This arises from the system of credit extended through every vein and artery of the country, and by which English goods are forced, as if with a force-pump, into every available depôt in the Union; and thus, in a town so newly raised, that the stumps of the forest-trees are not only still surrounding the houses, but remain standing in the cellars, you will find every luxury that can be required. It may be asked what becomes of all these goods. It must be recollected that hundreds of new houses spring up every year in the towns, and that the surrounding country is populous and wealthy. In the farmhouses—mean-looking and often built of logs—is to be found not only comfort, but very often luxury.
Volume One—Chapter Fifteen.
The French never have succeeded as colonists, and their want of success can only be ascribed to an amiable want of energy. When located at any spot, if a Frenchman has enough, he seeks no more; and, instead of working as the Englishman or the American does, he will pass his time away, and spend his little surplus in social amusements. The town of Detroit was founded as early as the city of Philadelphia, but, favourably as it is situated, it never until lately rose to any thing more than, properly speaking, a large village. There is not a paved street in it, or even a foot-path for a pedestrian. In winter, in rainy weather, you are up to your knees in mud; in summer, invisible from dust: indeed, until lately, there was not a practicable road for thirty miles round Detroit. The muddy and impassable state of the streets has given rise to a very curious system of making morning or evening calls. A small one-horse cart is backed against the door of a house; the ladies dressed get into it, and seat themselves upon a buffalo skin at the bottom of it; they are carried to the residence of the party upon whom they wish to call; the cart is backed in again, and they are landed dry and clean. An old inhabitant of Detroit complained to me that people were now getting so proud, that many of them refused to visit in that way any longer. But owing to the rise of the other towns on the lake, the great increase of commerce, and Michigan having been admitted as a State into the Union, with Detroit as its capital, a large Eastern population has now poured into it, and Detroit will soon present an appearance very different from its present, and become one of the most flourishing cities of America. Within these last six years it has increased its population from two to ten thousand. The climate here is the very best in America, although the State itself is unhealthy. The land near the town is fertile. A railroad from Detroit already extends thirty miles through the State; and now that the work has commenced, it will be carried on with the usual energy of the Americans.
Left Detroit in the Michigan steam-vessel for Mackinaw; passed through the Lake St. Clair, and entered Lake Huron; stopped at a solitary wharf to take in wood, and met there with a specimen of American politeness or (if you please) independence in the gentleman who cut down and sold it. Without any assignable motive, he called out to me, “You are a damned fool of an Englishman;” for which, I suppose, I ought to have been very much obliged to him.
Miss Martineau has not been too lavish in her praises of Mackinaw. It has the appearance of a fairy isle floating on the water, which is so pure and transparent that you may see down to almost any depth; and the air above is as pure as the water, so that you feel invigorated as you breathe it. The first reminiscence brought to my mind after I had landed, was the description by Walter Scott of the island and residence of Magnus Troil and his daughters Minna and Brenda, in the novel of the “Pirate.”
The low buildings, long stores, and out-houses full of nets, barrels, masts, sails, and cordage; the abundance of fish lying about; the rafters of the houses laden with dried and smoked meat; and the full and jolly proportions of most of the inhabitants, who would have rivalled Scott’s worthy in height and obesity, immediately struck my eye; and I might have imagined myself transported to the Shetland isle, had it not been for the lodges of the Indians on the beach, and the Indians themselves either running about, or lying stripped in the porches before the whisky stores.
I inquired of one of the islanders, why all the white residents were generally such large portly men, which they are at a very early age; he replied, “We have good air, good water, and what we eat agrees with us.” This was very conclusive.
I enquired of another, if people lived to a good old age in the island; his reply was quite American—“I guess they do; if people want to die, they can’t die here—they’re obliged to go elsewhere.”