And, had he been a man of letters, he might have
inscribed, with equal truth, as it was done for the ancient Persian
monarch, "MENE, MENE, TEKEL."
To most persons on board, our voyage up these wide straits, after
entering them at Point de Tour, had, in point of indefiniteness, been
something like searching after the locality of the north pole. We wound
about among groups of islands and through passages which looked so
perfectly in the state of nature that, but for a few ruinous stone
chimneys on St. Joseph's, it could not be told that the foot of man had
ever trod the shores. The whole voyage, from Buffalo and Detroit, had
indeed been a novel and fairy scene. We were now some 350 miles
north-west of the latter city. We had been a couple of days on board, in
the area of the sea-like Huron, before we entered the St. Mary's
straits. The Superior, being the second steamer built on the Lakes,[14]
had proved herself a staunch boat.
[Footnote 14: The first steamer built on the Lakes was called the
"Walk-in-the-Water," after an Indian chief of that name; it was launched
at Black Rock, Niagara River, in 1818, and visited Michilimackinack in
the summer of that year.
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