island who, during the troubles of 1814, took refuge in these self-same block-houses. Passing out at the rear gate of Fort Mackinac, we cross the parade-ground, and see the spot where Captain Roberts planted his guns in 1812, while his whole force of Indians was concealed in the adjacent thickets.

Half or three-quarters of a mile to the rear of Fort Mackinac, on the crowning point of the island, is Fort Holmes. This, as we have seen, was built soon after the British captured the post in 1812. Each citizen was compelled to give three days' work toward its construction. When finished, the excavation encircling the embankment, or earthworks, was much broader and deeper than now, and the embankment itself was lined on the outside by cedar poles, reaching from the bottom of the ditch to its top; while a quarter or a third of the distance from the top of the embankment to the bottom of the ditch, cedar pickets interlocked with these poles, which extended out over the ditch like the eaves of a house, making it absolutely impossible for any one to get inside the fort except by the gate. The place of the gate is seen on the east side, one of the posts yet remaining to mark its position. In the center of the fort was erected a huge block-house, beneath which was the magazine. Near the gate was the entrance to several underground cellars, which have now caved in. The fort was defended by several small guns, the largest of which was an eighteen-pounder, placed on the point, on the opposite side of the cellars from the fort. They undertook to dig two wells; but, finding no water at the depth of one hundred feet, they became discouraged, and relinquished the attempt.

The fort, we are told, presented a very fine appearance when finished. It was first named Fort George; but, after the surrender of the island to the Americans, it was called Fort Holmes, in memory of the lamented Major Holmes, who fell as before recorded.*

After the return of the Americans, a party of officers, wishing

* See page 116.

to see what they could do, planted a gun at the rear gate of Fort Mackinac, and made the block-house in Fort Holmes a mark. They soon tore this monument of English absurdity in pieces, showing how ill-adapted the fort was to the purposes intended. The fragments of the building were afterward removed to the foot of the hill beneath Fort Mackinac, and made into a barn, which is yet standing.

CHAPTER IX.

TH

MACKINAC ISLAND-CONCLUDED.

HE natural scenery of the island of Mackinac is unsurpassed. Nature seems to have exhausted herself in the clustered objects of interest which every-where meet the eye. The lover of nature may wander through the shaded glens, and climb over the rugged rocks of this island for weeks, and even months, and never grow weary; for each day some new object of beauty and interest will attract his attention. As you approach the island, it appears a perfect gem. A finer subject for an artist's pencil could not be found. In some places it rises almost perpendicularly from the very water's edge to the height of one hundred and fifty feet, while in others the ascent is gradual. Parts of the island are covered with a small growth of hard-wood trees-beech, maple, iron-wood, birch, etc.-while other parts abound in a rich variety of evergreens, among which spruce, arbor-vitæ, ground-pine, white-pine, balsam, and juniper predominate. Henry R. Schoolcraft, Esq., who first visited the island in 1820, thus speaks of it:

Nothing can exceed the beauty of this island. It is a mass of calcareous rock, rising from the bed of Lake Huron, and reaching an elevation of more than three hundred feet above the water. The waters around are purity itself. Some of its cliffs shoot up perpendicularly, and tower in pinnacles, like ruinous Gothic steeples. It is cavernous in some places; and in these caverns the ancient Indians, like those of India, have placed their dead. Portions of the beach are level, and adapted to landing from boats and canoes. The harbor, at its south end, is a little gem. Vessels anchor in it, and find good holding. The