July 3d.—Still in the river St. Clair. We stopped some hours in the night at Newport, to take in a supply of wood. The captain purchased eighty cords at $1,50 a cord. He told us it was his opinion the steamboats upon these waters would soon be obliged to burn coal, although surrounded by such a world of trees, as there is so much time wasted in stopping for it. I did not regret our detention, as I was anxious to lose no part of a scenery to me so novel and pleasing. This is a beautiful river about sixty miles long, and half a mile broad, having several little towns upon it. Cotrelville and Palmer we had also passed in the night; the latter a thriving place, from which a rail road is contemplated to Romeo, twenty-six miles, there to meet the Shelby and Detroit rail road. A communication will thus be continued with Detroit through the winter. The country upon the Canadian shore is wild and uninhabited, while the Michigan side of the river is frequently adorned with fields of grass or wheat, or thrifty orchards. The houses are plain, but seemed surrounded by every comfort. Our course ran quite near this shore, so close, that I might fancy myself transported into the midst of a farm yard, with all its morning business going on. A pretty white wood house is before me now, surrounded by fields and barns, having a row of cherry trees in front whose fruit is glistening red in the morning sun. In the barn yard a man is chopping wood, to cook the breakfast, I suppose—another is busy hoeing in a potatoe field—a boy is leading a horse down to the river for water, while numerous other children are arrested in their play and stand open mouthed gazing at us—ducks are dabbling in the wavelets—pigs are rooting up the turf—a flock of geese are running down the bank at us with beaks and wings extended in a warlike attitude—while a sober cow chews her cud under a large hickory nut tree. The next moment all is gone, to give place to the silent groves of oak, maple and ash. Upon a long narrow island near the Canadian shore, my eyes were attracted by what seemed a row of haystacks. I enquired the meaning, and was told I was looking upon an Indian village, and these were wigwams. I was delighted to behold a veritable Indian lodge, and to see real Indians, instead of those half civilized beings I had met at Niagara. They are a body of Chippeway Indians who reside upon Warpole Island under the care of a Missionary of the Methodist church. Their wigwams consisted of poles meeting at top, around which, coarse matting, formed of reeds is fastened. From the apex of these cones smoke was rising, telling of culinary operations going on within. Around each lodge was a small patch of potatoes or corn. A small church, with the missionary cottage and a few log cabins, were in the midst. Groups of Indians were lounging upon the bank gazing at us, while others unconcernedly pursued their usual occupations of fishing or hoeing. How much more graceful were those wild sons of the forest, than the civilized men I had observed upon the shores I had passed. Their mantles of cloth or blanket stuff, trimmed with gay colors, were gracefully thrown around them, and their ornamented leggins or moccasins glittered as they walked. How dignified is the tread of an Indian! we remarked as we passed the island, many in various occupations and attitudes, yet they never moved awkwardly, nor sprang, nor jumped in a clumsy manner. The missionary cottage was an object of great interest to us. I had often read of these self-denying disciples of Jesus, but never before looked upon the scene of their labors. Here in this lonely shore, away from all they love—their friends and home—and almost shut out from the face of civilized man, they spend their days in laboring to ameliorate the lot of these unhappy children of the forest. In bringing them to the feet of their master, they are indeed conferring a blessing upon them past all return. As a recompense for the bright land their fathers have taken from the bereaved Indian, they are leading them to another, brighter and more lasting. There is no change, nor shadow of turning—there, no enemy can destroy their homes—there, the tears are wiped from their eyes, and all their sorrows soothed. Noble missionary, who can appreciate thy sacrifice? None but those who have come from a civilized land, where thou hast passed thy early days, and who now sees thee among the endless forests with no associates save those wretched savages, can understand the greatness of thy disinterestedness. During the short summer, a residence may be tolerable, but when the rivers and lakes are choaked up by ice, the short glimpse he has obtained of his fellow man, while whirled past in a steamboat, will be denied him. The roar of the winter wind will shake his cottage, and the wolf will scare him from his slumbers. But what are earthly joys or sorrows to a child of Christ? His meat and drink is to do the will of him that sent him, and in return for the comforts and pleasures of civilized life, he receives a peace ‘the world cannot give’—a joy, David in all the glory of his kingly life sighed for, when he prayed ‘Give me the joy of thy salvation.’ A small settlement is formed at the mouth of Black river, called Port Huron, which is to be the termination of another canal across the state.
