'
'A straight canal!' I repeated, thinking with dismay of an ugly
utilitarian ditch invading this beautiful winding waste of green.
'Yes, you can see for yourself what a saving it would be,' replied the
captain. 'We could run right through in no time, day or night; whereas,
now, we have to turn and twist and watch every inch of the whole
everlasting marsh.' Such was the captain's opinion. But we, albeit
neither romantic nor artistic, were captivated with his 'everlasting
marsh,' and eager to penetrate far within its green fastnesses.
'I suppose there are other families living about here, besides the
family at the lighthouse?' I said.
'Never heard of any; they'd have to live on a raft if they did.'
'But there must be some solid ground.'
'Don't believe it; it's nothing but one great sponge for miles.--Steady
up there; steady!'
'Very well,' said Raymond, 'so be it. If there is only the lighthouse,
at the lighthouse we'll get off, and take our chances.'
'You're surveyors, I suppose?' said the captain.
Surveyors are the pioneers of the lake-country, understood by the people
to be a set of harmless monomaniacs, given to building little
observatories along-shore, where there is nothing to observe; mild
madmen, whose vagaries and instruments are equally singular. As
surveyors, therefore, the captain saw nothing surprising in our
determination to get off at the lighthouse; if we had proposed going
ashore on a plank in the middle of Lake Huron, he would have made no
objection.
At length the lighthouse came into view, a little fortress perched on
spiles, with a ladder for entrance; as usual in small houses, much time
seemed devoted to washing, for a large crane, swung to and fro by a
rope, extended out over the water, covered with fluttering garments hung
out to dry. The steamer lay to, our row-boat was launched, our traps
handed out, Captain Kidd took his place in the bow, and we pushed off
into the shallows; then the great paddle-wheels revolved again, and the
steamer sailed away, leaving us astern, rocking on her waves, and
watched listlessly by the passengers until a turn hid us from their
view. In the mean time numerous flaxen-haired children had appeared at
the little windows of the lighthouse,--too many of them, indeed, for our
hopes of comfort.
'Ten,' said Raymond, counting heads.
The ten, moved by curiosity as we approached, hung out of the windows so
far that they held on merely by their ankles.
'We cannot possibly save them all,' I remarked, looking up at the
dangling gazers.
'O, they're amphibious,' said Raymond; 'web-footed, I presume.'
We rowed up under the fortress, and demanded parley with the keeper in
the following language:--
'Is your father here?'
'No; but ma is,' answered the chorus.--'Ma! ma!'
Ma appeared, a portly female, who held converse with us from the top of
the ladder. The sum and substance of the dialogue was that she had not a
corner to give us, and recommended us to find Liakim, and have him show
us the way to Waiting Samuel's.
'Waiting Samuel's?' we repeated.
'Yes; he's a kind of crazy man living away over there in the Flats. But
there's no harm in him, and his wife is a tidy housekeeper. You be
surveyors, I suppose?'
We accepted the imputation in order to avoid a broadside of questions,
and asked the whereabouts of Liakim.
'O, he's round the point, somewhere there, fishing!'
We rowed on and found him, a little, round-shouldered man, in an old
flat-bottomed boat, who had not taken a fish, and looked as though he
never would. We explained our errand.
'Did Rosabel Lee tell ye to come to me?' he asked.
'The woman in the lighthouse told us,' I said.
'That's Rosabel Lee, that's my wife; I'm Liakim Lee,' said the little
man, gathering together his forlorn old rods and tackle, and pulling up
his anchor.
"In the kingdom down by the sea
Lived the beautiful Annabel Lee,"