This long and circuitous tour gave me a general idea of this portion of
the Union, and enabled me to institute many comparisons between the
manners and customs and advantages of New York and New England.
I am again compelled to lay my pencil aside by the quantity of water
thrown into the canoe by the paddles of the men, who have been roused up
by the increasing waves.
_4th_. We went on under a press of sail last evening until eight
o'clock, when we encamped in a wide sandy bay in the Straits of
Michigan, having come a computed distance of 80 miles. On looking about,
we found in the sand the stumps of cedar pickets, forming an antique
enclosure, which, I judged, must have been the first site of the Mission
of St. Ignace, founded by Pierre Marquette, upwards of a hundred and
eighty years ago. Not a lisp of such a ruin had been heard by me
previously. French and Indian tradition says nothing of it. The
inference is, however, inevitable. Point St. Ignace draws its name from
it. It was afterwards removed and fixed at the blunt peninsula, or
headland, which the Indians call _Peekwutino_, the old Mackinac of
the French.
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