THE GREAT LAKES TO ST. PAUL.

Toward the close of July, 1860, our party gathered at Canaudaigua, that beautiful piece of Swiss overland scenery, transported to Western New York. Its Indian name, signifying 'the chosen place,' was not inapt for our meeting ground.

By the 31st of July we were at Cleveland, Ohio, over the Buffalo and Lake Shore Railway and New York Central. It was a beautiful day's ride, the most of the way skirting the lake, whose broad expanse gleamed in the sunshine, and bore many a sail and propeller to the great havens of its commerce. The railway borders fine towns and farms, formed by the dense settlement of the oak openings and groves of the Western Reserve of Ohio, which was purchased from the Holland Land Company, by a company from Connecticut, of whom General Cleveland, who names the present city, was the agent.

Cleveland city, with about forty thousand population, lies on Lake Erie, at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River, which forms its harbor. It is well built, chiefly of the light graystone of the vicinity, upon a declivity shaded with trees, among which the buckeye hickory abounds, has many fine dwellings, and presents a fair front to the lake view.

On the evening of the 31st July we embarked on the North Star for Superior City. She is of first class, eleven hundred and six tons, and bore an immense freight from the East to the remote peninsula, in exchange for its precious minerals. The entire sail from Cleveland to Superior is nine hundred and sixty-four miles.

As these boats are the only means of commerce and intercourse for the dwellers on the upper lakes above Detroit, very frequent are their stops and calls, taking and leaving much freight, consuming much time on their way. However, our voyage was speedy: we arrived at our distant terminus, Superior City, very early on the morning of the 5th of August, making the running time about seventy-five hours.

Leaving Ohio, one of the earliest settled States of the Western Valley, and organized sixty years since, our course from Cleveland stretched northwesterly across the wide lake, passing the island scene of Perry's splendid triumph, and thence northerly, by its river, to Detroit, a sail of one hundred and twenty miles, arriving early on the 1st of August.

The city lies extended along its beautiful river, at one extremity guarded by its old fort, and at the other are the extensive copper-smelting furnaces, where the ore from the Superior mines, brought by the steamers, flows in liquid copper. It is comparatively an ancient town, settled as early as 1701 as a French frontier post; and some of its land titles, always protected at each national change, with some of its old families, derive their origin from these early French pioneers.

Our afternoon sail was up Detroit River and the St. Clair, threading our way among its many verdant islands and rich shores graced with numerous pretty villages. At 9 p.m. we reached Port Huron and its Canadian opposite neighbor, Sarnia. At this point is the southern outlet of Lake Huron, distant seventy-three miles from Detroit. Sarnia is also the western depot of the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada, while Windsor, facing Detroit, terminates the Canadian Great Western. From Sarnia, passing old Fort Gratiot, over to Port Huron, the railway ferry boat, propelled by the current only, transfers its passengers to the cars of the Grand Trunk line, on Michigan soil, and by a short branch intersects the Michigan Central Railroad, a few miles west of Detroit. For over twelve hundred miles this iron road, fitly named the Grand Trunk, transports our Western products. Entering Lake Huron, with its innumerable islands and almost wilderness shores, our sail through it, of two hundred and seventy-five miles in all, brought us early, on the 2d of August, off Saginaw and Thunder Bays, its western arms, with Presque Isle, the Great Manitoulin Island, bearing north by east; and by noon, we reached Point de Tour, at the outlet of St. Mary's River, three hundred miles from Detroit, lying opposite to Drummond's Island.

Point de Tour has but a solitary dwelling, from whose roof rises the light tower. Its inmates are said to have preferred this solitude to the crowded refinement of a New England city. Shortly after, and still coasting the western side, we stopped at Church's Landing, where an enterprising New Englander has built his log houses in the forest, amid the Indians, and drives an active commerce in raspberry jam. His trade has prospered, and he had just completed a new and handsome dwelling. Fourteen miles farther brought us to Saut Sainte Marie, or the rapids of the eastern outlet of Lake Superior.

