Three luxuriant beeches stand in the edge of
the wood, north of the meadow; one of them is the monument of Holmes; he
lies buried at its root. Another quarter of a mile led us to a little bay
on the solitary shore of the lake looking to the northwest. It is called
the British Landing, because the British troops landed here in the late
war to take possession of the island.
We wandered about awhile, and then sat down upon the embankment of pebbles
which the waves of the lake, heaving for centuries, have heaped around the
shore of the island - pebbles so clean that they would no more soil a
lady's white muslin gown than if they had been of newly polished
alabaster. The water at our feet was as transparent as the air around us.
On the main-land opposite stood a church with its spire, and several roofs
were visible, with a background of woods behind them.
"There," said one of our party, "is the old Mission Church. It was built
by the Catholics in 1680, and has been a place of worship ever since. The
name of the spot is Point St. Ignace, and there lives an Indian of the
full caste, who was sent to Rome and educated to be a priest, but he
preferred the life of a layman, and there he lives on that wild shore,
with a library in his lodge, a learned savage, occupied with reading and
study."
You may well suppose that I felt a strong desire to see Point St. Ignace,
its venerable Mission Church, its Indian village, so long under the care
of Catholic pastors, and its learned savage who talks Italian, but the
time of my departure was already fixed.
