New-York tribune., 1873-08-02
ON LAKE ERIE.
GOING TO THE WINE ISLANDS.

70 tke EDITOR Of The Tribune.
SIR: We took the morning boat at To-
ledo for the Islands, as the Put-in'Bay group
is briefly called everywhere along the shores VI
Erie. The morning boat was OF course ian.
steamer and lake steamer has "ancestral traits OF
all American steam craft, from the Hudson Rivers
dream Of upholstery to the Mssisspps floating appre
hension OF pentup terrible possibilities. Your IaKe
steamer, though, looks most ike her sInewy granu-
mother Sound not 80 large and not 80 Deautiu'
perhaps Just human In the passengers she car
ries. 1t win, indeed, strike almost any philosopher
think that human nature is good deal more human III
the West than 1t is anywhere else The people here
have not learned not TO laugh when they are uckied
which is but an indicative In the vast solid OF their
negative wisdom. They sometimes get out OF the pre-
scribed lines Of grace in other ways, but IL Is generay
over into the lines OF good health All this as need
hardly be said. has much to do, subjechvey and oo-
jectiyely with that wondros Arabian tale or agricu
ture and commerce, the growth of the west rnese
people have found out that they cannot do every
thing and that suppose, is why they do it-or, at
least, do almost anything.
One notices here-among the passengers, at least
almost total absence OF the profound melancholy usu
ally prevailing pleasure excursions In our remote
East And the lake steamers plying from Toledo ana
Sandusky and Detroit To the Islands have one long sea-
son of pleasure excursions Each OF them, IKE the
cricket ia the instructive poem, spends all the sum-
mer dancer" IL Is truth odd spectacle, here In
the heart of commercial continent 10 see commerce III
gala dress"on pleasure bent, but with frugal mlrd
fancy that Il gives the officers and crews or these
steamers gloomy afr IL does not seem right 20 them
They have the usual hearty courtesy OF the West 10 DO
sure but they have too, sad, far-away l00K' as II
they were securing the horizon for soberer job There
was remember, some ethng particularly fierce ana
boodhrsy in the expression of the COOK on ooaru our
steamer as he plunged his long fork into roast OF beef
and turned 1t over, to the music OF dancing party hot
very far from his kitchen He could not have disnked
music in general noticed that he kept time to this
in all his moyements-especiany In stirring tue
gravy. I thiuk 1t funeral march
that he wanted, just for change. Tho tourist from
Toledo the Islands blown into consciousness that
he is ahoat and under way soon as the steamer ges
turned around. Two bridges the Maumee here,
and they have be whstled open to let us pass You
reasonably to be pretty close to the whistle at
the time and you drop capetbag and seize your
ears attend strictly to the movements OF the
and OF the pleasure excursion The bridges swing
open In turn like the gates OF Thebes, some place. to
the notes Of Amphion's fiddle but you do MT THINK OF
that till you come to write it up afterward, and then
you wish you had classical dictionary TO see whether
you have got the alusion right. Any now, you ma
yourself going down the Maumee River There is an old
song which has fossized slander about crossing this
stream on the and eating potato-tops.
dismiss IL, and with it the "reminiscences OF
those estmable people who remember Toledo as a VII
age with two tayerns emphasized by murder, and
the other illuminated and glorifed by barber-poe'
Toledo now caimsand any Western city ever been
backward about its claims $1,000 inhabitants There
are old gentlemen who go about doing nothing but
watch Toledo grow and makes them irregular at their
meals they can't get around in time. There is one in
genious gentleman in particular, who has pursued
Toedos growth literature and the future until the
world has nothing match its grandeur witha; and
from which the common Imagination, too, comes DacK
weary and reckless OF its regular food Surely the truth
is enough Of years ago village to-day one OF
the great grain markets OF the earth, with private pal
aces enough to stock an ordinary Old World Kingdom
and energy young blood enough to rear and stock as
many more palaces--why should Toledo want any re-
cord but that past and future but that which
1t promisesf
The foregoing might have been your refections-T
confess they not mine just then-as the steamer
gded out between the beautiful green banks Of the
Maumee into the bay. The current of the stream has
long since grown slow that the channel has got into
law tange and winds hither and hither around stakes
numbered like policemen and Just as unsteady on their
lonely watches ana go the rounds, and the stakes
nod 10 us as Familiarity IL they were politicians IN ther
ward Finally we find ourselves opposite squat little
clump Of sand and stones, with lighthouse on IT,
called Turtle Island, and lOnesomer than any saltwater
lighthouse you ever saw With the broad ocean for
field YOU could imagine the lone keeper eniiyened by
the probability that somebody might some time be
wrecked in his neighborhoOd; that he might at least
once in while, have the excitement OF burying
drowned fisherman or some OF that aquatic class OF
people who only heard OF at their funerals and then
very seldom have the good luck to be present at them
No such prospect for the solitary keeper OF
Turtle Island light. When you get there you are
IN smooth water and out OF danger well as out OF the
world. Nothing but suicide could make tragedy on
that desoaton and the chances are thousand to one
that the subject would almost anywhere else before
he would 60 to Turtle Island man does not want TO
90 to wretched spot when his disgust with life calls
simply for plain, single suicide he does not want to
double-shutie off this mortal coil. There was once
lake captain pensioned away as keeper
of this island. The good old gentleman was blind when
he went there and came away with his sight restored
You might at first suppose he looked long and eagerly
for something TO happen thatbut how could he under
the circumstances Is 1t not more probable that his
sight was mercfuy restored that he might at least
have faint occupation Of looking out for something
10 happen These questions indeed that might in
fuse wild excitement into the life OF the present keeper
but of no special interest pleasure traveller Suffice
it to say the old captain is still living to bear out the
truth OF the story.
Beyond Turtle Island the river water begins 10 min
gle with the blue blood Of the nobler lake. The two
points OF land which reach into the distant OF
that inland sea- holding the Maumee Bay In their arms
taper away in ngertps Of sparse trees. Fngertips-
that is exactly what they look like on sunny day,
touching the drowsy eyeds Of the horizon just where
they close The low, faro, dreamy borders OF the lake
seem to come and go In sleep. have noticed the same
sort of midday somnambusm in landscape among
ropis Islands Of the Pacific but nowhere else The low
levels of the shores, you sail away have queer
effect of walking OF backward Into the water. The nat
islands OF Lake Erie look in the distance ike patch OF
pondy leaves. As you approach gradually, the trees
appear wadng waistdeep with zone Of sky caspinS
them Just beneath the tops. This is another tropic
enect-the translation and apotheoss Of foliage We
shall find them, when We are nearer, very common
place forest trees with here and there perhaps ele