Lake Huron is at an average height of five hundred and seventy-five feet above the sea level, and one hundred feet in depth below Lake Superior, with a length in direct line of two hundred and seventy-five miles, from Port Huron to Saut Sainte Marie. Georgian Bay, to the east of the Great Manitoulin Island, is its broad eastern expansion; while, on the west, the Straits of Mackinaw open into the vast expanse of Lake Michigan, extending a length of four hundred and forty-six miles to Chicago. The borders of Lake Huron are sparsely peopled. The primitive forest bends over the lake's clear waters, and surrounds the log cabin or infant settlement with the wigwam and canoe of the Indian half breeds, who are still fishing and hunting round the graves of their ancestors-once the fiercest of all the warrior races that scarce forty years ago as sovereigns roamed its wilds.

The majestic solitudes of these lakes first received the white man in 1679, when the discoverers La Salle and Hennepin, in the vessel of sixty tons, which they had built with their Indians at Cayuga Creek, sailed up Niagara River, Lakes Erie, St. Clair, and Huron, to Mackinaw, and thence through Lake Michigan to the mouth of Green Bay. Entering Lake Erie on the 7th of August, 1691, they arrived at Green Bay on the 2d of September following, encountering many storms and cautiously seeking their untried way. After gathering a rich cargo of furs, the vessel, in charge of the pilot and five men, started to return, and was heard of no more. She doubtless perished with her crew in a gale on Lake Huron. She carried seven cannon, was well manned and armed, adorned with carved griffin and eagle heads, and bore the banner and religion of France amid all the border tribes.

Surely the voyage of Columbus, discovering Hispaniola, while sailing before and obeying the trade winds, did not surpass in real adventure this simple expedition of those half-warrior pioneer voyageurs, Fathers Hennepin and La Salle. The memory of their visit is yet immortal in the local names given by them and still cherished; while the influence of France still lingers at Detroit and many other prominent points in this wide region, once the empire of Louis XIV.

We reached the Saut Sainte Marie about 4 P. M. of the 2d of August. Here the River St. Mary, or the eastern outlet of Lake Superior, after a wide course of fifty miles, gathers the multitude of its waters into a narrow channel of less than a mile in width and length, of swift and impassable rapids.

The grand Ship Canal, with its stone banks of about eighty feet width and three locks, transports the largest tonnage around these rapids. This great work was completed in 1857 by the contractors, Erastus Corning, of New York, Fairbanks, and others, for a contract price of seven hundred and fifty thousand acres of land, chiefly mineral, in the State of Michigan. During our steamer's canal passage of about two hours, we were interested by the picturesque scenery, untenanted save by the wigwam and the bark canoe. As usual, upon the arrival of the steamer, the long canoe, steadily held by a single boy and paddle, in a current swift as the Niagara, shoots out into the Saut, while the Indian, standing erect in the canoe, poising his harpoon and scrap net, strikes or swoops in the large and delicious white fish, assured of a capacious basketful and more, before the steamer leaves the canal.

And thus we floated onward to the bosom of great Superior.

Our course was along the St. Mary outlet, northwesterly toward White Fish Point, on the main south shore, projecting far out into the lake. We were hence carried miles away from sight of the famed-pictured rocks or of any land. Tending southerly and still westward, we steamed on over the dark waters, during a serene night, until daylight showed us the beautiful town of Marquette. Scarce seven years old, the fruit of the iron mining in its vicinity, it spreads its neat white cottages around the crescent of its bay and river on an amphitheatre of hills. The rail train destined to Bai de Noc, on Green Bay, and finished to Marquette Mines, in all some eighteen miles, was starting upon our arrival. Marquette, though so young, a mere group of cottages, fronting a wilderness, from its rich mines of the best iron, has become at once a scene of industry and large outlay of capital; while the beauty of its position and its unrivalled climate, surpassing all others on Lake Superior, have already made it the most attractive summer resort, as well for the pleasure traveller as the pulmonary invalid. Its climate, without the sea air, has a cool, silken softness, reminding one of Newport, Rhode Island. It is more equable and certain; the summer average is 66°, and the winter 41°; while the lake wind and evaporation secure it from the rapid changes of the sea shores.

