We were received by the few residents favorably, as has been indicated.  Prominent among the number of residents who came to greet us was Mr. John Johnston, a gentleman from the north of Ireland, of whose romantic settlement and adventures here we had heard at Detroit.  He gave us a warm welcome, and freely offered every facility in his power to contribute to the personal comfort of the officers and their families, and the general objects of the government.  Mr. J. is slightly lame, walking with a cane.  He is of the medium stature, with blue eyes, fair complexion, hair which still bears traces of its original light brown, and possesses manners and conversation so entirely easy and polite as to impress us all very favorably.

Colonel Brady selected some large open fields, not susceptible of a surprise, for his encampment.  To this spot, as boat after boat came up, in fine style, with its complement of men from the steamer, the several companies marched down, and before nightfall, the entire command was encamped in a square, with their tents handsomely pitched, and the whole covered by lines of sentinels, and under the exact government of troops in the field.  The roll of the drum which had attracted but little attention on the steamer, assumed a deeper tone, as it was re-echoed from the adjoining woods, and now distinctly announced, from time to time, the placing of sentinels, the hour for supper, and other offices of a clock, in civil life.  The French population evinced, by their countenances and gestures, as they clustered round, a manifest satisfaction at the movement; the groups of Indians had gazed in a sort of silent wonder at the pageant; they seemed, by a certain air of secrecy and suspicion, to think it boded some evil to their long supremacy in the land.  Night imperceptibly threw her dark mantle over the scene; the gazers, group by group, went to their lodges, and finally the sharp roll of the tattoo bid every one within the camp to his tent.  Captain Alexander R. Thompson, who had claimed the commandant as his guest, invited me also to spend the night in his tent.  We could plainly hear the deep murmur of the falls, after we lay down to rest, and also the monotonous thump of the distant Indian wabeno drum.  Yet at this remote point, so far from the outer verge of civilization, we found in Mr. Johnston a man of singular energy and independence of character, from one of the most refined circles of Europe; who had pushed his way here to the foot of Lake Superior about the year 1793; had engaged in the fur trade, to repair the shattered fortunes of his house; had married the daughter of the ruling Ogima or Forest King of the Chippewas; had raised and educated a large family, and was then living, in the only building in the place deserving the name of a comfortable residence, with the manners and conversation of a perfect gentleman, the sentiments of a man of honor, and the liberality of a lord.  He had a library of the best English works; spent most of his time in reading and conducting the affairs of an extensive business; was a man of social qualities, a practical philanthropist, a well-read historian, something of a poet, and talked of Europe and its connections as things from which he was probably forever separated, and looked back towards it only as the land of reminiscences.