Nothing can be conceived more charming than a cruise on this lake in summer.  The memories of the lake are striking and romantic in the extreme.  There is a background of history and romance which renders Superior a classic water.  It was a favorite fishing-ground for several tribes of Indians, and its aboriginal name Ojibwakechegun, was derived from one of these, the Ojibways, who lived on the southern shore when the lake first became known to white men.  The waters of the lake vary in color from a dazzling green to a sea-blue, and are stocked with all kinds of excellent fish.  Numerous islands are scattered about the lake, some low and green, others rocky and rising precipitately to great heights directly up from the deep water.  The coast of the lake is for the most part rocky.  Nowhere upon the inland waters of North America is the scenery so bold and grand as around Lake Superior.  Famous among travelers are those precipitous walls of red sandstone on the south coast, described in all the earlier accounts of the lake as the “Pictured Rocks.”  They stand opposite the greatest width of the lake and exposed to the greatest force of the heavy storms from the north.  The effect of the waves upon them is not only seen in their irregular shape, but the sand derived from their disintegration is swept down the coast below and raised by the winds into long lines of sandy cliffs.  At the place called the Grand Sable these are from one hundred to three hundred feet high, and the region around consists of hills of drifting sand.

Half-way across the lake Keweenaw Point stretches out into the water.  Here the steamer halted for wood.  We landed on the shore in a beautiful grove.  “What a place for a dinner!” cried one of the party.

“Glorious! glorious!” chimed in a dozen voices.

“How long has the boat to wait?” asked Hugh.

“One hour,” was the answer of the weather-beaten son of Neptune.

“That gives us plenty of time,” was the general verdict.  So without more ado lunch-baskets were brought ashore.  The steamer’s steward was prevailed upon, by a silver dollar thrust slyly into his hand, to help us, and presently the whole party was feasting by the lakeside.  And what a royal dining-room was that grove, its outer pillars rising from the very lake itself, its smooth brown floor of pine-needles, arabesqued with a flitting tracery of sun shadows and fluttering leaves, and giving through the true Gothic arches of its myriad windows glorious views of the lake that lay like an enchanted sea before us!  And whoever dined more regally, more divinely, even, though upon nectar and ambrosia, than our merry-makers as they sat at their well-spread board, with such glowing, heaven-tinted pictures before their eyes, such balmy airs floating about their happy heads, and such music as the sunshiny waves made in their glad, listening ears?  It was like a picture out of Hiawatha.  At least it seemed to strike our young lady so, who in a voice of peculiar sweetness and power recited the opening of the twenty-second book of that poem:—­