Voyage Down Lake Huron
After passing Sugar Island, we took the channel to the left, and entered the narrow part of the lake between St. Joseph’s Island and the mainland. We dined upon a small picturesque islet, consisting of ledges of rock, covered with shrubs and abounding with whortleberries; on the upper platform we arranged an awning or shade, by throwing a sail over some bushes, and made a luxuriant dinner, succeeded by a basin of good tea; meantime, on the rocky ledge below, Pierrot was making a galette, and Masta frying pork.
Dinner being over, we proceeded, coasting along the north shore of St. Joseph’s Island. There is, in the interior, an English settlement, and a village of Indians. The principal proprietor, who is a magistrate and justice of the peace; has two Indian women living with him—two sisters, and a family by each!—such are the examples sometimes set to the Indians on our frontiers.
In the evening we came to an island consisting of a flat ledge of rock, on which were the remains of a former camp-fire, surrounded by tall trees and bushes: here we pitched our little marquee, and boiled our kettle. The sun-set was most glorious, with some floating ominous clouds. The stars and the fire-flies came out together: the latter swarmed around us, darting in and out among the trees, and gliding and sparkling over the surface of the water. Unfortunately the mosquitoes swarmed too, notwithstanding the antipathy which is said to exist between the mosquito and the fire-fly. We made our beds by spreading mats and blankets under us; and then, closing the curtain of the tent, Mr. MacMurray began a very effective slaughter and expulsion of the mosquitoes. We laid ourselves down, Mrs. MacMurray in the middle, with her child in her bosom; Mr. MacMurray on one side, myself at the other, and the two Indian girls at our feet: the voyageurs, rolled in their blankets, lay down on the naked rock round the fire we had built—and thus we all slept. I must needs confess that I found my rocky bed rather uneasy, and my bones ached as I turned from side to side, but this was only a beginning. The night was close and sultry, and just before dawn I was wakened by a tremendous clap of thunder; down came the storm in its fury, the lake swelling and roaring, the lightning gambolling over the rocks and waves, the rain falling in a torrent; but we were well sheltered, for the men had had the precaution, before they slept, to throw a large oil cloth over the top of our little marquee. The storm ceased suddenly: daylight came, and soon afterwards we again embarked. We had made forty-five miles.