ly 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 r