DIES PISCATORI^. 536 



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

 in the air. I saw bojs 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 ^vith the veri- 

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

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

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

 on the reputation he has won. 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 " 



