From Washington I went to Buffalo, the train running off the rails on the way, and that, too, on a viaduct, on which the engine, having broken through the roadway, was hung up in the framework, like a fly in a spider’s web.  I was anxious to go, via the great lakes, to Green Bay on Lake Michigan, and thence starting from Mackinaw, the old Indian Michillimackinac, to follow up the track of our officers and soldiers and missionaries, who pushed on till they discovered the Mississippi.

[Illustration:  a large ship on a river]

It was in 1672 that Talon, the Superintendent of “La Nouvelle France,” having heard from the Indians of the existence of a great river, sent out an expedition to discover it under Father Marquette, who had great influence over the Indian tribes.  Crossing the great lakes, he landed at Green Bay, and pushing westwards, he soon reached the “Father of Waters.”  It was for Green Bay that I too embarked, at Buffalo, on Lake Erie, on board the staunch steamer Columbus, the last boat to go to that place so late in the season (in mid-winter).  Our boat was staunch indeed, some consolation for the slowness of her pace.  Of this she soon gave us proof, for she ran with an awful shock, going eight knots an hour in the dark, on to a reef of rocks, stopped short, and heeled over.  A big wave caught her and lifted her a second time; there was another bump.  But with the third wave she got across the reef.  I rushed towards the engine, thinking everything must be smashed and the side of the ship gaping open.  But no, not at all!

The captain, who had been taken aback for a moment, merely sent his quid from one cheek to the other, without saying a word.  The whole thing was over.  And, indeed, that was not the only unforeseen incident during our voyage.  We spent one whole night aground in the St. Clair Lake.  Nothing I can say will give any idea of the recklessness with which the ship was navigated.  To begin with, there were no charts; you went at haphazard, according to information that had come down by tradition, and yet these lakes are really small oceans, with currents, and fogs, and squalls coming off the coasts, just like the sea.  The navigation must have been just the same in 1679, when Lassalle, an officer in the Canadian army, launched the first ship, which he called the Griffon, in honour of the griffin in the arms of his commanding officer, the Marquis de Frontenac.

To danger by sea must be added danger by fire for our staunch Columbus.  The boilers were heated with wood—­aloewood—­out of which pencils and cigar-boxes are made.  It made a very pleasant smell, but being piled up pell mell in the hold, against the furnaces, it caught fire several times in my presence, and the stokers would just throw a little water on it to put it out.  On the deck the very high pressure engine worked exposed and unprotected, amidst sheep and oxen and packages of all kinds, which were frequently shot against it by the roll of the