We Passed To The Shore Over A Long Platform Of
Planks Framed Upon Two Rows Of Posts Or Piles Planted In The Sandy
Shallows.
"We make a port in this manner on any part of the western shore
of the lake," said a passenger, "and convenient ports they are, except in
very high winds.
On the eastern shore, the coast of Michigan, they have
not this advantage; the ice and the northwest winds would rend such a
wharf as this in pieces. On this side too, the water of the lake, except
when an east wind blows, is smoother than on the Michigan coast, and the
steamers therefore keep under the shelter of this bank."
At Southport, still further north, in the new state of Wisconsin, we
procured a kind of omnibus and were driven over the town, which, for a new
settlement, is uncommonly pretty. We crossed a narrow inlet of the lake, a
_creek_ in the proper sense of the term, a winding channel, with water in
the midst, and a rough growth of water-flags and sedges on the sides.
Among them grew the wild rice, its bending spikes, heavy with grain,
almost ready for the harvest.
"In the northern marshes of Wisconsin," said one of our party, "I have
seen the Indian women gathering this grain. Two of them take their places
in a canoe; one of them seated in the stern pushes it with her paddle
through the shallows of standing water, while the other, sitting forward,
bends the heads of the rice-plant over the sides of the canoe, strikes
them with a little stick and causes the grain to fall within it. In this
way are collected large quantities, which serve as the winter food of the
Menomonies, and some other tribes." The grain of the wild rice, I was
told, is of a dark color, but palatable as food. The gentleman who gave me
this account had made several attempts to procure it in a fit state to be
sown, for Judge Buel, of Albany, who was desirous of trying its
cultivation on the grassy shallows of our eastern rivers. He was not
successfull at first, because, as soon as the grain is collected, it is
kiln-dried by the Indians, which destroys the vegetative principle. At
length, however, he obtained and sent on a small quantity of the fresh
rice, but it reached Judge Buel only a short time before his death, and
the experiment probably has not been made.
On one side of the creek was a sloping bank of some height, where tall old
forest trees were growing. Among these stood three houses, just built, and
the space between them and the water was formed into gardens with regular
terraces faced with turf. Another turn of our vehicle brought us into a
public square, where the oaks of the original forest were left standing,
a miniature of the _Champs Elysees_, surrounding which, among the trees,
stand many neat houses, some of them built of a drab-colored brick.
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