ere never lost her, though I was crafty society. A young woman might easily in the espionage. I noticed that be magnetized by his Eastern eyes. another watched her as closely as I-- They looked well this evening, as they the young officer whose feet followed stood together; his handsome head bent her motions as boldly as his eye. He slightly as she looked up, sending the certainly has many charms—a fine bead light of her smile into his face. As I and face, orientally dark and flashing, watched them, I became convinced of a and a manly, graceful figure. But his fact that I have mocked at and denied, most eloquent charm was a wounded viz., that I loved her utterly, and that arm. Who would not willingly suffer to live for, or without her were the only the pang of bullet and surgical knife, prospects that lay in the perspective of to win glances so dewy with approval ? my future-a lifelong happiness or a Miss Estelle has no lukewarm patriotism, lifelong sorrow. But I will cast the To her the United States soldier is the madness from me, at whatever cost. In champion of a great idea, the hero of a the meantime, I will procure a likeness noble crusade. But this young officer! of myself, also one of the handsome Were those looks only for the military officer. They shall hang side by side, hero? Did no sweet personal emotion and I will make the contrast a constant mingle with the undisguised interest ? study. A good sedative, this, for the He seems to be intimate in the family, imagination. and has probably frequent access to her (To be continued.) DARKNESS AND LIGHT. I. I saw the Niglit prepare to mount the sky, Now Darkness reigns; Light's peer! God called thee Night MACKINAW. Far away to the northwest, between len, “ You shall find that the situations, the great lakes Huron and Michigan, look you, is both alike. There is a river lies the pleasant island called by the in Macedon, and there is also, moreover, redmen Michilimacinac, or the Sleeping a river at Monmouth, and there is salTurtle. In that region also are found mons in both." headlands known as the Sleeping Bear As we approach Mackinaw coming and the Sleeping Rabbit-names which through the straits from Chicago, we indicate that the district was formerly, see the resemblance which the island as now, a land of Drowsy-head, and bears to a turtle sleeping on the calm filled with somnolent influences. The water ; but as the boat rounds to, and more valuable is it as a refuge for the enters the little harbor round which the overtasked brains and bodies of St. village is built, the likeness changes to Louis and Chicago citizens, who, being that of an alligator's head, with the always wide awake at home, need the white cliffs representing the uncovered perfect repose furnished at Mackinaw, teeth of the monster. where, unvexed by daily mail or tele- As we step ashore, we are greeted gram, they can fill their lungs with with the pleasant smile of our host of oxygen and their stomachs with white- the Mission House; and there, at the fish. head of the pier, stands his omnibus, There are many points of resemblance the same which we rode in twenty years between Mackinaw and that other isl- ago, and apparently the same horses. and of beauty which lies in Narraganset Time deals gently with men and things Bay-Aquidneck of the Indians, the in Mackinaw; and, thus reflecting, we Island of Rhodes of the Pilgrims, or arrive at the Mission House. The house Newport Island of to-day. Both were has a pleasant seat, lying under the important commercial centres a hundred shelter of a limestone cliff covered with years ago, before the modern upstarts, cedars, and looking out over a lawn New York and Chicago, were famous. upon the mile of water which separates Newport had a great trade with the this island from Bois Blanc and Round West Indies and Africa, resting on rum Island. and slavery; Mackinaw supplied all the The house appears to be full, but we frontier posts with Indian goods, cheap trust that Mr. Franks will be able to guns, shoddy blankets, glass beads, and find us a room if we leave him to study whiskey; and to each place its ill-gotten the situation. There is no use in being wealth proved a delusion. Both islands in a hurry here: “Slow and easy” is are historical, and were the scene of the word. An interesting uncertainty solemn treaties and bloody battles; and pervades all arrangements. You order after all their former glories, they are a carriage for 4 o'clock, it arrives at 6. now supported by summer visitors and You and your party wish to meet the the fisheries. Both islands are beautiful sun upon the mountain-tops, and direct in land and water views, in climate, and the stable-keeper to send the three sadin atmosphere-the western island ex- dle-horses known on the island, at 5 celling in landscape, and the eastern in Two of them arrive just as the water-prospect. The population of each breakfast-bell is ringing; the third, has remained the same for the last half having escaped to the woods, is no century, and the people have in both longer available. You engage a sailplaces a slow, indifferent, sleepy char- boat to be at the wharf at 9; at that acter, unlike that of other American hour you see its white sails three miles towns. In the words of the wise Fluel away. As to the meals, they come when A, M. esca the cook pleases, and he generally takes ries of fashion. These