The Wilderness And the War Path

rcised dominion over nearly the whole of that vast region, and the bold or inquisitive traveller who explored those desert shores, endured the various fatigues and perils incident to voyages of discovery into parts unknown to civilized men. There was the solitude of nature as it reigns undisturbed by human enterprise; and there roamed, alike untamed, the savage man and the wild beast. Beautiful to the eye, and highly exciting to the imagination, were those broad lakes, and their magnificent shores?the bays, the islets, the headlands, and all the attractive features of a blended woodland and water scenery ; but they were solitary and cheerless deserts. The scene is now changed, as if by magic. Those inland seas are covered with the fleets of commerce, their bays and inlets are studded with villages, their rivers pour out a daily and hourly tribute of rich freights, and their waters are cleft by steamboats, whose ample size, beauty of model, and magnificence of interior decoration, cause them to be justly described as floating palaces. The hard hand of industry is at work there, and pleasure spreads her glittering wing in the sunshine. Wealth is there with her millions, and enterprise prolific of novel schemes, and daring undertakings. Such are the wonderful changes which have taken place in all the larger lakes, but one. Lake Superior alone, remains surrounded by the silent forest, and the abodes of savage hunters; and there are permanent obstacles in the climat...