“How will you have it going down?  Rough?” they ask.

“Rough,” we answer, wondering what in the world they can mean by speaking as if they were the autocrats of wind and current.

But it seems there are two channels,—­one near shore for the timid, and one in mid-stream.  We were not to be betrayed into any exhibition of timidity after that first hesitating question, “Do you know the rapids well?  How many times have you taken people down?” To which the quiet reply had been, “Three times a day, lady, for twenty years.”  Twenty thousand times, by rough calculation!

So we went over in mid-stream, and were not sorry,—­receiving as we stepped ashore what is probably a part of every programme, the compliment of being “the bravest lady that ever went over the falls.”

Many a pleasant day, or week, one might undoubtedly spend at the Sault Ste. Marie, or at Mackinac; but if you have only turned through the straits and gone southward again to Chicago through Lake Michigan, do not think of saying that you have taken the trip on the Great Lakes.  To me the Great Lakes will always mean Lake Superior.  It is something unique in the geography of the world, and you have the consciousness of your actual height above the level of the sea as you rarely have on any elevated land that is not actually a mountain.  Ruskin says that for him the flowers lose their light, the river its music, when he tries to divest any given landscape of its associations with human struggle and endeavor.  Our New World scenery, of course, has little of that wonderful charm of association; but there is something singularly impressive in the mere silence and vastness of our great Northern solitudes.

We entered Lake Superior late in the afternoon, and the only event of the evening was a magnificent aurora.  Toward midnight the gorgeous tints changed to a thin wedge of perfectly white light, against which in a duskier white the sails of passing vessels were distinctly outlined, though no hulls were visible.

At Marquette, in the morning, a party of Finnish emigrants on board left the ship.  Half a dozen Americanized Finns, who had evidently been the inspiring cause of this influx of new citizens, had come to the wharf to greet the new arrivals.  They had the same short stature, the same stolid features, as their relatives on board; but there was a difference.  The white shirt, the clean collar, the smart straw hat and vivid necktie, with a vigorous step, alert manner, decisive tones, and a certain tendency to help the women with their heavy boxes, distinctly individualized those who had been awhile under American influence.

All day we basked in the sunshine on the captain’s bridge.  Think of being glad to bask in the sunshine on a 4th of August!  Between Marquette and Portage River we passed but one house,—­one solitary, lonely house, set on the very edge of the “unsalted sea;” before it a vast expanse of limitless waters, behind it an unbroken, limitless forest; no fields, no crops, no roads, only space enough cleared for the tiny cabin and tinier shed.  What had lured people there?  What kept them alive?  No neighbors, no mail, no farm, no apparent object in life, and only one small rowboat to get away in.