Here we found another vessel waiting for wind. It was the brig Rocky Mountain, bound to Green Bay, being attached to our other side we passed ‘doubly armed.’ Near the point where the river leaves lake Huron stands fort Gratiot, an United States military station whose white walls and buildings, over which the American flag was waving, looked out brightly from among the dark forest of the Michigan shore. A line of blue coats were going through their morning drill; and a few cannons looked out fiercely upon us. A small white Gothic church, and a cottage stood near; the whole making a pretty cabinet picture. The river now narrowed to a quarter of a mile, upon each side a point—the American side crowned by a light-house, and the Canadian by a cluster of Indian cabins. A bark canoe, paddled by five Indians, pushed off the shore and came after us with the greatest rapidity, their long black hair flying wildly behind them. Our two vessels retarded our motion a little, so that the Indians overtook us, and kept at our side for some distance. They used their paddles with astonishing quickness, and we were surprised to see them in their ‘light canoe,’ keep pace with our large steamboat. It was however for a short distance only—they were soon fatigued with such great exertion, and turned towards the point, and sprang out, or rather stepped out with the greatest dignity, drew the canoe to the shore, and then squatted down upon the bank evidently enjoying their race. I use the above inelegant word, as being very expressive of their posture. The Indian never sits down as we do—with his feet close beside each other, and his body erect, he sinks slowly down—his blanket is then thrown over his head and around his feet, so that nothing is seen except his dark glaring eyes. Through the narrow pass before mentioned, between the two points, the waters of Huron run with a swift current. Here we were furnished with another evidence of the rise of these waters.
An officer of the army and his wife were our fellow voyagers, very intelligent and agreeable persons. They had been stationed at fort Gratiot a few years since, and had frequently roved over the beach around the light-house in search of the pretty silecious pebbles, agate, camelian, and calcedony, which are often found upon these shores. To their surprise, they now found their favorite point, ‘curtailed of its fair proportions’ by a rise of nearly five feet of water. Our steamboat and its two ‘tenders,’ passed between the points out of St. Clair river, and we found ourselves at once in a large and shoreless lake, with nothing in front, between us and the bright blue sky, which touched the green waters in the far horizon beyond. The transition is so sudden from the narrow opening, to the boundless lake as to produce a grand and exciting effect. Once out upon the calm waters of Huron, our two guests were loosened from their tackles, and spreading their huge wings, they passed one to each shore, and we soon left them far behind. About an hour after, the bell of our steamboat startled the still lake with its clamors, denoting the approach of some vessel. We looked out in time to see the noble steamboat Great Western rush past us as if upon the wings of a whirlwind. She was on her way from Chicago to Buffalo. Her bell answered ours, and the deck was crowded with passengers. One of these standing alone by himself, and taking his hat off attracted our notice and we discovered in him an old acquaintance from New York. These meetings in a distant land are very interesting, carrying our feelings at once to the home we had left. This steamboat is one of the largest upon the lakes, is finished in a style of great elegance, and is said to be as long as the English steamship of the same name.
This whole day since ten o’clock—we have been passing through Huron under a cloudless sky. The lake is two hundred and fifty-five miles long, and its waters are of a deeper tint than those we have passed, owing to its great depth, as we are sailing over nine hundred feet of water, while in some places it is said to be unfathomable. The color is a dark olive almost black, and it is only when the sun shines through the waves that we can perceive they are green. The cause of the various colors of water has produced many a hypothesis. Sir Humphry Davy tells us the primitive color of water is like the sky, a delicate azure.[13] He says ‘the finest water is that which falls from the atmosphere—this we can rarely obtain in its pure state, as all artificial contact gives more or less of contamination; but, in snow melted by the sunbeams that has fallen upon glaciers, themselves formed from frozen snow, may be regarded as in its state of greatest purity. Congelation expels both salt and air from water whether existing below, or formed in the atmosphere; and in the high and uninhabited region of glaciers, there can scarcely be any substances to contaminate. Removed from animal and vegetable life, they are even above the mineral kingdom.’ Water from melted snow, then considered as the purest, Sir Humphrey goes on to describe its color. ‘When a mass is seen through, it is a bright blue, and according to its greater or less depth of substance, it has more or less of this color.’ ‘In general when examining lakes and masses of water in high mountains, their color is the same bright azure. Capt. Parry states that water in the Polar ice has the like beautiful tint.’ The brown, green, and other colors of rivers he imputes to substances over which they flow, as peat bogs, vegetable and mineral substances. He allows the sea cannot be colored from any thing upon the bottom, but imputes the tint to the infusion of iodine, and brome which he has detected in sea water, the result of decayed marine vegetables. Of this primitive water are our lakes formed, originating as they do in regions of snow and ice. Lake Superior, from whence they flow, is a vast basin of trap rock, of volcanic origin.[14] It is the most magnificent body of water in the world, five hundred miles long, and nine hundred deep, and perfectly pellucid. Into this pure, and originally, azure primitive water, there flow forty rivers, upon the south side alone, according to Mr. McKenney of the Indian department, who counted this number from St. Mary’s to the river St. Louis. These rivers he tells us are all amber colored. Why then may not these yellow rivers flowing into blue water, produce green. You see I like to hazard a hypothesis as well as others. I hope you will not call this absurd. Col. McKenney himself, imputes the green color to reflection of the ‘rays of light passing through the foliage of the shores, conveying their own green hue unto the surface of the water from which they are reflected.’ This might be the case in small rivers or lakes, but it cannot thus tint such a vast extent of water. A writer in the American Journal of Science, is of opinion the color of water is reflected from the sky, and is blue, dull, black, or golden, as the sky may be—and that ‘green is produced in water, by the yellow light of the sun mixed with the cerulean blue through which it shines.’ On the contrary the Count Xavier de Maistre,[15] does not impute the color of water to any infused substance, nor to reflection from above, but reflection from the surface below, ‘as the blue color of the sky is owing to reflection from the earth beneath.’ ‘Limpid waters, when they have sufficient depth,’ says the Count, reflect like air, a blue color from below,—and this arises from a mixture of air, which water always contains to a greater or lesser amount. This blue color, being the primitive hue of water is sometimes clouded or lost by earthy infusion, or reflections from a colored sky. The green tinge which he sometimes observed in water, he tells us, is occasioned by reflection from a white surface below. This he proves by his experiment of a sheet of tin painted white let down beneath the water—and his description of the water in the beautiful limestone grotto, on the shore of the Mediteranian at Capri. The green tint observed in the ocean is only seen when it is so shallow, as to reflect the sun’s rays from the earth beneath it.
As the States surrounding these lakes are more or less underlaid by limestone, we may suppose the bottoms of the waters are in some places paved with it; and from this, or the shores under the water and around it, may be reflected, according to the Count’s theory, the light which gives the water a green appearance. But I will not trouble you with any more speculations; they come with an ill grace from me who only pretend to describe all that passes before my eyes.
In the afternoon we were off Saginaw bay, an indentation in the coast of Michigan running seventy or eighty miles deep and forty wide, making the lake here very broad; in one spot we were out of sight of the land. A river of the same name flows into the bay, upon which, about twenty-three miles from its mouth, is a small town. A canal is proposed from this bay, across the state to lake Michigan, at Grand or Washtenog river. How shall I convey to you an idea of the loveliness which sat upon earth, air, and water this afternoon! Certainly that sunset upon lake Huron is the most beautiful I have ever beheld. The vast and fathomless lake, bounded by the heavens alone, presented an immense circle, ‘calm as a molten looking-glass,’—to quote from my favorite Job—surrounded by a band of fleecy clouds, making a frame work of chased silver. Slowly and gracefully sank the orb, the white clouds gently dispersing at his approach, and leaving their monarch a free and glorious path. As he drew near that chrystal floor, all brilliancy faded from the face of the lake, save one bright pathway from the sun to us—like the bridge of Giamschid leading from earth to heaven. The sun which I had always been accustomed to see above, was now below me, near the water, on the water, under the water! A veil of purple is thrown over it, and now the sun sleeps on lake Huron. The gold and rose which painted the western sky have gone. Darkness has stolen over the world below, and we turn our eyes above. What a high and noble dome of loveliest blue! Upon one side there hangs a crescent of the purest pearly white, while at its side steals forth one silver star, soon followed, as, saith Ezekiel, by ‘all the bright lights of heaven,’ until night’s star-embroidered drapery is canopied around us. What bosom is insensible to this gorgeous firmament? Who hath not felt the ‘sweet influence of the Pleiades’ while gazing at this starry roof above? I wish I could make you a piece of poetry upon this subject, but as there is enough already composed upon the stars, I will send you a bit of Byron and tell you—
Blue roll the waters—blue the sky
Spreads like an ocean hung on high,
Bespangled with those isles of light,
So wildly spiritually bright,
Whoever gazed upon them shining,
And turned to earth without repining.
Do you remember that little hymn our old nurse used to teach us in our childhood:
Twinkle, twinkle, pretty star
Can’t you tell us what you are,
Up above the world so high
Like a diamond in the sky.