At half-past seven the next morning we were on our way to the Sault Ste.
Marie, in the little steamer General Scott. The wind was blowing fresh,
and a score of persons who had intended to visit the Sault were withheld
by the fear of seasickness, so that half a dozen of us had the steamer to
ourselves. In three or four hours we found ourselves gliding out of the
lake, through smooth water, between two low points of land covered with
firs and pines into the west strait. We passed Drummond”s Island, and then
coasted St. Joseph”s Island, on the woody shore of which I was shown a
solitary house. There I was told lives a long-nosed Englishman, a half-pay
officer, with two wives, sisters, each the mother of a numerous offspring.
This English polygamist has been more successful in seeking solitude than
in avoiding notoriety. The very loneliness of his habitation on the shore
causes it to be remarked, and there is not a passenger who makes the
voyage to the Sault, to whom his house is not pointed out, and his story
related. It was hinted to me that he had a third wife in Toronto, but I
have my private doubts of this part of the story, and suspect that it was
thrown in to increase my wonder.