272 NATURAL HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA, 



What a vast inland navigation has this continent! You 

 leave New York for Albany, 145 miles up the Hudson; you 

 then take the canal, 363 miles, to Buffalo; thence, by the 

 lakes, to Chicago, 947 miles ; from Chicago the canal will 

 extend about 100 miles; then you proceed down the Illinois 

 River to St. Louis, 264 miles ; from St. Louis you may go 

 1,218 miles down to New Orleans by the Mississippi, or to 

 Pittsburg, 1,145 miles, up the Ohio. You may go up the 

 Mississippi 700 or 800 miles ; and, in spring and summer, 

 1,500 miles up the Missouri to Yellow Stone River. I say 

 nothing of the tributaries of the Ohio, Missouri, and Missis- 

 sippi, many of them navigable from 300 to 700 miles. What 

 idea can we islanders form of such a country as this ! After 

 surveying Chicago, we spent a very pleasant evening with an 

 old acquaintance of mine, P. NichoUs ; at night we went on 

 board the boat. 



The next day was stormy ; the waves on the lake were 

 twenty to twenty-five feet, and short ; the vessel pitched most 

 awfully. I felt somewhat sickish, and R. Foster was quite 

 laid up. At last the wind got so high that we had to lie to. 

 The following day we anchored off Melwakee : large boats 

 cannot get up to the town, which is already of considerable 

 size, and makes a good appearance from the lake. From 

 Melwakee we sailed for Green Bay ; but here our captain's 

 knowledge was at fault ; he took us first to Great Traverse 

 Bay, which is as though, in going from St. Paul's to Somerset 

 House, you should go by way of Aldgate Pump. However, at 

 last, we got safely to Navarino, at the bottom of Green Bay, 

 and there I felt myself really in a foreign land. 



Green Bay is about ninety miles deep ; the water, like that 

 of Lake Michigan, is a pure lovely green. At the very bottom 

 of the bay stands the town of Navarino. There are many good 

 " frame" houses, two good hotels, churches, &c. ; also a very 

 good landing-place, which presented a most amusing scene to 

 us. There were piles of timber, bales of goods, barrels of flour; 

 there were Yankees, Irish, French Canadians, Ditto improved 

 by a mixture of Indian blood, Negroes, Mulattoes, groups of 

 Indians, — some in half-European costume, others enveloped in 

 a blanket; some had their faces as red as vermillion could 

 possibly make them ; some had ear-bobs all round the margin 

 of their ears. A man had a sort of fife, which he was playing, 



