legend it rose suddenly from the calm bosom of the lake at the sunset
hour. In their fancy it took the form of a huge turtle, and so they
bestowed upon it the name of Moc-che-ne-nock-e-nung. In the Ojibway
mythology it became the home of the Great Fairies, and to this day it is
said to be a sacred spot to all Indians who preserve the memory of the
primal times. The fairies lived in a subterranean abode under the
island, and an old sagamore, Chees-a-kee, is related to have been
conducted _a la_ Æneus, in Virgil, to the halls of the spirits and
to have seen them all assembled in the spacious wigwam. Had some bard
taken up the tale of this fortunate individual, the literature of the
red man might have boasted an epic ranking perhaps with the Æneid or the
Iliad.
From the walls of old Fort Holmes, two hundred feet above the lake, a
fine view is obtained of the island and its surroundings. Westward is
Point St. Ignace, a sharply defined cape running out from the mainland
into the strait. There rest the bones of good Father Marquette, who, in
1671, erected a chapel on the island and began to Christianize the wild
natives of this region. On the northwest we see the "Sitting Rabbits,"
two curious-looking rockhills which bear a singular resemblance to our
common American hare. Eastward stretches away the boundless inland sea,
a beautiful greenish-blue, to the horizon. The mountains of St. Martin,
and the hills from which flow Carp and Pine Rivers meet the northern
vision. To the south is Boisblanc Island, lying like an emerald paradise
on the bosom of Lake Huron, and close beside it, as if seeking
protection, is lovely Round Island. Among all these islands, and laving
the shores of the adjacent mainland, are the rippling waves of the lake,
now lying as if asleep in the flooding light, anon white-capped and
angry, driven by the strong winds. Beneath us are the undulations of
billowy green foliage, calm and cool, intersected with carriage-roads,
and showing yonder the white stones of the soldiers' and citizens'
graves. Here, down by the water, and close under the fort, the white,
quaint houses lie wrapped in light and quiet. Breezes cool and
delightful, breezes that have traversed the broad expanse of the lakes,
blow over your face softly, as in Indian myth blows the wind from the
Land of Souls. The scene and the hour lulls you into a sense of
delicious quietude. You are aroused by the shrill whistle of a steamer,
and you descend dockward to note the fresh arrivals.
Several days' excursions do not exhaust the island. One day we go to
see Arch Rock, a beautiful natural bridge of rock spanning a chasm some
eighty feet in height and forty in width. The summit is one hundred and
fifty feet above the level. Another day we visit Sugar-loaf Rock, an
isolated conical shape one hundred and forty feet high, rising from a
plateau in the centre of the island. A hole half-way up its side is
large enough to hold a dozen persons, and has in it the names of a
hundred eager aspirants after immortality. On the southwest side of the
island is a perpendicular rock bluff, rising one hundred and fifty feet
from the lake and called "Lover's Leap." The legend was told us one
afternoon by Hugh, as follows:--
"In the ancient time, when the red men held their councils in this heart
of the waters, and the lake around rippled to the canoe fleets of
warrior tribes going and returning, a young Ojibway girl had her home on
this sacred isle. Her name was Mae-che-ne-mock-qua, and she was
beautiful as the sunrise of a summer morning. She had many lovers, but
only to one brave did the blooming Indian girl give her heart. Often
would Mae-che-ne-mock-qua wander to this solitary rock and gaze out upon
the wide waters after the receding canoes of the combined Ojibway and
Ottawa bands, speeding south for scalps and glory. There, too, she
always watched for their return, for among them was the one she loved,
an eagle-plumed warrior, Ge-win-e-gnon, the bravest of the brave. The
west wind often wafted the shouts of the victorious braves far in
advance of them as they returned from the mainland, and highest above
all she always heard the voice of Ge-win-e-gnon. But one time, in the
chorus of shouts, the maiden heard no longer the voice of her lover. Her
heart told her that he had gone to the spirit-land behind the sunset,
and she should no more behold his face among the chieftains. So it was:
a Huron arrow had pierced his heart, and his last words were of his
maiden in the Fairy Isle. Sad grew the heart of the lovely
Mae-che-ne-mock-qua. She had no wish to live. She could only stand on
the cliff and gaze at the west, where the form of her lover appeared
beckoning her to follow him. One morning her mangled body was found at
the foot of the cliff; she had gone to meet her lover in the
spirit-land. So love gained its sacrifice and a maiden became immortal."
