instrument, at any one fancying it a melody; but now, when I heard the notes in their true tone and time, I thought it not unworthy comparison, in its graceful sequence, and the light flourish at the close, with the sweetest bird-song; and this, like the bird-song, is only practised to allure a mate.  The Indian, become a citizen and a husband, no more thinks of playing the flute, than one of the “settled-down” members of our society would, of choosing the “purple light of love” as dye-stuff for a surtout.

Mackinaw has been fully described by able pens, and I can only add my tribute to the exceeding beauty of the spot and its position.  It is charming to be on an island so small that you can sail round it in an afternoon, yet large enough to admit of long, secluded walks through its gentle groves.  You can go round it in your boat; or, on foot, you can tread its narrow beach, resting, at times, beneath the lofty walls of stone, richly wooded, which rise from it in various architectural forms.  In this stone, caves are continually forming, from the action of the atmosphere; one of these is quite deep, and a rocky fragment left at its mouth, wreathed with little creeping plants, looks, as you sit within, like a ruined pillar.

The arched rock surprised me, much as I had heard of it, from, the perfection of the arch.  It is perfect, whether you look up through it from the lake, or down through it to the transparent waters.  We both ascended and descended—­no very easy matter—­the steep and crumbling path, and rested at the summit, beneath the trees, and at the foot, upon the cool, mossy stones beside the lapsing wave.  Nature has carefully decorated all this architecture with shrubs that take root within the crevices, and small creeping vines.  These natural ruins may vie for beautiful effect with the remains of European grandeur, and have, beside, a charm as of a playful mood in Nature.

The sugar-loaf rock is a fragment in the same kind as the pine rock we saw in Illinois.  It has the same air of a helmet, as seen from an eminence at the side, which you descend by a long and steep path.  The rock itself may be ascended by the bold and agile:  half-way up is a niche, to which those who are neither can climb by a ladder.  A very handsome young officer and lady who were with us did so, and then, facing round, stood there side by side, looking in the niche, if not like saints or angels wrought by pious hands in stone, as romantically, if not as holily, worthy the gazer’s eye.

The woods which adorn the central ridge of the island are very full in foliage, and, in August, showed the tender green and pliant leaf of June elsewhere.  They are rich in beautiful mosses and the wild raspberry.