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