rather spend Sunday any time than on any lake in the world. Fortunately,
we had "been to the Falls" many times before, and had seen Niagara in
winter splendor and summer loveliness: so we were at liberty to idle away
the fleeting hours in the shades of Delaware Avenue, on charming piazzas,
till the time came when we must start on the flying trip through Canada if
we would overtake the steamer Japan.

She was just gliding into her dock at Detroit as we stepped from the cars,
and we still had three or four hours' leisure before she would start again
in which to drive about the pretty city and call on friends. Just before
midnight we embarked, and our first experience of the Great Lakes was a
night of peaceful and serene slumber.

Peaceful and serene, too, was the following day,--a patient waiting for
the scenery to begin, sitting with novels on what was facetiously known as
"the back piazza" of the Japan, out of sight of land, but gliding over a
sea so smooth that the hanging flower-baskets on the deck scarcely
stirred. If you scorn such tame delights when apparently at sea, remember
that it might have been rough as only lakes are rough in a great storm. It
was very warm. The captain's assurance that the next morning we should
want to borrow his overcoat and mittens had no effect in disguising the
fact that it was warm. The ladies dressed for dinner, many of them in
white; and the only excitement of the afternoon was the "sighting" of the
Michigan, United States man-of-war, cruising in lake-waters. A little knot
of officers on deck waved their handkerchiefs; a little knot of pretty
girls on the Japan were responding eagerly, when a severe and elderly
voice was heard to say, with distinctness, "The officers' wives are on
board the Japan. They are waving to _them_."

And in fact, as we glided past, a little child was seen at a port-hole of