A well-earned night's sleep, bathed in this highly ozoned lake
atmosphere, which magically soothes every nerve and refreshes every
sense like an elixir, and we are off again on the broad bosom of the
Mackinaw strait, threading a verdant labyrinth of emerald islets and
following the course of Father Jacques Marquette, who two hundred years
before us had set off from the island in two canoes, with his friend
Louis Joliet, to explore and Christianize the region of the Mississippi.
We looked back upon the Fairy Island with regretful eyes, and as it sunk
into the lake Hugh repeated the lines of the poet:--
"A gem amid gems, set in blue yielding waters,
Is Mackinac Island with cliffs girded round,
For her eagle-plumed braves and her true-hearted daughters;
Long, long ere the pale face came widely renowned.
"Tradition invests thee with Spirit and Fairy;
Thy dead soldiers' sleep shall no drum-beat awake,
While about thee the cool winds do lovingly tarry
And kiss thy green brows with the breath of the lake.
"Thy memory shall haunt me wherever life reaches,
Thy day-dreams of fancy, thy night's balmy sleep,
The plash of thy waters along the smooth beaches,
The shade of thine evergreens, grateful and deep.
"O Mackinac Island! rest long in thy glory!
Sweet native to peacefulness, home of delight!
Beneath thy soft ministry, care and sad worry
Shall flee from the weary eyes blessed with thy sight."
"That poet had taste," remarked our friend when he had concluded.
"Beautiful Isle! No wonder the great missionary wished his bones to rest
within sight of its shores. Marquette never seemed to me so great as
now. He was one of those Jesuits like Zinzendorf and Sebastian Ralle,
wonderful men, all of them, full of energy and adventure and missionary
zeal, and devoted to the welfare of their order. At the age of thirty he
was sent among the Hurons as a missionary. He founded the mission of
Sault de Ste. Marie in Lake Superior, in 1668, and three years later
that of Mackinaw. In 1673, in company with Joliet and five other
Frenchmen, the adventurous missionary set out on a voyage toward the
South Sea. They followed the Mississippi to the Gulf, and returning,
arrived at Green Bay in September. In four months they had traveled a
distance of twenty-five hundred miles in an open canoe. Marquette was
sick a whole year, but in 1674, at the solicitation of his superior, set
out to preach to the Kaskaskia Indians. He was compelled to halt on the
way by his infirmities, and remained all winter at the place, with only
two Frenchmen to minister to his wants. As soon as it was spring,
knowing full well that he could not live, he attempted to return to
Mackinaw. He died on the way, on a small river that bears his name,
which empties into Lake Michigan on the western shore. His memory
en-wreathes the very names of Superior and Michigan with the halo of
romance."
"Thank you," said Vincent, looking out over the dark water. "I can fancy
his ghost haunting the lake at midnight."
"Speak not of that down at the Queen City," returned Hugh, with a tragic
air. "Pork and grain are more substantial things than ghosts at Chicago,
and they might look on you as an escaped lunatic. Nathless, it was a
pretty idea to promulgate among the Indians two centuries ago. Observe
how civilization has changed. Two hundred years ago we sent missionaries
among them: now we send soldiers to shoot them down, after we have
plundered them of their lands."
Neither of us were disposed to discuss the Indian question with Hugh
Warren, and the conversation dropped after a while.
At noon of the next day the steamer made Milwaukee, and the evening of
the day after Chicago. These two cities are excellent types of the
Western city, and both show, in a wonderful degree, the rapid growth of
towns in the great West. Neither had an inhabitant before 1825, and now
one has a population of one hundred thousand, and the other of five
hundred thousand. Chicago is, in fact, a wonder of the world. Its
unparalleled growth, its phoenix-like rise from the devastation of the
great fire of 1871, and its cosmopolitan character, all contribute to
render it a remarkable city.
The city looks out upon the lake like a queen, as in fact she is,
crowned by the triple diadem of beauty, wealth, and dignity. She is the
commercial metropolis of the whole Northwest, an emporium second only to
New York in the quantity of her imports and exports. The commodious
harbor is thronged with shipping. Her water communication has a vast
area. Foreign consuls from Austria, France, Great Britain, Belgium,
Italy, Sweden, Germany, and the Netherlands, have their residence in the
city. It is an art-centre, and almost equally with Brooklyn is entitled
to be called a city of churches.
