While off the mural coast of the Pictured Rocks, the lake was perfectly calm, and the wind hushed.  I directed the men to row in to the cave or opening of the part where the water has made the most striking inroad upon the solid coast.  This coast is a coarse sandstone, easily disintegrated.  I doubted if the oarsmen could enter without pulling in their oars.  But nothing seemed easier when we attempted it.  They, in fact, rowed us, in a few moments, masts standing, into a most extraordinary and gigantic cave, under the loftiest part of the coast.  I thought of the rotunda in the Capitol at Washington, as giving some idea of its vastness, but nothing of its dark and sombre appearance; its vast side arches, and the singular influence of the light beaming in from the open lake.  I took out my note-book and drew a sketch of this very unique view.[88]

[Footnote 88:  See Ethnological Researches, vol. i., plate xliv.]

The next day the calmness continued on the lake, and I took advantage of it to visit the dimly seen island in the lake, off Presque Isle and Granite Point, called Nabikwon by the Indians, from the effects of mirage.  Its deep volcanic chasms, and upheaved rocks, tell a story of mighty elemental conflicts in the season of storms; but it did not reward me with much in the way of natural history, except in geological specimens.

Aug. 7th.  The Chippewas have some strange notions.  Articles which have been stepped over by Indian females are considered unclean, and are condemned by the men.  Great aversion is shown by the females at finding hairs drawn out by the comb, which they roll up, and, making a hole in the ashes, bury.

Indian females never go before a man:  they never walk in front in the path, or cross in front of the place where a sachem is sitting.

A man will never eat out of the same dish with a woman.  The lodge-separation, at the period of illness, is universally observed, where the original manners have not been broken down.  If she have no barks, or apukwas to make a separate lodge, a mere booth or bower of branches is made near by.

10th.  Mrs. Deborah Schoolcraft Johnson died at Albany, aged fifty-four years.  The father of this lady (John McKenzie, usually called McKenny) was a native of Scotland, and served with credit in the regiment of Royal Highlanders, before the Revolutionary War, of whose movements he kept a journal.  He was present during the siege of Fort Niagara, in 1759, witnessed the death of Gen. Prideau, and participated in the capture of the works, under Sir William Johnson.  He was also engaged in the movements of Gen. Bradstreet, to relieve the fort of Detroit from the hosts brought against it by Pontiac and his confederates three or four years after.  He settled, after the war, as a merchant at Anthony’s Nose, on the Mohawk, where he was surprised, his store and dwelling-house pillaged, and himself scalped.  He recovered from