Marquette is the lake port and entrepot of the short range of iron mountains which adjoin their sisters, known as the Porcupine Mountains, in whose depths lies the famous copper ore, not unmixed with silver and other precious deposits. This great mountain fortress extends from Marquette to Montreal River, beyond Ontonagon, the western boundary of the State of Michigan, in a line of about twelve to eighteen miles south of the lake, and often approaches two thousand feet in height, lifting its forest sides in constant view for more than two hundred miles. Leaving Marquette and the iron range at 7 A.M., on the 3d of August, we sailed for Portage, the first harbor in the copper mountains, arriving about noon.

Portage is a shallow bay or mouth of the river of the same name, on the east shore of Keewaiwonah Promontory, or, as it is commonly called, Keweenaw Point. The mines and town of Portage lie at the mountains, about sixteen miles inland. A few huts were the only signs of settlement at the bay. Tugs landed the freight and passengers, and we soon left the wooded bank for the broad expanse of the lake, turning the head of the promontory, and at 5 P.M. reaching Copper Harbor on its northwest shore. Here we lay till morning. The village is small, at the base of a lower range of mineral mountains, spurs of the main chain.

The Clarke Copper Mine is within two miles of the wharf. This mine, like many others, has had many owners. It had just gone through the experiments of a French company, which expended its capital, as alleged, in building fine roads, bridges, and residences for its agents, while the mining had scarcely reached one hundred and twenty feet deep, and then employed only six Frenchmen as its miners, whose ore product was little over three per cent. of copper. In other hands, perhaps, it may now yield a better reward.

We were much amused with the description given by these Frenchmen of the mishaps of their ill-directed enterprise. Persistent as Chinese, resembling many others of the French nation in their ignorance of our country, language, or customs, they had passed through many droll blunders, which rendered their narrative highly entertaining.

Copper Harbor, although so small, only then claiming about seventy legal voters in the entire township, including the mines, was promised the unusual treat of a political address that evening, as duly placarded, from a gentleman, who was then candidate for Governor of Michigan, and came in our boat. The apathy and indifference of the free and enlightened electors of Copper Harbor were remarkable. A small, dingy room, adjoining the only store, was the destined arena; and therein, dimly lighted by some tallow candles, long sat the candidate—alone: a rejected Timon, whose reflections were never published. The only interest taken in the meeting (that came under my notice) was an anxious inquiry by the owner of the building for his rent and expense of candles, etc., payment of which was alleged to have been refused by the candidate.

Singularly happy Copper Harbor! your contented equanimity is unruffled by all the stormy strife of politicians.

Its lake front is graced by a fort, now and long since a water-cure establishment. All these Western forts, erected many years ago, seem not intended for offence, but rather as stockades or blockhouses of shelter from the Indians. They are arranged as extensive tenements within, pierced for musketry, and only in some cases with terraces for cannon. These frontier forts, long the dwelling of the hunter or his family in the wilderness, were guarded by the company of troops who protected the settlers and maintained the sovereignty of our flag and nation over these remote wilds. They are always placed in the most eligible and commanding positions, and seem as if by design to have secured the settlement of these points, which in all cases have become the thronged cities or favorite towns of the ever-growing West. Thus, in Europe, the ancient Roman fortified camps on their frontiers founded Cologne, Chester, Vienna, Milan, Verona, and other cities, once their military outposts against barbarism.

About 7 A. M. of the 4th August, we left Copper Harbor on our course, and soon reached Eagle River. This is another copper-mining settlement, straggling along its poor harbor, somewhat larger than Copper Harbor, and more picturesque. Landing a few of our company, we sailed to Ontonagon, the largest of these copper-mine towns (perhaps two thousand in population), and situated upon a sand reach at the mouth of its river, which leads to the Great Minnesota Mine, eighteen miles distant.

Early in the clear morning of the 5th of August, we were moving up Allouez Bay. Sounding slowly over its bar, and passing Minnesota Point and Island, between the mouths of the Rivers St. Louis and Nemadji, we arrived at Superior City, our destined haven.

