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Page 35
A well-earned night's sleep, bathed in this highly ozoned lake
atmosphere, which magically soothes every nerve and refreshes every
sense like an elixir, and we are off again on the broad bosom of the
Mackinaw strait, threading a verdant labyrinth of emerald islets and
following the course of Father Jacques Marquette, who two hundred years
before us had set off from the island in two canoes, with his friend
Louis Joliet, to explore and Christianize the region of the Mississippi.
We looked back upon the Fairy Island with regretful eyes, and as it sunk
into the lake Hugh repeated the lines of the poet:--
"A gem amid gems, set in blue yielding waters,
Is Mackinac Island with cliffs girded round,
For her eagle-plumed braves and her true-hearted daughters;
Long, long ere the pale face came widely renowned.
"Tradition invests thee with Spirit and Fairy;
Thy dead soldiers' sleep shall no drum-beat awake,
While about thee the cool winds do lovingly tarry
And kiss thy green brows with the breath of the lake.
"Thy memory shall haunt me wherever life reaches,
Thy day-dreams of fancy, thy night's balmy sleep,
The plash of thy waters along the smooth beaches,
The shade of thine evergreens, grateful and deep.
"O Mackinac Island! rest long in thy glory!
Sweet native to peacefulness, home of delight!
Beneath thy soft ministry, care and sad worry
Shall flee from the weary eyes blessed with thy sight."
"That poet had taste," remarked our friend when he had concluded.
"Beautiful Isle! No wonder the great missionary wished his bones to rest
within sight of its shores. Marquette never seemed to me so great as
now. He was one of those Jesuits like Zinzendorf and Sebastian Ralle,
wonderful men, all of them, full of energy and adventure and missionary
zeal, and devoted to the welfare of their order. At the age of thirty he
was sent among the Hurons as a missionary. He founded the mission of
Sault de Ste. Marie in Lake Superior, in 1668, and three years later
that of Mackinaw. In 1673, in company with Joliet and five other
Frenchmen, the adventurous missionary set out on a voyage toward the
South Sea. They followed the Mississippi to the Gulf, and returning,
arrived at Green Bay in September. In four months they had traveled a
distance of twenty-five hundred miles in an open canoe. Marquette was
sick a whole year, but in 1674, at the solicitation of his superior, set
out to preach to the Kaskaskia Indians. He was compelled to halt on the
way by his infirmities, and remained all winter at the place, with only
two Frenchmen to minister to his wants. As soon as it was spring,
knowing full well that he could not live, he attempted to return to
Mackinaw. He died on the way, on a small river that bears his name,
which empties into Lake Michigan on the western shore. His memory
en-wreathes the very names of Superior and Michigan with the halo of
romance."
"Thank you," said Vincent, looking out over the dark water. "I can fancy
his ghost haunting the lake at midnight."
"Speak not of that down at the Queen City," returned Hugh, with a tragic
air. "Pork and grain are more substantial things than ghosts at Chicago,
and they might look on you as an escaped lunatic. Nathless, it was a
pretty idea to promulgate among the Indians two centuries ago. Observe
how civilization has changed. Two hundred years ago we sent missionaries
among them: now we send soldiers to shoot them down, after we have
plundered them of their lands."
Neither of us were disposed to discuss the Indian question with Hugh
Warren, and the conversation dropped after a while.
At noon of the next day the steamer made Milwaukee, and the evening of
the day after Chicago. These two cities are excellent types of the
Western city, and both show, in a wonderful degree, the rapid growth of
towns in the great West. Neither had an inhabitant before 1825, and now
one has a population of one hundred thousand, and the other of five
hundred thousand. Chicago is, in fact, a wonder of the world. Its
unparalleled growth, its phoenix-like rise from the devastation of the
great fire of 1871, and its cosmopolitan character, all contribute to
render it a remarkable city.
The city looks out upon the lake like a queen, as in fact she is,
crowned by the triple diadem of beauty, wealth, and dignity. She is the
commercial metropolis of the whole Northwest, an emporium second only to
New York in the quantity of her imports and exports. The commodious
harbor is thronged with shipping. Her water communication has a vast
area. Foreign consuls from Austria, France, Great Britain, Belgium,
Italy, Sweden, Germany, and the Netherlands, have their residence in the
city. It is an art-centre, and almost equally with Brooklyn is entitled
to be called a city of churches.
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