A week is a short time to devote to seeing all that this queen city has
that is interesting, and that included every day we spent there. Neither
in a sketch like the present shall we have space to give more than we
have done--a general idea of the city. One day about noon we steamed out
of the harbor, on a magnificent lake-steamer, bound for Duluth. We were
to have a run of over seven hundred miles with but a single
stopping-place the whole distance. It would be three days before we
should step on land again.
"Farewell, a long farewell, to the city of the Indian sachem," said
Hugh, as the grand emporium and railway-centre grew dim in the distance.
"By the way," continued he, "are you aware that the correct etymology of
the name Chicago is not generally known?"
Vincent and I confessed that we did not even know the supposed etymology
of the name.
"No matter about that," went on the Historian. "The name is undoubtedly
Indian, corrupted from Chercaqua, the name of a long line of chiefs,
meaning strong, also applied to a wild onion. Long before the white men
knew the region the site of Chicago was a favorite rendezvous of several
Indian tribes. The first geographical notice of the place occurs in a
map dated Quebec, Canada, 1683, as 'Fort Chicagon.' Marquette camped on
the site during the winter of 1674-5. A fort was built there by the
French and afterward abandoned. So you see that Chicago has a history
that is long anterior to the existence of the present city. Have a
cigar, Montague?"
Clouds of fragrant tobacco-smoke soon obscured the view of the Queen
City of the Northwest, busy with life above the graves of the Indian
sagamores whose memories she has forgotten.
On the third day we steamed past Mackinaw, and soon made the ship-canal
which was constructed for the passage of large ships, a channel a dozen
miles long and half a mile wide. And now, hurrah! We are on the waters
of Lake Superior, the "Gitche Gumee, the shining Big Sea-Water," of
Longfellow's musical verse. The lake is a great sea. Its greatest length
is three hundred and sixty miles, its greatest breadth one hundred and
forty miles; the whole length of its coast is fifteen hundred miles. It
has an area of thirty-two thousand square miles, and a mean depth of one
thousand feet. These dimensions show it to be by far the largest body of
fresh water on the globe.
Nothing can be conceived more charming than a cruise on this lake in
summer. The memories of the lake are striking and romantic in the
extreme. There is a background of history and romance which renders
Superior a classic water. It was a favorite fishing-ground for several
tribes of Indians, and its aboriginal name Ojibwakechegun, was derived
from one of these, the Ojibways, who lived on the southern shore when
the lake first became known to white men. The waters of the lake vary in
color from a dazzling green to a sea-blue, and are stocked with all
kinds of excellent fish. Numerous islands are scattered about the lake,
some low and green, others rocky and rising precipitately to great
heights directly up from the deep water. The coast of the lake is for
the most part rocky. Nowhere upon the inland waters of North America is
the scenery so bold and grand as around Lake Superior. Famous among
travelers are those precipitous walls of red sandstone on the south
coast, described in all the earlier accounts of the lake as the
"Pictured Rocks." They stand opposite the greatest width of the lake and
exposed to the greatest force of the heavy storms from the north. The
effect of the waves upon them is not only seen in their irregular shape,
but the sand derived from their disintegration is swept down the coast
below and raised by the winds into long lines of sandy cliffs. At the
place called the Grand Sable these are from one hundred to three hundred
feet high, and the region around consists of hills of drifting sand.
Half-way across the lake Keweenaw Point stretches out into the water.
Here the steamer halted for wood. We landed on the shore in a beautiful
grove. "What a place for a dinner!" cried one of the party.
"Glorious! glorious!" chimed in a dozen voices.
"How long has the boat to wait?" asked Hugh.
"One hour," was the answer of the weather-beaten son of Neptune.
"That gives us plenty of time," was the general verdict. So without more
ado lunch-baskets were brought ashore. The steamer's steward was
prevailed upon, by a silver dollar thrust slyly into his hand, to help
us, and presently the whole party was feasting by the lakeside. And what
a royal dining-room was that grove, its outer pillars rising from the
very lake itself, its smooth brown floor of pine-needles, arabesqued
with a flitting tracery of sun shadows and fluttering leaves, and giving
through the true Gothic arches of its myriad windows glorious views of
the lake that lay like an enchanted sea before us! And whoever dined
more regally, more divinely, even, though upon nectar and ambrosia, than
our merry-makers as they sat at their well-spread board, with such
glowing, heaven-tinted pictures before their eyes, such balmy airs
floating about their happy heads, and such music as the sunshiny waves
made in their glad, listening ears? It was like a picture out of
Hiawatha. At least it seemed to strike our young lady so, who in a voice
of peculiar sweetness and power recited the opening of the twenty-second
book of that poem:--
"By the shore of Gitche Gumee,
By the shining Big Sea-Water,
At the doorway of his wigwam,
In the pleasant Summer morning,
Hiawatha stood and waited.
