, were, at the period embraced by our story,
inhospitable and unproductive woods, subject only to the
dominion of the native, and as yet unshorn by the axe of
the cultivator. A few portions only of the opposite shores
of Michigan were occupied by emigrants from the Canadas,
who, finding no one to oppose or molest them, selected
the most fertile spots along the banks of the river; and
of the existence of these infant settlements, the English
colonists, who had never ventured so far, were not even
aware until after the conquest of Canada by the mother-
country. This particular district was the centre around
which the numerous warriors, who had been driven westward
by the colonists, had finally assembled; and rude villages
and encampments rose far and near for a circuit of many
miles around this infant settlement and fort of the
Canadians, to both of which they had given the name of
Detroit, after the river on whose elevated banks they
stood. Proceeding westward from this point, and along
the tract of country that diverged from the banks of the
Lakes Huron, Sinclair, and Michigan, all traces of that
partial civilisation were again lost in impervious wilds,
tenanted only by the fiercest of the Indian tribes, whose
homes were principally along the banks of that greatest
of American waters, the Lake Superior, and in the country
surrounding the isolated fort of Michilimackinac, the
last and most remote of the European fortresses in Canada.
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