which contains about 7,500 inhabitants.

Resuming our trip the next forenoon, a short course brought us to the
terminus of our voyage on Lake Huron; when reaching the _Straits of
Mackinaw_, whose blue green waves divide the State of Michigan.

Extending nearly nine miles in circumference, and rising at its highest
point over 300 feet above the waves, we beheld the famous _Mackinaw
Island_, which has filled an important place in the history of
exploration. Here was the meeting place of the daring French _voyageurs_
and _aventuriers_, before the pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock. Many wild
and thrilling incidents in the lives of Marquette, Hennepin, and La Salle
occurred on this island; and over at Point St. Ignace, in plain view,
Marquette was escorted to his burial place by a hundred canoes of plumed
and painted Ottawa and Huron warriors in 1677.

Just across, on the most northern point of the Lower Peninsula, stood old
Fort Mackinaw, the scene of the terrible massacre of the whites by the
Indians under Pontiac in 1763.

On this island were fought two battles in the war of 1812. It was here
that Schoolcraft wrote his celebrated History of the North American
Indians, and the Legend of Hiawatha, which Longfellow, visiting him here,
afterward expanded into a poem.

The island's varied scenery, and its history and traditions, have been
portrayed in vivid word pictures by Marion Harland in a book, bearing the
title "With the Best Intentions," by which she has recently added to her
wide fame.