All the air was full of freshness.
All the earth was bright and joyous,
And before him, through the sunshine,
Westward toward the neighboring forest
Passed in golden swarms the Ahmo,
Passed the bees, the honey-makers,
Burning, singing in the sunshine.
Bright above him shone the heavens,
Level spread the lake before him;
From its bosom leaped the sturgeon,
Sparkling, flashing in the sunshine;
On its margin the great forest
Stood reflected in the water,
Every treetop had its shadow
Motionless beneath the water."
"Thank you, Miss," said Hugh, gallantly. "We only need a wigwam with
smoke curling from it under these trees, and a 'birch canoe with
paddles, rising, sinking on the water, dripping, flashing in the
sunshine,' to complete the picture. It's a pity the Indians ever left
this shore."
"So the settlers of Minnesota thought in '62," observed Vincent,
ironically.
"The Indians would have been all right if the white man had stayed
away," replied the Historian, hotly.
"In that case we should not be here now, and, consequently"--
What promised to be quite a warm discussion was killed in the embryo by
the captain's clear cry, "All aboard!"
Once more we were steaming westward toward the land of the Dacotahs.
That night we all sat up till after midnight to see the last of our
lake, for in the morning Duluth would be in sight. It was a night never
to be forgotten. The idle words and deeds of my companions have faded
from my mind, but never will the memory of the bright lake rippling
under that moonlit sky.
A city picturesquely situated on the side of a hill which overlooks the
lake and rises gradually toward the northwest, reaching the height of
six hundred feet a mile from the shore, with a river on one side. That
is Duluth. The city takes its name from Juan du Luth, a French officer,
who visited the region in 1679. In 1860 there were only seventy white
inhabitants in the place, and in 1869 the number had not much increased.
The selection of the village as the eastern terminus of the Northern
Pacific Railroad gave it an impetus, and now Duluth is a city of fifteen
thousand inhabitants, and rapidly growing. The harbor is a good one, and
is open about two hundred days in the year. Six regular lines of
steamers run to Chicago, Cleveland, Canadian ports, and ports on the
south shore of Lake Superior. The commerce of Duluth, situated as it is
in the vicinity of the mineral districts on both shores of the lake,
surrounded by a well-timbered country, and offering the most convenient
outlet for the products of the wheat region further west, is of growing
importance. In half a century Duluth will be outranked in wealth and
population by no more than a dozen cities in America.
Our stay at Duluth was protracted many days. One finds himself at home
in this new Western city, and there are a thousand ways in which to
amuse yourself. If you are disposed for a walk, there are any number of
delightful woodpaths leading to famous bits of beach where you may sit
and dream the livelong day without fear of interruption or notice. If
you would try camping-out, there are guides and canoes right at your
hand, and the choice of scores of beautiful and delightful spots within
easy reach of your hotel or along the shore of the lake and its numerous
beautiful islands, or as far away into the forest as you care to
penetrate. Lastly, if piscatorially inclined, here is a boathouse with
every kind of boat from the steam-yacht down to the birch canoe, and
there is the lake, full of "lakers," sturgeon, whitefish, and speckled
trout, some of the latter weighing from thirty to forty pounds
apiece,--a condition of things alike satisfactory and tempting to every
owner of a rod and line.
The guides, of whom there are large numbers to be found at Duluth, as
indeed at all of the northern border towns, are a class of men too
interesting and peculiar to be passed over without more than a cursory
notice. These men are mostly French-Canadians and Indians, with now and
then a native, and for hardihood, skill, and reliability, cannot be
surpassed by any other similar class of men the world over. They are
usually men of many parts, can act equally well as guide, boatman,
baggage-carrier, purveyor, and cook. They are respectful and chivalrous:
no woman, be she old or young, fair or faded, fails to receive the most
polite and courteous treatment at their hands, and with these qualities
they possess a manly independence that is as far removed from servility
as forwardness. Some of these men are strikingly handsome, with shapely
statuesque figures that recall the Antinous and the Apollo Belvidere.
