tposts, with the furs, peltries, and
buffalo-robes collected by the distant traders, some idea may be formed
of the extensive operations and important position of the American Fur
Company, as well as of the vast circle of human beings either
immediately or remotely connected with it.

It is no wonder that the philanthropic mind, surveying these, races of
uncultivated heathen, should stretch forward to the time when, through
an unwearied devotion of the white man's energies, and an untiring
sacrifice of self and fortune, his red brethren might rise in the scale
of social civilization--when Education and Christianity should go hand
in hand, to make "the wilderness blossom as the rose."

Little did the noble souls at that day rejoicing in the success of their
labors at Mackinac, anticipate that in less than a quarter of a century
there would remain of all these numerous tribes but a few scattered
bands, squalid, degraded, with scarce a vestige remaining of their
former lofty character--their lands cajoled or wrested from them, the
graves of their fathers turned up by the ploughshare--themselves chased
farther and farther towards the setting sun, until they were literally
grudged a resting-place on the face of the earth!

Our visit to the Mission-school was of short duration, for the Henry
Clay was to leave at two o'clock, and in the mean time we were to see
what we could of the village and its environs, and after that dine with
Mr. Mitchell, an old friend of my husband. As we walked leisurely along
over the white, gravelly road, many of the residences of the old
inhabitants were pointed out to me. There was the dwelling of Madame
Laframboise, an Ottawa woman, whose husband had taught her to read and
write, and who had ever after continued to use the knowledge she had
acquired for the instruction and improvement of the youth among her own
people. It was her custom to receive a class of young pupils daily at
her house, that she might give them lessons in the branches mentioned,
and also in the principles of the Roman Catholic religion, to which she
was deeply devoted. She was a woman of a vast deal of energy and
enterprise--of a tall and commanding figure, and most dignified
deportment. After the death of her husband, who was killed while away at
his trading-post by a Winnebago named _White Ox_, she was accustomed to
visit herself the trading-posts, superintend the clerks and engages, and
satisfy herself that the business