10th.  The principal Indian chief of the vicinity, Shingabawossin, sent to inquire of me the cause of the aerial explosion, heard on the 4th.  At four I went to dine with Mr. Ermatinger on the British shore.

11th.  I did something, although, from the round of visiting and gayety which, in consequence of our Drummond Isle visitors, has existed for a few days, but little, at my vocabulary.  At half-past four, I went to dine with Lieutenants Morton and Folger in the cantonment.  The party was nearly the same which has assembled for a few days, in honor of the foreign gentlemen with us.  In the evening a large party, with dancing, at Mr. Johnston’s.

12th.  I read Lord Erskine’s Letter to Lord Liverpool on the policy to be pursued by Great Britain in relation to Greece and Turkey.  The arguments and sentiments do equal credit to his head and heart, and evince no less his judgment as a statesman, than they do his taste and erudition as a scholar.  This interesting and valuable letter breathes the true sentiments of rational liberty, such as must be felt by the great body of the English nation, and such as must, sooner or later, prevail among the enlightened nations of the earth.  How painful to reflect that this able appeal will produce no favorable effect on the British ministry, whose decision, it is to be feared, is already made in favor of the “legitimacy” of the Turkish government!

At four o’clock, I laid by my employments, and went to dine at the commanding officer’s quarters, whence the party adjourned to a handsomely arranged supper table at Capt.  Beal’s.  The necessity of complying with times and occasions, by accepting the current invitations of the day, is an impediment to any system of intellectual employment; and whatever the world may think of it, the time devoted to public dinners and suppers, routs and parties, is little better than time thrown away.

     “And yet the fate of all extremes is such;
      Books may be read, as well as men, too much.”

13th.  I re-perused Mackenzie’s “History of the Fur Trade,” to enable me more fully to comprehend the allusions in a couple of volumes lately put into my hands, on the “Disputes between Lord Selkirk and the North West Company,” and the “Report of Trials” for certain murders perpetrated in the course of a strenuous contest for commercial mastery in the country by the Hudson’s Bay Company.

Finding an opportunity of sending north, I recollected that the surveyors of our northern boundary were passing the winter at Fort William, on the north shore of Lake Superior; and wrote to one of the gentlemen, enclosing him some of our latest papers.

14th.  The gentlemen from the neighboring British post left us this morning.  I devoted the day to my Indian inquiries.

15th.  I commenced a vocabulary of conversation, in the Odjibwa.

17th.  Native Mythology.—­According to Indian mythology, Weeng is the God of sleep.  He has numerous emissaries, who are armed with war clubs, of a tiny and unseen character.  These fairy agents ascend the forehead, and knock the individual to sleep.  Pope’s creation of Gnomes, in the Rape of the Lock, is here prefigured.