SW_GH1804_099

This they prefer for making a raft, on account of its lightness when dried, it being a wood nearly as light as cork. The Indians tie together small logs of the buckeye wood, to form a square of about five or six feet, this they cross by pieces of any other description of wood, confining piece to piece by bark strings, splits of hoop ash, &;c. Upon a raft of this description, three or four persons will cross their rivers even though the currenthe against them. We had not been long in harbor, before our anxiety to proceed exceeded our patience, and observing in view at an apparent distance of one and a half to two miles from us, about fifty houses resembling a village, we concluded to abandon our peroque, walk to the settlement, and then endeavor to procure horses to take us to Detroit. At 11 o'clock this morning we set out for this purpose, followed by our men with our baggage on their backs, and after walking over a wet prairie, through mud and water, half a leg and more in depth, for the distance of nearly six miles, we reached the place. Viewing this set-tlement from the lake, and over a tract so level that the elevation between it and us did not ex-ceed two feet, occasioned us to be so greatly de-ceived in the distance. On arriving we found that, instead of a village, it was a settlement of French farmers situated along the river Raisin, and presenting a very beautiful scene. The