DIES PISCATORI^. 535 



at the wharf, and see clear under her, as if she was suspended 

 in the air. I saw boys trying to spear Lake Herrings in fifteen 

 feet water, at the end of the pier ; the fish were plainly visi- 

 ble at the bottom. 



« 



"Mackinaw is a queer old town; it was built by the French 

 soon after they made their first settlements at Quebec and 

 Montreal, and was one of the principal posts of the early fur- 

 traders. The houses of the ' habitans,' as the native French 

 are called, are weather-boarded and roofed with cedar bark, 

 the moss and lichens adhering to it, and causing even a new 

 house to look hoary with age. The bay, or harbor, is crescent- 

 shaped, with a wide pebbly beach, dotted with the tents of 

 the Chippewa Indians, who receive the government annui- 

 ties, and buy most of their goods here. When they come 

 with a fair gale, it is a beautiful sight to see the sailing of 

 their light birch canoes ; with a fresh breeze astern, they sail 

 like the wind. 



" At the fort on the hill I became acquainted with the veri- 

 table Captain Martin Scott, so well known as a crack rifle- 

 shot, and his connection with the Goon Story. I had supposed 

 him to be a mere myth before ; he never shoots now, but rests 

 on the reputation he has Avon. I have had no fishing with 

 my rod here ; before my visit to the Sault, though, I went 

 out one day near Bois Blanc Island with my landlord's son, 

 to lift his gill-nets, and took some large Lake Trout and White- 

 fish out of them. I am told that there is fine Trout-fishing 

 in Carp Eiver, about ten miles from here, where they take a 

 piece of pork, or an artificial fly indiscriminately. I have 

 seen a Lake Trout here which weighed forty-five pounds ; it 

 was caught with a hand-line in deep water. The man who 

 captured it told me he has taken them twice as large, and that 

 they have been caught in Lake Superior weighing ' as much 

 as a hundred pounds " 



