But the fog which had detained us on the way, shortened the
boat's stay at the Sault, and I wanted my time to walk about.
While coming down the rapids, the Indians caught a white-fish for my
breakfast; and certainly it was the best of breakfasts. The white-fish I
found quite another thing caught on this spot, and cooked immediately,
from what I had found it at Chicago or Mackinaw. Before, I had had the
bad taste to prefer the trout, despite the solemn and eloquent
remonstrances of the Habitues, to whom the superiority of white fish
seemed a cardinal point of faith.
I am here reminded that I have omitted that indispensable part of a
travelling journal, the account of what we found to eat. I cannot hope
to make up, by one bold stroke, all my omissions of daily record; but
that I may show myself not destitute of the common feelings of humanity,
I will observe that he whose affections turn in summer towards
vegetables, should not come to this region, till the subject of diet be
better understood; that of fruit, too, there is little yet, even at the
best hotel tables; that the prairie chickens require no praise from me,
and that the trout and white-fish are worthy the transparency of the
lake waters.
In this brief mention I by no means mean to give myself an air of
superiority to the subject. If a dinner in the Illinois woods, on dry
bread and drier meat, with water from the stream that flowed hard by,
pleased me best of all, yet at one time, when living at a house where
nothing was prepared for the table fit to touch, and even the bread
could not be partaken of without a headach in consequence, I learnt to
understand and sympathize with the anxious tone in which fathers of
families, about to take their innocent children into some scene of wild
beauty, ask first of all, "Is there a good table?" I shall ask just so
in future.
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