a peculiarly favorable opportunity, both for
instructing those who pass here, and also for obtaining easy access
and conveyance to their places of abode.

"This place is the most noted in these regions for the abundance of
its fisheries; for, according to the Indian saying, 'this is the home
of the fishes.' Elsewhere, although they exist in large numbers, it is
not properly their 'home,' which is in the neighborhood of
Missilimackinac.

"In fact, beside the fish common to all the other tribes, as the
herring, carp, pike, gold-fish, white-fish and sturgeon, there are
found three varieties of the trout--one common; the second of a larger
size, three feet long and one foot thick; the third monstrous, for we
cannot otherwise describe it--it being so fat that the Indians, who
have a peculiar relish for fats, can scarcely eat it. Besides, the
supply is such that a single Indian will take forty or fifty of them
through the ice, with a single spear, in three hours.

"It is this attraction which has heretofore drawn to a point so
advantageous, the greater part of the savages, in this country driven
away by fear of the Iroquois. The three tribes at present living on
the _Baye des Puans_ (Green Bay) as strangers, formerly dwelt on the
main land near the middle of this island--some on the borders of Lake
Illinois, others on the borders of Lake Huron. A part of them, called
_Sauteurs_, had their abode on the main land at the West, and the
others look upon this place as their country for passing the winter,
when there are no fish at the _Saut_. The Hurons, called
_Etonontathronnons_, have lived for some years in the same island, to
escape the Iroquois. Four villages of Ottawas had also their abode in
this quarter.

"It is worthy of notice that those who bore the name of the island,
and called themselves Missilimackinac, were so numerous, that some of
the survivors yet living here assure us that they once had thirty
villages, all inclosed in a fortification of a league and a half in
circuit, when the Iroquois came and defeated them, inflated by a
victory they had gained over three thousand men of that nation, who
had carried their hostilities as far as the country of the
_Agnichronnons_.

"In one word, the quantity of fish, united with the excellence of the
soil for Indian corn, has always been a powerful attraction to the
tribes in these regions, of which the greater part subsist only on
fish, but some on Indian corn. On this