Miss Sedgwick — Mrs. Lee — Mr. Henry
At Detroit I had purchased Miss Sedgwick’s tale of “The Rich Poor Man and the Poor Rich Man,” and this sent away two hours delightfully, as we were gliding over the expanse of Lake St. Clair. Those who glanced on my book while I was reading always smiled—a significant sympathising smile, very expressive of that unenvious, affectionate homage and admiration which this genuine American writer inspires among her countrymen. I do not think I ever mentioned her name to any of them, that the countenance did not light up with pleasure and gratified pride. I have also a sensible little book, called “Three Experiments in Living,” written by Mrs. Lee, of Boston: it must be popular, and true to life and nature, for the edition I bought is the tenth. I have also another book to which I must introduce you more particularly—“The Travels and Adventures of Alexander Henry.” Did you ever hear of such a man? No. Listen then, and perpend.
This Mr. Henry was a fur-trader who journeyed over these lake regions about seventy years ago, and is quoted as first-rate authority in more recent books of travels. His book, which was lent to me at Toronto, struck me so much as to have had some influence in directing the course of my present tour. Plain, unaffected, telling what he has to tell in few and simple words, and without comment—the internal evidence of truth—the natural sensibility and power of fancy, betrayed rather than displayed—render not only the narrative, but the man himself, his personal character, unspeakably interesting. Wild as are the tales of his hairbreadth escapes, I never heard the slightest impeachment of his veracity. He was living at Montreal so late as 1810 or 1811, when a friend of mine saw him, and described him to me as a very old man past eighty, with white hair, and still hale-looking and cheerful, so that his hard and adventurous life, and the horrors he had witnessed and suffered, had in no respect impaired his spirits or his constitution. His book has been long out of print. I had the greatest difficulty in procuring the loan of a copy, after sending to Montreal, Quebec, and New York, in vain. Mr. Henry is to be my travelling companion. I do not know how he might have figured as a squire of dames when living, but I assure you that being dead he makes a very respectable hero of epic or romance. He is the Ulysses of these parts; and to cruise among the shores, rocks, and islands of Lake Huron without Henry’s travels, were like coasting Calabria and Sicily without the Odyssey in your head or hand,—only here you have the island of Mackinaw instead of the island of Circe; the land of the Ottawas instead of the shores of the Lotophagi; cannibal Chippewas, instead of man-eating Læstrigons. Pontiac figures as Polypheme; and Wa,wa,tam plays the part of good king Alcinous. I can find no type for the women, as Henry does not tell us his adventures among the squaws; but no doubt he might have found both Calypsos and Nausicaas, and even a Penelope, among them.
July 20.
Before I went down to my rest yesterday evening, I beheld a strange and beautiful scene. The night was coming on; the moon had risen round and full, like an enormous globe of fire; we were still in the channel of the river, when, to the right, I saw a crowd of Indians on a projecting point of land. They were encamping for the night, some hauling up their canoes, some building up their wigwams: there were numerous fires blazing amid the thick foliage, and the dusky figures of the Indians were seen glancing to and fro; and I heard loud laughs and shouts as our huge steamer swept past them. In another moment we turned a point, and all was dark: the whole had vanished like a scene in a melodrama. I rubbed my eyes, and began to think I was already dreaming.
At the entrance of the river St. Clair, the Americans have a fort and garrison (Fort Gratiot), and a lighthouse, which we passed in the night. On the opposite side we have no station; so that, in case of any misunderstanding between the two nations, it would be in the power of the Americans to shut the entrance of Lake Huron upon us.