Outard Point, 8 o’clock P.M. Here have I been encamped since noon, with a head wind, a dense damp atmosphere, and the lake in a foam.  I expected the wind would fall with the sun, but, alas! it blows stronger than ever.  I fondly hoped on quitting Mackinac this morning, that I should see home to-morrow, but that is now impossible.  How confidently do we hope and expect in this life, and how little do we know what is to befall us for even a few hours beyond the present moment.  It has pleased the All-wise Being to give me an adverse wind, and I must submit to it.  I, doubtless, exulted too soon and too much.  On reaching Mackinac, I said to myself:  “My journey is accomplished; my route to the Sault is nothing; I can go there in a day and a half, wind or no wind.”  This vanity and presumption is now punished, and, I acknowledge, justly.  I should have left it to Providence.  Wise are the ways of the Almighty, and salutary all His dispensations to man.  Were we not continually put in mind of an overruling Providence by reverses of this kind, the human heart, exalted with its own consequence, would soon cease to implore protection from on high.

I feel solitary.  The loud dashing of the waves on shore, and the darkness and dreariness of all without my tent, conspire to give a saddened train to my reflections.  I endeavored to divert myself, soon after landing, by a stroll along the shore.  I sought in vain among the loose fragments of rock for some specimens worthy of preservation.  I gleaned the evidences of crystallization and the traces of organic forms among the cast-up fragments of limestone and sandstone.  I amused myself with the reflection that I should, perhaps, meet you coming from an opposite direction on the beach, and I half fancied that, perhaps, it would actually take place.  Vain sport of the mind!  It served to cheat away a tedious hour, and I returned to my tent fatigued and half sick.  I am in hopes a cup of tea and a night’s rest will restore my equipoise of mind and body.  Thus

     “Every pang that rends the heart,
      Bids expectation rise.”

7th.  Still detained on this bleak and desolate Point.  A heavy rain and very strong gale continued all night.  The rain was driven with such violence as to penetrate through the texture of my tent, and fall copiously upon me.  Daybreak brought with it no abatement of the storm, but presented to my view a wide vista of white foaming surge as far as the eye could reach.  In consequence of the increasing violence of the storm, I was compelled to order my baggage and canoe to be removed, and my tent to be pitched back among the trees.  How long I am to remain here I cannot conjecture.  It is a real equinoxial storm.  My ears are stunned with the incessant roaring of the water and the loud murmuring of the wind among the foliage.  Thick murky clouds obscure the sky, and a chill damp air compels me to sit in my tent with my cloak on.  I may exclaim, in the language of the Chippewas, Tyau, gitche sunnahgud (oh, how hard is my fate.)