S. and M. retire to their state-rooms to forget the wet, the chill and
steamboat smell in their just-bought new world of novels.

Next day, when we stopped at Cleveland, the storm was just clearing up;
ascending the bluff, we had one of the finest views of the lake that
could have been wished. The varying depths of these lakes give to their
surface a great variety of coloring, and beneath this wild sky and
changeful lights, the waters presented kaleidoscopic varieties of hues,
rich, but mournful. I admire these bluffs of red, crumbling earth. Here
land and water meet under very different auspices from those of the
rock-bound coast to which I have been accustomed. There they meet
tenderly to challenge, and proudly to refuse, though not in fact repel.
But here they meet to mingle, are always rushing together, and changing
places; a new creation takes place beneath the eye.

The weather grew gradually clearer, but not bright; yet we could see
the shore and appreciate the extent of these noble waters.

Coming up the river St. Clair, we saw Indians for the first time. They
were camped out on the bank. It was twilight, and their blanketed forms,
in listless groups or stealing along the bank, with a lounge and a
stride so different in its wildness from the rudeness of the white
settler, gave me the first feeling that I really approached the West.

The people on the boat were almost all New Englanders, seeking their
fortunes. They had brought with them their habits of calculation, their
cautious manners, their love of polemics. It grieved me to hear these
immigrants who were to be the fathers of a new race, all, from the old
man down to the little girl, talking not of what they should do, but of
what they should get in the new scene. It was to them a prospect, not of