waves, and above the whole there rose two stories of cabins, built of light planking, as thin as paper, quite incapable of standing against the most moderate seas, but which caught the wind, and made the ship exceedingly unsteady.  During a squall, luckily for us a short one, which caught us on Lake Michigan, in the middle of the night, the whole fabric began to give way.  I was woke by the water coming in and the crackling sound of the damage going on in all directions.  So I got up, and found all the Americans on board wearing lifebelts, and greeting me with the remark, “Sir, you are a sailor, but there are more risks on our lakes than on the ocean!” and quite right they were.

It was a long passage, and we put in to several places on our way.  First into Detroit, formerly the French Fort Pontchartrain, and now become the capital of Michigan State.  Opposite Detroit runs the Canadian shore, to which we are borne by a steam ferry boat, and where the same contrast strikes me as at Niagara.  On the American side I find a very pretty town, with all the comforts of civilisation, a scene of hard-working activity.  On the Canadian shore I see a village of poor cottages, surrounded with apple orchards, like a village in Normandy, in front of which the red sentry marches up and down, as stiff as an automaton.  The inhabitants of the said village, French both in feature and appearance, hurried up in delight when they heard us speaking the language of their forefathers.  “It’s the only tongue we know.  We don’t want our children to learn any other!” And yet they have been English for over a century!  A strange contrast, indeed, this fidelity to the memory of their national origin, to their not less sincere fidelity to the conquering regime, which assures to them the right of willing their property as they choose, and has freed them from the administrative tyranny which seems, unfortunately, to cling to us under every regime.

From Detroit we went up the St. Clair River to Lake Huron.  The great river was a magnificent sight, with its banks covered with mighty forests in all the splendour of their autumnal colouring.  Here and there, on the American side, stood some log cabin, an emigrant’s first shelter.  Then we would come on a sawmill, that first of all necessaries in such a country.  On the British side now and again, we saw Indian wigwams, Huron or Chippewa.  At the entrance of Lake Huron bad weather came on; it snowed, and we took shelter in a bay, where we moored the ship to the shore close to one of those American forts that fringe the Indian frontier.  They are all alike, these forts; a battlemented wall of thick planks, with banquettes for riflemen, and loopholed for heavier guns.  Within each are the barracks and the officers’ quarters.  This particular fort was called Fort Gratiot.  In 1688 its name was Fort St. Joseph, and it had a French garrison, commanded by Baron de Houtou.  During this stoppage we had an amusing adventure.  Our only fellow