people stay at a liberal margin of time. But time is . home on their farms, and are seldom of no consequence; our business here is seen at watering-piaces. So that the to kill it, and we succeed; it dies, and people we meet at Mackinaw, or on makes no sign. It is this absence of law Lake Superior, are not plants of Westand order which makes the place so ern growth, but merely Eastern merattractive to children; here they run chants and lawyers transplanted. So will, unvexed by rules of behavior or we see that the ladies here wear the manners. chignon as large, and the train as We notice another peculiarity: noth- sweeping, as you find them at Newport ing is in place ; every thing is used for or Saratoga ; while the men look like an unusual purpose. The stable-keeper Broadway somewhat modified by the has boats to let; the doctor deals in freedom of Western life-with some of nets and fishing gear. We visit the fort, the starch washed out by Lake Michiand find it deserted; entering gan. lade through a rear sally-port, we find We are told by Schoolcraft, “ that no garrison except a pig, who comes wherever Missilimacinac is mentioned grunting a welcome which seems to say in the missionary letters or in early that it is long since he has seen the face history, it is the ancient fort on the of man. The only church on the island apex of the Michigan peninsula that is partakes of the same confusion, and is alluded to." There were two places used for a wash-house. It is but fair to called Mackinaw—“Old Mackinaw,” on add, however, that the owner of the the south side of the straits, seven miles church offers it for its legitimate uses from the island, and “New Mackinaw." whenever a preacher shall be forthcom- The first was settled by Father Maring; until that time, linen will be quette in 1671, and was for many years cleansed instead of souls. the metropolis of the Ojibwa and Ottawa • The hotel has a long piazza in front, nations, and the theatre of some of the where most of the company is to be most important events in Indian history found. They are chiefly from the west- previous to the arrival of the white ern cities, though an occasional New man. In 1675, Father Marquette died, Yorker may be noticed by the shortness on his way back from Kaskaskia to his of his coat-tails or the slenderness of his mission at Old Mackinaw, and his hody legs. If a Philadelphian, we see that was brought here for burial by the the hereditary neatness of costume and friendly Indians, great numbers of primness of accost yet lingers in the whom followed in their canoes; and land of the Quaker. Your Bostonian, the Catholic historian says, “ Marquette again, affects the English style. He reposes here as the guardian angel of clothes himself in rough garments, cul- the Ottawa missions." The bones of tivates the long side-whisker, is pedes- the pious father, however, were not trian and sporting in his tastes, and if suffered to rest; for when the post of he appears on horseback his nag must Mackinaw was removed, about 1780, be a trotter. The Western men, mostly from the peninsula to the island, his coming originally from the Eastern remains were transferred to the old States, show a mixture of the habits of Catholic burial-ground in the village all, though the New York type prevails. upon the island. There they remained But in the West, the cities are less im- till a property-question arose to agitate portant than elsewhere, and exercise less the church; the graveyard was disturbsocial influence. The great agricultural ed, and the bones of Marquette, with population of the West, which feeds the others, were transferred to the Indian nation, which furnished the armies that village of La Crosse, near L'Arbre saved its life, and which must soon Croche, Michigan. For many years politically control it, -this population after the burial of the good father, in knows little and cares less for the vaga- 1675, Old Mackinaw was the headquarters of the Indian trade, being the gate- very picturesque object, and a specimen way of commerce between the St. Law- of a mountain fastness, perhaps unique rence and the Mississippi, and the ren- in this country; but as a fort, in the dezvous of trappers, traders, soldiers, modern meaning of the term, it is probmissionaries, and Indians. There was a ably of little value. A monitor, with a fort and a chapel, and here the Jesuits ten-inch gun, would make short work erected their first college in the Western of it; besides which, it is commanded country. The place passed into English by a hill in the middle of the island, hands from the French, with all the by the possession of which the British other Western posts, in 1760, by treaty; took it in 1812, having dragged a and in 1762 it was taken by the Indians couple of guns up in the night, which by stratagem, and most of the garrison rendered the fort untenable. They built massacred; us is well told by Henry, an earthwork on this hill which they one of the few survivors, who was called Fort George, and after the renbrought over to the island by a friend- dition of the island to the Americans, ly In lian, and hidden in a cave. When the name was changed to Fort Holmes, the English recovered the post, they in memory of Major Holmes, of the removed it, for greater security, to the United States Army, who fell in the island, where it has since remained attack upon it under