midway between Amherstburg and Detroit, are to be seen,
containing the accumulated Indian dead of many years,
tumuli, rudely executed it is true, but picturesquely
decorated with such adornments as it is the custom of
these simple mannered people to bestow on the last
sanctuaries of their departed friends. Some three or four
miles, and across the water, (for here it is that the
river acquires her fullest majesty of expansion,) is to
be seen the American Island of Gros Isle, which, at the
period of which we write, bore few traces of cultivation
--scarcely a habitation being visible throughout its
extent--various necks of land, however, shoot out abruptly,
and independently of the channel running between it and
the American main shore, form small bays or harbours in
which boats may always find shelter and concealment.

Thus far the view to the right of the spectator, whom we
assume to be facing the river. Immediately opposite to
the covering demi lune, and in front of the fort, appears,
at a distance of less than half a mile, a blockhouse and
battery, crowning the western extremity of the Island of
Bois Blanc, which, one mile in length and lashed at its
opposite extremity by the waters of Lake Erie, at this
precise point, receives into her capacious bosom the vast
tribute of the noble river connecting her with the higher
lakes. Between this island and the Canadian shore lies
the only navigable channel for ships of heavy tonnage,
for although the waters of the Detroit are of vast depth
every where above the island, they are near their point
of junction with the lake, and, in what is called the