Michilimackina, or Mackinaw, was their first resting-place after leaving La Chine; and here they had again to recommence the recruiting service, as at Montreal—with this difference, however, that the Montreal men are expert canoe men, the Mackina men expert bottle-men. That Canadians in general drink, and sometimes even to excess, must be admitted; but to see drunkenness and debauchery, with all their concomitant vices, carried on systematically, it is necessary to see Mackina.
Here Hunt and M‘Kenzie in vain sought recruits, at least such as would suit their purpose; for in the morning they were found drinking, at noon drunk, in the evening dead drunk, and in the night seldom sober. Hogarth’s drunkards in Gin Lane and Beer Alley were nothing compared to the drunkards of Mackina at this time. Every nook and corner in the whole island swarmed, at all hours of the day and night, with motley groups of uproarious tipplers and whisky-hunters. Mackina at this time resembled a great bedlam, the frantic inmates running to and fro in wild forgetfulness; so that Mr. Hunt, after spending several weeks, could only pick up a few disorderly Canadians, already ruined in mind and body; whilst {173} the cross-breeds and Yankees kept aloof, viewing the expedition, as an army views a forlorn hope, as destined to destruction. Mr. Hunt now saw and confessed his error in not taking M‘Kenzie’s salutary advice to engage more voyageurs at Montreal, but regretted most of all the precious time they had lost to no purpose at Mackina, and therefore set about leaving it as soon as possible.
But before we take our leave of a place so noted for gallantry and gossiping, we may observe that it was, at the date of this narrative, the chief rendezvous of the Mackina Fur Company, and a thousand other petty associations of trappers and adventurers, all in some way or other connected with the Indian trade. Here then Mackina was the great outfitting mart of the south—the centre and headquarters of all those adventurers who frequented the Mississippi and Missouri waters in search of furs and peltries.
These different parties visit Mackina but once a year, and on these occasions make up for their dangers and privations among the Indians by rioting, carousing, drinking, and spending all their gains in a few weeks, sometimes in a few days; and then they return again to the Indians and the wilderness. In this manner these dissolute spendthrifts spin out, in feasting and debauchery, a miserable existence, neither fearing God nor regarding man, till the knife of the savage, or some other violent death, despatches them unpitied.
In the fur trade of the north many have attained {174} to a competency, not a few to independence, and many have realized fortunes after a servitude of years; but in the slippery and ruinous traffic of the south many fortunes have been lost, and an awful sacrifice made of human life; so that of all the adventurers engaged, for half a century past, in the fur trade of that licentious quarter, few, very few indeed, ever left it with even a bare competency.
At Mackina, Mr. Crooks, formerly a trader on the Missouri, joined the expedition as a partner. The odds-and-ends being now put together, and all ready for a start, the expedition left Mackina on the 12th of August, and crossing over the lake to Green Bay, proceeded up Fox River, then down to Prairie du Chien by the Wisconsin,[[57]] and from thence drifted down the great Mississippi to St. Louis, where they landed on the 3rd of September.
No sooner had the St. Louis papers announced the arrival of Astor’s expedition at that place, than the rendezvous of Hunt and M‘Kenzie teemed with visitors of all grades, anxious to enlist in the new company. Pleased with the flattering prospect of soon completing their number, they commenced selecting such countenances as bespoke health and vigour; but, alas! few of that description was to be found in the crowd.
The motley group that presented itself could boast of but few vigorous and efficient hands, being generally little better, if not decidedly worse, than those lounging about the streets of Mackina, a {175} medley of French Creoles, old and worn-out Canadians, Spanish renegades, with a mixture of Indians and Indian half-breeds, enervated by indolence, debauchery, and a warm climate. Here, again, Mr. Hunt’s thoughts turned to Canada; and in the bitterness of disappointment he was heard to say, “No place like Montreal for hardy and expert voyageurs!” Several Yankees, however, sleek and tall as the pines of the forest, engaged as hunters and trappers; but here again another difficulty presented itself, the sapient Yankees, accustomed to the good things of St. Louis, must have their dainties, their tea, their coffee, and their grog. This caused a jealousy; the Canadians, who lived on the usual coarse fare of the north, began to complain, and insisted on receiving the same treatment which the hunters and trappers had,—such is the force of example; and dissatisfaction once raised is not so easily allayed again. To adjust these differences, Mr. Hunt adopted an expedient which, in place of proving a remedy, rather augmented the evil. Thinking it easier, or at all events cheaper, to reduce his own countrymen, being but few in number, to the Canadian pot-luck, rather than pamper Jean Baptiste with luxurious notions, he issued his orders accordingly, that all denominations should fare alike; but Jonathan was not to be told what he was to eat, nor what he was to drink. Finding, however, Mr. Hunt determined to enforce the order, the new comers shouldered their rifles to a man, and, in the {176} true spirit of Yankee independence, marched off with their advance in their pockets, and the expedition saw them no more; and not only that, but they raised such a hue-and-cry against the parsimonious conduct of the new enterprize, that not a man could be afterwards got to engage; and this state of things the other traders, and particularly the Missouri Fur Company, turned to their advantage, by representing to the people the horrors, the dangers, and privations that awaited our adventurous friends; that if they were fortunate enough to escape being scalped by the Indians, they would assuredly be doomed, like Nebuchadnezzar, to eat grass, and never would return to tell the sad tale of their destruction.
While Mr. Hunt’s affairs thus seemed almost at a stand, a new impulse was given to the expedition by the timely acquisition of another partner, a Mr. Miller, who had been a trader up the Missouri, had considerable experience among Indians along the route to be followed, and was a great favourite with the people at St. Louis. As soon, therefore, as Mr. Miller joined the expedition, people from all quarters began again to enlist under the banner of the new company. Canoemen, hunters, trappers, and interpreters were no longer wanting, and the number of each being completed, the expedition left St. Louis, after a vexatious delay of forty-eight days.
On the 21st of October the expedition started {177} in three boats, and soon after reached the mouth of the Missouri, up which the party proceeded. Our Canadian voyageurs were now somewhat out of their usual element. Boats and oars, the mode of navigating the great rivers of the south, were new to men who had been brought up to the paddle, the cheering song, and the bark canoe of the north. They detested the heavy and languid drag of a Mississippi boat, and sighed for the paddle and song of former days. They soon, however, became expert at the oar, and Mr. Hunt, who was somewhat partial to the south men, was forced to acknowledge that their merits were not to be compared to the steady, persevering, habits of the men of the north. Yet the progress was but slow, scarcely averaging twenty-one miles a day, so that it was the 16th of November before they reached the Nodowa, a distance of only 450 miles up the Missouri, and there, from the coldness of the weather and lateness of the season, they were obliged to winter.