the command of under the English and American Gov- Colonel Croghan. ernments, and the old post, which better Our hotel, the Mission House, has a commands the straits, abandoned. This name which is significant and historical. removal was made about 1780, and It was built for a Protestant Mission by “New Mackinaw," as it was called for the General Association of Connecticut, a long time, became the great centre of who established it here in 1802, and the fur-trade. It was ceded to the sent Mr. Daniel Bacon as a missionary United States in 1793, was retaken by to the Indians in this region. The the English in 1812, was unsuccessfully worthy man did not meet with much attacked by the Americans the next success, however, the reply of the redyear, and was finally restored to them men to his sermon being, “Brother, by the treaty of Ghent in 1814. your religion is very good, but it is The island in former times had a bad only good for white people. It will not reputation with the Indians, as being do for Indians.” The mission was conthe resort of giants and evil spirits, tinued until 1837, when it was abanwhose principal abode was in a cave in doned, and the mission-house and the high rock upon which the fort church were sold. stands, the entrance to which was said Protestant missions seem to be valued by the medicine-men to be right under in proportion to their distance from the the south gate, or sally-port. After the parent churches. If in India or Pataoccupation by the white men, these gonia, the money flows freely in for spirits disappeared, driven away, per- their support. When Mackinaw was haps, by the more potent spirits of the one thousand miles away from the setwhite medicine-man, known as Red-Eye tlements, the mission was worthy of and Forty-Rod Whiskey. support; but now that it is practically In the fortification which crowns the at our own door, and would benefit the bluff, and is called Fort Mackinac, there white heathen, it is abandoned. is a curious mixture of frontier-post and The climate of the island is very old-world castle. Thick walls of lime- salubrious. The air is pure and bracstone crawl along the cliffs and scale ing, so that persons who, in St. Louis the rocks, leading to sally-ports defend- or Chicago, hardly find energy to cross ed by cannon; while at the angles of the street, are here able to walk over the work, blockhouses of logs stand the hills for miles. The temperature is loopholed for musketry, and stockaded uniform, owing to its insular position : against Indian attack. The fort is a a record of the thermometer kept in a gan shore. July and August, 1865, gives 78° as the The village of Mackinaw consists of candy, by ascertaining by scale their All the navigation of Lake Michigan daily increase in weight in this wholepasses in sight of this place; the steam- some air, varied by flirtations with the ers going through the channel between island-beaux, just to keep themselves in Round Island and Mackinaw, and most practice, probably. These were merely of the sail-vessels taking the south chan- the amusements, the serious business of nel, between Bois Blanc and the Michi- the day being walks to the Arched Rock or the Lover's Leap, rides to those What this lake navigation is, few remoter points, Fort Holmes and the persons have an idea ; but before the British Landing, or in sailing about the Rebellion it was equal in amount to straits,—virtue, in this case, bringing half the commerce of the United States, its own reward, in a keener appetite for and for the last five years this internal the trout and white-fish, the strawhernavigation has constantly increased, ries and raspberries, of the Mission while the foreign trade has fallen off. House table. We mention these as the The Chicago Tribune for August 26, indigenous and native viands—all 1867, records the arrival at that port, things else eatable being brought from on the day previous, of eighteen steam- Detroit or Chicago hy steamer. ers and one hundred and sixty-five sail- And here let us say a word of those vessels ; a larger number, it is thought, fishes of the great lakes, the white-fish than will often be found to have arrived and trout, often eaten by travellers, but even at New York in a single day. A seldom in perfection; and to which, record kept at Mackinaw of vessels consequently, justice has not been done. passing through the straits for six The first of these is, when fresh and in months, ending September 30, 1859, in good condition, a delicious fish, everythe daytime, gives where; similar in delicacy to the ConBarks, ....... 136 necticut river shad, but with fewer Brigs, ....... bones, and a higher flavor. The fish Schooners,... 1263 Steamers, .... which it most resembles is, we think, fresh-caught blue-fish-and, like it, the passing in the night white-fish should be broiled. When 2,772 vessels. kept for a day or two on ice, as is the And these are vessels ranging from one case with most of those found in the hundred and fifty to one thousand tons, lake-cities, the flavor and delicacy are whose trade is to carry coal, salt, iron, wholly lost. Even at Mackinaw you and lumber to the upper lake-ports, and seldom get them in perfection at the bring back grain to the lower lakes. hotels, as the purveyors for those houses a a 94 1493 2079 add one third more for those 693 |
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