Their life is necessarily a hard one, exposed as they are to all sorts
of weather and the dangers incidental to their profession. At a
comparatively early age they break down, and extended excursions are
left to the younger and more active members of the fraternity.
Camping-out, provided the weather is reasonably agreeable, is one of the
most delightful and healthful ways to spend vacation. It is a sort of
woodman's or frontier life. It means living in a tent, sleeping on
boughs or leaves, cooking your own meals, washing your own dishes and
clothes perhaps, getting up your own fuel, making your own fire, and
foraging for your own provender. It means activity, variety, novelty,
and fun alive; and the more you have of it the more you like it; and the
longer you stay the less willing you are to give it up. There is a
freedom in it that you do not get elsewhere. All the stiff formalties of
conventional life are put aside: you are left free to enjoy yourself as
you choose. All in all, it is the very best way we know to enjoy a
"glorious vacation."
At Duluth, at Sault de Ste. Marie, at Mackinaw, at Saginaw, we wandered
away days at a time, with nothing but our birch canoe, rifles, and
fishing-rods, and for provisions, hard bread, pork, potatoes, coffee,
tea, rice, butter, and sugar, closely packed. Any camper-out can make
himself comfortable with an outfit as simple as the one named. How
memory clings around some of those bright spots we visited! I pass over
them again, in thought, as I write these lines, longing to nestle amid
them forever.
Following along the coast, now in small yachts hired for the occasion,
now in a birch canoe of our own, we passed from one village to another.
Wherever we happened to be at night, we encamped. Many a time it was on
a lonely shore. Standing at sunset on a pleasant strand, more than once
we saw the glow of the vanished sun behind the western mountains or the
western waves, darkly piled in mist and shadow along the sky; near at
hand, the dead pine, mighty in decay, stretching its ragged arms athwart
the burning heavens, the crow perched on its top like an image carved in
jet; and aloft, the night-hawk, circling in his flight, and, with a
strange whining sound, diving through the air each moment for the
insects he makes his prey.
But all good things, as well as others, have an end. The season drew to
a close at last. August nights are chilly for sleeping in tents. Our
flitting must cease, and our thoughts and steps turn homeward. But a few
days are still left us. At Buffalo once more we go to see the Falls.
Then by boat to Hamilton, thence to Kingston at the foot of the lake,
and so on through the Thousand Isles to Montreal, and finally to
Quebec,--a tour as fascinating in its innumerable and singularly wild
and beautiful "sights" as heart could desire.
* * * * *
OUR NATIONAL CEMETERIES.
By Charles Cowley, LL.D.
There are circumstances generally attending the death of the soldier or
the sailor, whether on battle-field or gun-deck, whether in the
captives' prison, the cockpit, or the field-hospital, which touch our
sensibilities far more deeply than any circumstances which usually
attend the death of men of any other class; moving within us mingled
emotions of pathos and pity, of mystery and awe.
"There is a tear for all that die,
A mourner o'er the humblest grave;
But nations swell the funeral cry,
And freedom weeps above the brave;
"For them is sorrow's purest sigh,
O'er ocean's heaving bosom sent;
In vain their bones unburied lie,--
All earth becomes their monument.
"A tomb is their's on every page;
An epitaph on every tongue;
The present hours, the future age,
Nor them bewail, to them belong.
"A theme to crowds that knew them not,
Lamented by admiring foes,
Who would not share their glorious lot?
Who would not die the death they chose?"
A similar halo invests our National Cemeteries--which are the most
permanent mementos of our sanguinary Civil War.
Nature labors diligently to cover up her scars. Most of the
battle-fields of the Rebellion now show growths of use and beauty. Many
of the structures of that great conflict have already ceased to be. Some
of them have been swept away by the winds or overgrown with weeds;
others, like Fort Wagner, have been washed away by the waves. But
neither winds nor waves are likely to disturb the monuments or the
cemeteries of our soldiers and sailors. Where they were placed, there
they remain; "and there they will remain forever."
The seventy-eight National Cemeteries distributed over the country
contain the remains of three hundred and eighteen thousand four hundred
and fifty-five men, classed as follows: known, 170,960; unknown,
147,495; total, 318,455. And these are not half of those whose deaths
are attributable to their service in the armies and navies of the United
States and the Confederate States, who are buried in all sections of the
Union and in foreign lands.