Page:The first and last journeys of Thoreau - lately discovered among his unpublished journals and manuscripts 2.djvu/117

 order. A few letters home, such as he must have written, would perhaps thread these beads on a connected string; but until such letters are found, we must be content with individual bits.

The summer at Mackinaw was cold, and Thoreau sat by his fire July 2, chatting with one person or another about the climate and customs of the region. The ice in those upper lake waters, he finds, forms about the middle of January, and lasts till April; indeed, in June, &quot;quite recently&quot; ice had been seen at a bend of Lake Superior. He gets away from this chilly northwest passage on July 4, at night, sailing to Goderich in Canada in the propeller Sun, and reaching there by ten at night, July 5. The next day was consumed in reaching Toronto, where Sunday, July 7, was passed. On the 8th he sailed for Ogdensburg, New York, and thence went by railroad, through Vermont and New Hampshire, to Concord, fatigued, and after a shorter absence than he had contemplated.

On the scrap of a letter from Chauncey Smith, a Boston lawyer, enclosing an endorsed note of hand, payable April 23, 1860,