LAKE EXCURSION. ISLAND OF MACKINAW. 299 



The rustic people with whom we were thrown, this day, 

 were au honest, quiet company. The women rather plainly 

 showed, in their sallow faces and angular forms, the care 

 and hardship- of pioneer life and long, northern win- 

 ters. The mm. although more robust and of healthier 

 countenanee, wen yet thinner and less buoyant in spirit 

 than a similar party in the Kast. 



A melodeon. placed on board for the occasion, discoursed 

 mu-ic at fre.|urnt intervals, while the people listened in a 

 solemn way. Quiet, neighborly visiting among the older 

 people, and harmless flirtations between the modest young 

 people, were in progress all over the boat. At length, 

 lunch time came, and numerous baskets were produced on 

 deck, which turned out an enormous quantity of toothsome 

 < -dibits. No basket was more bountiful in good things 

 than that of A. -I Hall, the inn keeper of Uoyne. Our 

 hungry eyes ( tell-tale exponents ol' something else') opened 

 hi- ^eiierous heart, and we were feasted as liberally as if 

 we too were from the woods ,f UK Movnc or the Jordan. 



Tin- Michigan shore was, all along, plainly visible on our 

 right, but at length, alnio-t imperceptibly rising above the 

 waved on the north, like a summer cloud the Northern 

 Peninsula appeared. Our course had been, so far, almost 

 north, but now swerving eastward we sought the passage 

 through the Straits of Mackinaw. Historic places were 

 pointed out ID strangers, the narrowing channel brought 

 the wild shores near us for inspection and admiration, and 

 in the distance rose the rocky heights and precipitous 

 shores of the Island of Mackinaw itself, on whose crowning 

 point stands the fort and where waved the American flag. 



