to write them down, though they always interested me from
bringing wild, natural scenes before the mind. It is pleasant for the
sportsman to be in countries so alive with game; yet it is so plenty
that one would think shooting pigeons or grouse would seem more like
slaughter, than the excitement of skill to a good sportsman. Hunting
the deer is full of adventure, and needs only a Scrope to describe it to
invest the western woods with _historic_ associations.

How pleasant it was to sit and hear rough men tell pieces out of their
own common lives, in place of the frippery talk of some fine circle with
its conventional sentiment, and timid, second-hand criticism. Free blew
the wind, and boldly flowed the stream, named for Mary mother mild.

A fine thunder shower came on in the afternoon. It cleared at sunset,
just as we came in sight of beautiful Mackinaw, over which a rainbow
bent in promise of peace.

I have always wondered, in reading travels, at the childish joy
travellers felt at meeting people they knew, and their sense of
loneliness when they did not, in places where there was everything new
to occupy the attention. So childish, I thought, always to be longing
for the new in the old, and the old in the new. Yet just such sadness I
felt, when I looked on the island, glittering in the sunset, canopied by
the rainbow, and thought no friend would welcome me there; just such
childish joy I felt, to see unexpectedly on the landing, the face of one
whom I called friend.

The remaining two or three days were delightfully spent, in walking or
boating, or sitting at the window to see the Indians go. This was not
quite so pleasant as their coming in, though accomplished with the same
rapidity; a family not taking half an hour to prepare for departure, and
the departing canoe a beautiful object. But they left behind, on all the
shore, the blemishes of their stay--old rags, dried boughs, fragments
of food, the marks of their fires. Nature likes to cover up and gloss
over spots and scars, but it would take her some time to restore that
beach to the state it was in before they came.

S. and I had a mind for a canoe excursion, and we asked one of the
traders to engage us two good Indians, that would not only take us out,
but be sure and bring us back, as we could not hold converse with them.
Two others offered their aid, beside the chief's son, a fine looking
youth of about sixteen, richly dressed in blue broadcloth, scarlet s