Like a child, she
was everywhere at home, and like a child, received and bestowed
entertainment from all places, all persons. I thanked her for making me
laugh, as did the sick and poor, whom she was sure to find out in her
briefest sojourn in any place, for more substantial aid. Happy are those
who never grieve, and so often aid and enliven their fellow men!
This scene, however, I was not sorry to exchange for the much celebrated
beauties of the Island of Mackinaw.
CHAPTER VI.
MACKINAW.
Late at night we reached this island, so famous for its beauty, and to
which I proposed a visit of some length. It was the last week in August,
when a large representation from the Chippewa and Ottowa tribes are here
to receive their annual payments from the American government. As their
habits make travelling easy and inexpensive to them, neither being
obliged to wait for steamboats, or write to see whether hotels are full,
they come hither by thousands, and those thousands in families, secure
of accommodation on the beach, and food from the lake, to make a long
holiday out of the occasion. There were near two thousand encamped on
the island already, and more arriving every day.
As our boat came in, the captain had some rockets let off. This greatly
excited the Indians, and their yells and wild cries resounded along the
shore. Except for the momentary flash of the rockets, it was perfectly
dark, and my sensations as I walked with a stranger to a strange hotel,
through the midst of these shrieking savages, and heard the pants and
snorts of the departing steamer, which carried away all my companions,
were somewhat of the dismal sort; though it was pleasant, too, in the
way that everything strange is; everything that breaks in upon the
routine that so easily incrusts us.
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