NARRATIVE. 23 



which had been taken with nets or lines set the night before. An 

 excellent breakfast (at which white-fish figured,) and comfortable 

 rooms, showed that the character of the " Mission House " was still 

 kept up. 



It continued to shower at intervals during the day, but this 

 did not prevent us from seeing the Natural Bridge, with its re- 

 gular arch, ninety feet high, rising on the border of the island, 

 the huge conical rock called the " Sugar Loaf," the Fort, &c. I 

 do not know whether any of the party visited the cave where Alex- 

 ander Henry was concealed by his Indian friend during the massacre 

 of the English as I did on a former occasion, when, bye the bye, I 

 found a fragment of a human skull among the rubbish on the floor of 

 the cave, attesting the correctness of that part of Henry's narrative. 



The wet weather was not unfavorable to vegetation, which is luxu- 

 riant on the island, though the trees, (maple and beech,) are of 

 small size, this latitude being nearly the northernmost limit of the 

 latter. The flowers were beautiful ; the twin-flower, (Linncea bor- 

 ealis^) so fine that I thought it must be another new species ; then 

 the beautiful yellow ladies' slipper, Lonicera, and Cynoglossum. 



The island is of a roundish form, two or three miles in diameter. 

 On the N.E. the crumbly lime-cliff rises abruptly from the water 

 to the height of a hundred feet or more ; but on the south there 

 is a sloping curve of varying width between the bluff and the beach. 



The village lies on this slope, a single street of straggling log- 

 cabins and ill-conditioned frame houses, parallel with the beach, and 

 some of a better class standing back among gardens at the foot of 

 the bluff. On the edge of the bluff, which rises abruptly from the 

 slope at the distance of some three hundred yards from the Lake, 

 stands the Fort, a miniature Ehrenbreitstein, with a covered way 

 leading down the face of the bluff. 



We were disappointed at finding only three or four lodges of 

 Indians here. In August and September (the time for distributing 

 the " presents,") there are generally several hundreds of them on 

 the island. 



Notwithstanding the rain, the Professor, intent on his favorite 

 science, occupied the morning with a fishing excursion, in which 

 he was accompanied by several of the party, most of them pro- 



