NARRATIVE. 27 



Our island was a mass of large irregular stones, about a quarter of 

 a mile long, with a narrow ridge covered with long grass and arbor-vi- 

 tses, many of them dead, and (particularly on the west,) hung over 

 with pendant lichen (Usnea). Here, (after some trouble from not 

 having brought tent-poles, which had now to be cut,) we pitched four 

 tents, for only two of which was there any room on the grass, the 

 others looking out for the smallest stones. However supper and 

 three blazing fires soon settled all clown into a comfortable state, and 

 before long the white tents and the ghost-like trees with their hoary 

 drapery were the only upright objects to reflect the light of the fires, 

 and the long melancholy notes of some neighboring loons (a sign of 

 bad weather, they say,) the only sounds to be heard. As my lot 

 was cast upon the stones, I took the precaution of thatching them 

 with some armfuls of usnea, which with a couple of blankets made 

 an excellent bed. 



June 25th. Our island was only about thirty miles from Macki- 

 naw, and so, as it behoved us, we were off by half past four o'clock this 

 morning, with the wind aft, to try to make up for lost time. Our 

 course lay along the American shore of the strait, amid innumerable 

 islands and islets, generally low and wooded with venerable lichenous 

 arbor-vitees. The shore also was uniformly low, and covered with a 

 forest which reminded me of the lower summits of the White 

 Mountains. 



We stopped to breakfast just beyond the light-house at the De- 

 tour, at the log-house of some lime-burners, a tavern moreover, 

 rejoicing in the name of "the saloon," where we experimented 

 upon tea with maple-sugar, and bread of the place, somewhat like 

 sweetened plaster-of-Paris. Drurnmond Island, interesting from its 

 fossils, we were obliged to pass without stopping. 



By noon the wind had got so high that we thought prudent to 

 make a lee under a point on St. Joseph's Island. As we landed, a 

 rather rough-looking, unshaven personage in shirt-sleeves walked up 

 and invited us to his house, which was close at hand. We found 

 his walls lined with books ; Shakspeare, Scott, Hemans, &c., 

 caught my eye as I passed near the shelves, forming a puzzling con- 

 trast with the rude appearance of the dwelling. A very few 

 moments sufficed to show a similar contrast in our host himself. He 



