her, crying over
the dead body of her child, was that of taking from it a lock of hair
for a memorial. While she did this, I endeavoured to console her by
offering the usual arguments: that the child was happy in being
released from the miseries of this present life, and that she should
forbear to grieve, because it would be restored to her in another
world, happy and everlasting. She answered that she knew it, and that
by the lock of hair she should discover her daughter; for she would
take it with her. In this she alluded to the day when some pious hand
would place in her own grave, along with the carrying belt and paddle,
this little relic, hallowed by maternal tears."

After many ups and downs of hope and despair, and many narrow escapes
of being killed and made into broth for warlike Ojibwes, Henry at
length obtained permission to travel with a party of Ojibwe Indians
who were invited to visited Sir William Johnson at Niagara. This
British Governor of Canada was attempting to enter into friendly
relations with the Amerindian tribes, and induce them to accept
quietly the transference of Canada from French to English control.

[Illustration: SCENE ON CANADIAN RIVER: WILD SWANS FLYING UP DISTURBED
BY BEAR]

Before starting, however, to interview this great White Governor, the
Ojibwes decided to consult their oracle, the Great Turtle, after which
Fort Michili-Makinak was named.[8] Behind Fort Michili-Makinak is an
extraordinary mound or hill of stone supposed to resemble this reptile
exactly, and in fact to be in some way the residence of a supernatural
giant turtle.

[Footnote 8: Michili, pronounced "Mishili", means "great", and
Makinak, "turtle", in the translation of some Canadian writers. The
turtle in question is, of course, not the turtle of sea waters, but
the Snapping Turtle (_Chelydra serpentina_) found in most Canadian
lakes and the big rivers of North America, east of the Rocky
Mountains.]

For invoking and consulting the Great Turtle, the first thing to be
done was to build a large house, within which was placed a kind of
tent, for the use of the priest and reception of the spirit. The tent
was formed of moose skins, hung over a framework of wood made out of
five pillars of five different species of timber, about ten feet in
height and eight inches in diameter, set up in a circle of four feet
in diameter, with their bases two feet deep in the soil. At the top
the pillars were bound together by a circ