We were received by Mrs. M., an extremely pretty, delicate woman, part French and part Sioux, whose early life had been passed at Prairie du Chien, on the Mississippi.  She had been a great belle among the young officers at Fort Crawford; so much so, indeed, that the suicide of the post-surgeon was attributed to an unsuccessful attachment he had conceived for her.  I was greatly struck with her soft and gentle manners, and the musical intonation of her voice, which I soon learned was a distinguishing peculiarity of those women in whom are united the French and native blood.

A lady, then upon a visit to the Mission, was of the company.  She insisted on my lying down upon the sofa, and ministered most kindly to my suffering head.  As she sat by my side, and expatiated upon the new sphere opening before me, she inquired: 

“Do you not realize very strongly the entire deprivation of religious privileges you will be obliged to suffer in your distant home?”

“The deprivation,” said I, “will doubtless be great, but not entire; for I shall have my Prayer-Book, and, though destitute of a church, we need not be without a mode of worship.”

How often afterwards, when cheered by the consolations of that precious book in the midst of the lonely wilderness, did I remember this conversation, and bless God that I could never, while retaining it, be without “religious privileges.”

We had not yet left the dinner-table, when the bell of the little steamer sounded to summon us on board, and we bade a hurried farewell to all our kind friends, bearing with us their hearty wishes for a safe and prosperous voyage.

A finer sight can scarcely be imagined than Mackinac, from the water.  As we steamed away from the shore, the view came full upon us—­the sloping beach with the scattered wigwams, and canoes drawn up here and there—­the irregular, quaint-looking houses—­the white walls of the fort, and, beyond, one eminence still more lofty crowned with the remains of old Fort Holmes.  The whole picture completed, showed the perfect outline that had given the island its original Indian name, Mich-i-li-mack-i-nac, the Big Turtle.

Then those pure, living waters, in whose depths the fish might be seen gliding and darting to and fro; whose clearness is such that an object dropped to the bottom may be discerned at the depth of fifty or sixty feet, a dollar lying far down on its green bed, looking no larger than a half dime!  I could hardly wonder at the enthusiastic lady who exclaimed:  “Oh!  I could wish to be drowned in these pure, beautiful waters!”

As we passed the extreme western point of the island, my husband pointed out to me, far away to the northwest, a promontory which he told me was Point St. Ignace.  It possessed great historic interest, as one of the earliest white settlements on this continent.  The Jesuit missionaries had established here a church and school as early as 1607, the same year in which a white settlement was made at St. Augustine, in Florida, and one year before the founding of Jamestown, Virginia.