arating from its purity. The distance about three leagues. We
landed a few moments at Point aux Pins, to range along the clean sandy
shore, and sandy plains, now abounding in fine whortleberries. Directly
on putting out from this, the broad view of the entrance into the lake
burst upon us. It is magnificent. A line of blue water stretched like a
thread on the horizon, between cape and cape, say five miles. Beyond it
is what the Chippewas call _Bub-eesh-ko-be,_ meaning the far off,
indistinct prospect of a water scene, till the reality, in the feeble
power of human vision, loses itself in the clouds and sky. The two
prominences of Point Iroquois and Gross Cape are very different in
character. The former is a bold eminence covered with trees, and having
all the appearance of youth and verdure. The latter is but the end, so
to say, of a towering ridge of dark primary rocks with a few stunted
cedars. The first exhibits, on inspection, a formation of sandstone and
reproduced rocks, piled stratum super stratum, and covered with boulder
drifts and alluvion. The second is a massive mountain ridge of the
northern sienite, abounding in black crystaline hornblende, and flanked
at lower altitudes, in front, in some places, by a sort of trachyte. We
clambered up and over the bold undulations of the latter, till we were
fatigued. We stood on the highest pinnacle, and gazed on the "blue
profound" of Superior, the great water or Gitchegomee of the Indians. We
looked down far below at the clean ridges of pebbles, and the
transparent water. After gazing, and looking, and reveling in the wild
magnificence of views, we picked our way, crag by crag, to the shore,
and sat down on the shining banks of black, white, and mottled pebbles,
and did ample justice to the contents of our baskets of good things.
This always restores one's spirits. We forget the toil in the present
enjoyment. And having done this, and giving our last looks at what has
been poetically called the Father of Lakes, we put out, with paddles and
song, and every heart beating in unison with the scene, for our
starting-point at Ba-wa-teeg, or Pa-wa-teeg, alias Sault Ste. Marie. But
the half of my story would not be told, if I did not add that, as we
gained the brink of the rapids, and began to feel the suction of the
wide current that leaps, jump after jump, over that foaming bed, our
inclinations and our courage rose together to go down the formidable
pass; and having full fait