The change seemed, however, to flow naturally from the development of events.  The decision once made, I only waited the entrance into the straits of a first class schooner, which could be chartered to take my collections in natural history, books, and furniture—­all which were embarked, with my family, on board the schooner “Mariner” the last week in May.  Captain Fowle (who met a melancholy fate many years afterwards, while a Lieutenant-Colonel on board the steamer “Moselle” on the Ohio) had been relieved, as commanding officer of the post, at the same time, and embarked on board the same vessel with his family.  We had a pleasant passage out of the river and up the lake, until reaching the harbor of Mackinack, which we entered early on the morning of the 27th of May.  Coming in with an easterly wind, which blows directly into it, the vessel pitched badly at anchor, causing sea-sickness, and the rain falling at the same time.  As soon as it could be done, I took Mrs. S. and the children and servants in the ship’s yawl, and we soon stood on terra firma, and found ourselves at ease in the rural and picturesque grounds and domicil of the U.S.  Agency, overhung, as it is, by impending cliffs, and commanding one of the most pleasing and captivating views of lake scenery.  Here the great whirl of lake commerce from Buffalo to Chicago, continually passed.  The picturesque canoe of the Indian was constantly gliding, and the footsteps of visitors were frequently seen to tread in haste the “sacred island,” rendering it a point of continual contact with the busy world.  Emigrants of every class, agog for new El Dorados in the West, eager merchants prudently looking to their interests in the great area of migration, domestic and foreign visitors, with note-book in hand, and some valetudinarians, hoping in the benefits of a pure air and “white fish”—­these constantly filled the harbor, and constituted the ever-moving panorama of our enlarged landscape.

The necessary repairs to the buildings were not yet completed, when I embarked about the 10th of June for New York, in order to fall in with the President’s cortege to the East.  About seven weeks were devoted to this excursion, during which I made an arrangement with the Harpers to publish my narrative of the expedition to Itasca Lake, the printing to be done at Detroit.

July 19th.  The American Philosophical Society at Philadelphia informs me of my election as a member.

28th.  I returned to Michilimackinack from my excursion to New York, and began to inquire of aged persons, white and red, as they visited the office, into the local traditions of the place.

There is a hiatus in the history of the island, extending from 1763, the date of the massacre of the British garrison on the mainland, to about 1780, the probable date of the removal of the post from the apex of the peninsula (Peekwutinong of the Indians) to the island.