At two o’clock I made another excursion to view the broad lake and see if some favorable sign could not be drawn, but returned with nothing to cast a gleam on the angry vista.  It seemed as if the lake was convulsed to its bottom.

     OUTARD POINT.

     What narrowed pleasures swell the bosom here,
     A shore most sterile, and a clime severe,
     Where every shrub seems stinted in its size,
     “Where genius sickens and where fancy dies.”

     If to the lake I cast my longing view,
     The curling waves their noisy way pursue;
     That noise reminds me of my prison-strand,
     Those waves I most admire, but cannot stand.

     If to the shore I cast my anxious eye,
     There broken rocks and sand commingled lie,
     Mixed with the wrecks of shells and weeds and wood,
     Crushed by the storm and driven by the flood.

     E’en fishes there, high cast upon the shore,
     Yet pant with life and stain the rocks with gore. 
     Would here the curious eye expect to meet
     Aught precious in the sands beneath his feet,
     Ores, gems, or crystals, fitting for the case,
     No spot affords so poor, so drear a place. 
     Rough rounded stones, the sport of every wind,
     Is all th’ inquirer shall with caution find. 
     A beach unvaried spreads before the eye;
     Drear is the land and stormy is the sky.

     Would the fixed eye, that dotes on sylvan scenes,
     Draw pleasure from these dark funereal greens,
     These stunted cedars and low scraggy pines,
     Where nature stagnates and the soil repines—­

     Alas! the source is small—­small every bliss,
     That e’er can dwell on such a place as this. 
     Bleak, barren, sandy, dreary, and confined,
     Bathed by the waves and chilled by every wind;
     Without a flower to beautify the scene,
     Without a cultured shore—­a shady green—­
     Without a harbor on a dangerous shore,
     Without a friend to joy with or deplore. 
     He who can feel one lonely ray of bliss
     In such a thought-appalling spot as this,
     His mind in fogs and mists must ever roll,
     Without a heart, and torpid all his soul.

About three o’clock P.M. there was a transient gleam of sunshine, and, for a few moments, a slight abatement of wind.  I ordered my canoe and baggage taken inland to another narrow little bay, having issue into the lake, where the water was calm enough to permit its being loaded; but before this was accomplished, a most portentous cloud gathered in the west, and the wind arose more fierce than before.  Huron, like an offended and capricious mistress, seemed to be determined, at last, on fury, and threw herself into the most extravagant attitudes.  I again had my tent pitched, and sat down quietly to wait till the tempest should subside; but up to a late hour at night the elemental war continued, and, committing myself to the Divine mercy, I put out my candle and retired to my pallet.