332 THE GREAT NORTH-WEST 



were oftener broken by beach spaces, while the country 

 inland rapidly grew more mountainous. I cannot, how- 

 ever, say much of the country, except on the immediate 

 edge of the lake ; for time pressed, and much of my 

 journey on this occasion wa a mere scamper over the 

 ground. I could only stop to examine some of the more 

 interesting objects. Contenting myself therefore with a 

 distant view of the Porcupine Mountains, I hurried on to 

 the Twelve Apostles, as a group of beautiful islands in 

 the south-western corner of the lake are called. I do 

 not know when, or by whom, this name was conferred 

 upon them, but they are so named on maps which are 

 two hundred years old, so they must have borne it 

 from the date of their discovery; for Lake Superior 

 was almost unknown two hundred years ago. At the 

 time of my visit, half the coastline was still imperfectly 

 charted, and the other half to a great extent inaccurately 

 so. The Apostles are in duplicate here ; for there are 

 twenty-four islands, without reckoning a number of 

 rocks. 



The Apostles were the headquarters of the Father 

 Marquette mission, and to this day there is a Roman 

 Catholic church and school on St. Madeline. The 

 Roman Catholics have always met with great support 

 from the Indians ; all of whom, in this district, profess 

 to belong to that body. This is the more remarkable as 

 Protestant missionaries have met with but very little 

 success in their endeavours to make converts of the Red 

 Men. The Indians throughout the northern half of the 

 continent, as a rule, reject Christianity with disdain and 

 unanswerable argument, not seeming to be able to com- 

 prehend the mystery and regenerating influence of faith. 



The Apostles are also the headquarters of the remnants 

 of the Indian tribes, mostly Chippeways, and the United 

 States Government maintain an Indian agency on the 

 shore immediately opposite, at the township of Bayfield. 

 This agency is similar to those established in Canada, 