Superior City, by its pretentious name, great distance, and our expectations, had risen to much importance in our imagination, but the actual scene presented a wide contrast. A large town—or metropolis—on a poor harbor, without interior resources or communications, had been hastily projected. It is called the head of ocean navigation, and the terminus of many proposed but as yet imaginary railroads. While the titles to all the land are still in litigation, the wilderness shades its streets, and, saving the rare arrival of the Indian mail carrier on snow shoes, during six months of intense cold, they are isolated from all humanity. Its grand prospectus, some five years before, had drawn there about three thousand people; and soon afterward, starved and disappointed, nearly all, save perhaps five hundred, had deserted. About two miles of streets, planked from the mud, with frame dwellings, had been constructed, and they had already attained the first municipal blessing—taxes--to the total of $45,000, payable by this feeble remnant of a settlement, mainly of abandoned dwellings. Should the railroads so frequently surveyed and designed to terminate here be really built, Superior City may see, to some extent, in future years, somewhat of that prosperity which its projectors, blinded by their hopes, had thought already realized.

Few positions are more picturesque. In front, the shores of Portland and Minnesota rise in beautiful grandeur, and the bay and harbor, although imperfect, are richly wooded and very graceful; while, all the way thither, from La Pointe, the lake's waters, lying among the mountains, shadowed by their heavy foliage, remind one much of the scenery of the Lower Danube. This ghost of a city had not much left of interest, and we passed our day in arranging for the journey across the country southward to St. Paul.

And here we found ourselves really pioneers. No road or transport was alleged to exist. We persevered. Indians and trappers beset us with their projects of tracking and portage by the St. Croix and other rivers, requiring a camp life with strange companions of nearly a month to accomplish the distance of only one hundred and sixty-three miles, equivalent to that of Albany from New York. A military road direct through the wilderness had been often surveyed, and once cut through, of about eighty feet width, to near Sunrise City, fifty miles from St. Paul; at which point the dense forest spreads into oak openings and beautiful prairies. This single cutting, long overgrown in lofty pines, with the frequent surveys and contracts, from the year 1852 to 1857, had cost the United States Government, for this distance of about one hundred and twelve miles, $150,000; and no actual road had ever yet been made. Fortunately for our enterprise, we met a gentleman who had just groped through safely on horseback. We were reassured, and engaged the only available wagon and team—a small, frail affair, devoid of cover, seats, or springs; and, with ample provisions, perched upon our luggage, we rolled out of Superior City that evening, and, passing its significantly large cemetery, we at once entered the forest. These woods are chiefly of pine, cedar, tamarack, or hemlock, gigantic in size, a dreary solitude, unvisited by any bird or game, save an occasional hawk or owl. They are but the southern outposts of that forest army which begirds Hudson's Bay, and spreads its gloomy barrier of the same trees around the dominions of the Ice King, while it is the only forest to be met with in all the Mississippi Valley.

The width of about eighty feet—that theoretical road for which the United States had paid so often and so well—was seen between the mightiest sentinel trees; but in the midst had sprung up a fresh growth, often nearly one hundred feet high, surrounded by huge stumps, and heavy undergrowth of the renewing forest, varied with hopeless mudholes and swamps, and only at intervals of about twenty miles was there any habitation.

Such was the great military road. Perhaps its progress equalled the actual wants of this region; for population had not yet crowded any of the forest borders. It was then by the adjoining townships, under State laws, feebly commencing to be really made as a road; and frequently we halted at the camps of these hardy sons of toil. Our first twenty-one miles to Twin Lakes, at the best speed, with good horses, occupied eight hours, three of which, in the middle of the night, were passed under deluging rain accompanied by thunder and lightning of the most appalling grandeur, thumping in the shelterless wagon over stumps and bogholes through the dreary woods.

Twin Lakes—or the isthmus between two small lakes, in the depths of the forest—is a solitary log house and stable. Its proprietor and our landlord for the night's shelter was, I believe, named John Smith. With his family he had lived there, keeping this hotel for some years, owning several lots in the paper City of Twin Lakes, rich in the anticipated tide of gain to flow from the crowded thoroughfare of the great military road.

Happy man! we were the first party on wheels that had yet essayed the road. Perhaps his posterity, by patience, may win their reward.

Our rain deluge, with sheeted lightning and pealing thunder, was ceaseless throughout the night. Its echoes amid the forest solitudes were awful; and our fitful sleep was varied by the rain dripping between the logs of our shelter.

