Less
attention than usual is paid by the Indians at such times to their
meals; and unless game is very easily obtained, they are quite content
to depend upon the sugar alone.
It was now about the middle of June, and some fifty birchen canoes have
just been launched upon the waters of Green Bay. They are occupied by
our Ottawa sugar-makers, who have started upon a pilgrimage to Mackinaw.
The distance is near two hundred miles, and as the canoes are heavily
laden not only with mocucks of sugar, but with furs collected by the
hunters during the past winter, and the Indians are travelling at their
leisure, the party will probably reach their desired haven in the course
of ten days. Well content with their accumulated treasures, both the
women and the men are in a particularly happy mood, and many a wild song
is heard to echo over the placid lake. As the evening approaches, day
after day they seek out some convenient landing place, and, pitching the
wigwams on the beach, spend a goodly portion of the night carousing and
telling stories around their camp fires, resuming their voyage after a
morning sleep, long alter the sun has risen above the blue waters of
the east. Another sunset hour, and the cavalcade of canoes is quietly
gliding into the crescent bay of Mackinaw, and, reaching a beautiful
beach at the foot of a lofty bluff, the Indians again draw up their
canoes,--again erect their wigwams.
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