THE LAKE.
| 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 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.
C. C.