However, morning came at last, bright, clear, and calm; and early we resumed our wagon and way-picking among the familiar logs and stumps, contesting as for life with legions of mosquitoes, sandflies, etc. And thus we made thirty miles farther (halting at a camp for dinner) to the City of Chengwatana, which is so named on the large and beautiful map thereof, prepared in New York. It is laid out in Broadways, Fifth Avenues, Lydig Avenue, and, I believe, Daly Square, so named from J. Daly, of New York, with parks, colleges, etc., etc., adequate for a million of inhabitants. This fine imaginary picture proved unavailing to sell the land. It still remains a swamp bordering Snake River, in the bosom of the wilderness; and its entire population was only one German and his family—really indefinite in number of children—and two log houses, between which he vibrated at pleasure.

Our arrival was in another violent rain, lasting far into the night; but we considered ourselves, by this time, road and water proof. On the river shore, by the red glare of the fire light a wigwam and some Indians were visible; and frequently we heard their rifle shots. To our surprise, in the morning, instead of deer, they brought in a large basket of lake trout, each pierced through the head with a bullet when approaching the fire light.

Morning found us early on our hard way to the famed City of Fortuna, whose picture displayed a similar origin and imagination, and its reality was even more doleful.

Fortuna City, on Kettle River, in the woods, contained three log cabins, and no inhabitants. A boy came hither, perhaps from Superior, the day before, to meet our party. After repelling some furious charges of the mosquito cavalry, who displayed their vigor after long starving, we gave up the contest, and attempted sleep.

To our log cabin had come that day several engineers, who formed a surveying party for another railroad project, passing through this forest from St. Paul, whence they had started a month before with an ample wagon train. The Indians had murdered the drivers and captured the wagons with their entire property; and in their destitution they sought this only shelter. We took them forward with us into St. Paul, and were greatly indebted for their intelligent society and kind attentions.

Fortuna City had one peculiar interest to us; it was the last halt and lodging in the forest. Our next day's ride—if such it may be called—brought us to the oak openings at Folsom's, a clearing on the southern skirt of this wilderness, and shortly after to Sunrise City.

Our forest journey to-day was varied by the utter collapse of the wagon in a vain charge upon an obstinate stump; and perforce we walked for miles, till reaching a camp of the road workers on the farther bank of Grindstone River, we joyfully forded and found shelter from the noontide heat and mosquitoes; while the German sutler, who alone remained, busied himself in his primitive al fresco cookery, which we enjoyed, and then, exchanging to another wagon, hastened on to our destination.

The oak openings—those grand parklike expanses and rolls of land, with stately groups of giant oaks—far surpassing all culture of man, set out by the Creator on such a noble forest background, never looked more majestic and beautiful. They were vocal with singing birds, and filled with life; at their foot thronged the grouse or prairie chicken, darting through the high flowering grasses (richer than all garden flowers) in such numbers that but a few feet from our wheels we shot them in great abundance.

Sunrise City—a village but of yesterday (public lands, for sale by proclamation, adjoining)—is beautifully placed on Sunrise River, and might have then contained about five hundred inhabitants, whose neat white cottages and pleasant streets, bordering a romantic river and bridge, made a picture not unlike the scenery of Warwickshire, England.

We reached here—fifty miles still north of St. Paul—to pass the first night of our ride in a comfortable dwelling.

Many a fine farm, just cleared and broken, attracted us here, and hence along the prairie road into St. Paul, where we arrived at the close of the following day, which proved to be, as we kept no calendar, Thursday, the 9th of August.

Our drive this last day led past numerous linked lakes, with their borders of the tall Minnesota rice grass in flower, the home of the canvas back, pelican, and swan. Passing through the village of Little Canada, we rode on to Minnehaha Prairie along its gentle, verdant slope, and lapse of shining waters of Twelve Lakes, graced with the names of Como, Garda, etc., and adorned with many a pretty boat and sail. A few miles further brought us to the upper terrace of beautiful St. Paul.

As pioneers of this wilderness route, we met with marked attention from all, and passed some agreeable days at St. Paul, Fort Snelling, Minneapolis, St. Anthony, and their numerous points of interest. Our homeward route was by the Mississippi River to Prairie du Chien, where old Fort Crawford, then a mere tenement, commands the confluence of the Wisconsin River with the Father of Waters. This sail of three hundred miles consumed forty-eight hours.

