68 NARRATIVE OF THE EXPEDITION. 



iiiD- ascended it, he led liim to this cave, and recommended him 

 to abide-here in concealment until the debauch was over, when 

 he promised to visit him. 



Breaking some branches at its mouth for a bed, he then sought 

 its recesses, and spreading his blanket around, laid down and slept 

 till morning. Daylight revealed to him the fact that, he had 

 been reposing on dry human bones, and that the cave had an- 

 ciently been devoted by the Indians as a sepulchre. On announc- 

 ing this fact to his deliverer, two days afterward, when he came 

 to seek him, Wawetum expressed his ignorance of it, and a party 

 of the Indians, who came to examine it in consequence of the 

 announcement, also concurred in declaring that they had no tra- 

 dition on the subject. They conjectured that the bones were 

 either due to the period when the sea covered the earth — which 

 is a common belief with them — or to the period of the Huron 

 occupancy of this island, after that tribe were defeated by the Iro- 

 quois, in the St. Lawrence valley. 



So much for tradition. 



This island has been long known as a prominent point in the 

 fur trade. But of this I am not prepared to speak. It was 

 selected by Mr. J. J. Astor, in 1816, as the central point of outfit 

 for his clerks and agents in this region; and the warehouses 

 erected for their accommodation constitute prominent features in 

 its modern architecture. The capital annually invested in this 

 business is understood to be about three hundred thousand dol- 

 lars. This trade was deemed an object of the highest consequence 

 from the first settlement of Canada, but it was not till 1766, agree- 

 ably to Sir Alexander Mackenzie, that it commenced from Mich- 

 ilimackinac* The number of furred animals taken in a single 

 year, the same author states to be one hundred and eighty-two 

 thousand two hundred ; of which number, the astonishing propor- 

 tion of one hundred and six thousand were beavers.f Estimating 

 each skin at but one pound, and the foreign market price at four 

 dollars per pound, which are both much below the average at this 

 era, this item of beaver alone would exceed by more than one- 

 third the whole capital employed, taking the data before men- 



* Mackenzie's Voyages, Hist. Fur Trade, vii. 

 ■)■ Mackenzie, xxiv. 



