What a dismal, heart-rending scene! After all our
efforts in trying to reach Michigan, now I expected we must be lost. Oh
how vain the expectation of reaching our new place, in the woods! I
thought we should never see it. It looked to me as though Lake Erie would
terminate our journey.
It seemed as if we were being weighed in a great balance and that
wavering and swaying up and down; balanced about equally between hope and
fear, life and death.
[Illustration: "THE MICHIGAN."--AFTER LEAVING THE ISLAND IN THE
SPRING OF 1834.]
No one could tell which way it would turn with us. I made up my mind, and
promised if ever I reached terra-firma never to set foot on that lake
again; and I have kept my word inviolate. I was miserably sick, as were
nearly all the passengers. I tried to keep on my feet, as much as I
could; sometimes I would take hold of the railing and gaze upon the wild
terrific scene, or lean against whatever I could find, that was
stationary, near mother and the rest of the family. Mother was calm, but
I knew she had little hope that we would ever reach land. She said, her
children were all with her and we should not be parted in death; that we
should go together, and escape the dangers and tribulations of the
wilderness.
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