The river banks recede and advance in lake-like expanses along its winding course, and their richly wooded heights, crowned with red sandstone, resemble the ruined Rhine castles. The sail through Lake Pepin, and between the States of Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin, was varied by frequent and thriving towns and villages.

From Prairie du Chien—a picture of straggling despair—by the Milwaukie and Prairie du Chien Railroad, and the Northwestern Railroad, two hundred and twenty-two miles, we reached Chicago, and passed through a crowd of beautiful towns, in a State scarce a generation since reclaimed from the Indians. Familiar railroads transported us from Chicago to Detroit, Niagara, Albany, and New York.

Our whole distance of travel in three weeks was thirty-four hundred and forty-one miles. It was brief, but spiced with adventure, and over a field of vast interest, present and future.

Our beautiful country, made one and indivisible by the great and good Author of its existence, through its mighty natural features, has, among its chief grandeurs, this water system of the great northern lakes, the frontier of the ever-progressive and patriotic West and North. In dimensions, sublimity, and beauty, by the consent of all, it is without parallel on earth.

A volume of the purest fresh water is gathered in Lake Superior, without visible, adequate supply, to a depth of one thousand feet, with a length of near five hundred miles, and average breadth of one hundred and sixty miles, on a bottom lifted six hundred feet above sea level.

This incalculable mass of water moves its limpid wave through the Saut Sainte Marie into its twin seas, Lakes Michigan and Huron, then by St. Clair and Detroit Rivers is poured through Lake Erie, ever gradually descending, till, at great Niagara, 'The Thunder of the Waters,' it tosses in fury along its rapids, leaps the cataract in glory, at a rate of one hundred millions of tons of water the hour, and then sweeps away into Lake Ontario, to form that northern Mississippi, the River St. Lawrence, which, for over one thousand miles, holds on its ever increasing and widening current, in majesty to the broad Atlantic. By the canals at the Falls and Saut Sainte Marie, direct and continuous ship and steam navigation for sea-going vessels from the Atlantic to Superior City, the extreme Northwest, or Chicago on the Southwest, over three thousand miles through the heart of the continent, is open, while the American coast line along these great waters, exceeds thirty-two hundred miles. Complete in itself, the source of life, health, fine climate, fertility, wealth, and countless blessings to all its shores and valleys, it is divided by lofty barriers from all the other chief water systems of the United States. The Mississippi rises in the highlands of Minnesota at Lake Itasca, more than one hundred miles west of Lake Superior, and gathers in its course all the rivers of its valley. Still loftier mountains separate the sources of the Hudson and Connecticut, and the other rivers of the Atlantic slope.

Blessed with soil and climate unsurpassed, and a Government the nearest to perfection, this region, watered by a mighty inland ocean, is already the chief granary of the world, as well as its great mineral store, although its railway system is not yet extended to its utmost limits; and beyond Michigan it is scarce thirty years since the Americans gained a settlement in its borders.

The greatness of ancient Europe, Asia, and Africa gathered along the shores and harbors of the Mediterranean; all beyond was barbarism, bound to the sovereigns of the Midland Sea only by terror of arms. Even to this day, the laws and literature of those master nations are yet dominant in all the learning and social polity of Europe. This great northern water system is geographically the Mediterranean of the North American continent, and Minnesota, the actual centre, is its omphalos.

The geographical centre of North America in the heart of Minnesota is also the pinnacle of its watershed—the central source of the majestic rivers whose vast basins determine the physical contour, climates, products, commerce, industry, and political destiny of two-fifths of the whole continent.

With such a theatre for development, the future of this great area, in near grasp, surpasses conception. Egypt, with it endless renown, dwindles into insignificance in comparison. The paramount supremacy of any nation depends wholly on its utility to the rest of mankind.

The warrior nation yields in turn to a stronger foe, while all alike are willing tributaries to the natural arbiter of commerce and source of food supply. Wars, by the laws of Providence, attend the convulsions of national change and growth; but all alike ever welcome the white-winged doves of commerce as the ministers and messengers of national glory and prosperity.