It might be 168 or 170 years since the French first landed at this point.

It was just 59 since the British power had supervened, and 39 since the American right had been acknowledged by the sagacity of Dr.
Franklin's treaty of 1783.

But to the Indian, who stood in a contemplative and stoic attitude, wrapped in his fine blanket of broadcloth, viewing the spectacle, it must have been equally striking, and indicative that his reign in the North-West, that old hive of Indian hostility, was done.

And, had he been a man of letters, he might have inscribed, with equal truth, as it was done for the ancient Persian monarch, "MENE, MENE, TEKEL." To most persons on board, our voyage up these wide straits, after entering them at Point de Tour, had, in point of indefiniteness, been something like searching after the locality of the north pole.

We wound about among groups of islands and through passages which looked so perfectly in the state of nature that, but for a few ruinous stone chimneys on St.Joseph's, it could not be told that the foot of man had ever trod the shores.