Original - North Central Michigan College Library

Jjjenrpblown upon the former by a storm, they hadescaped with difficulty from the enormoussnakes by which it is inhabited, and which arethe guardians of the yellow sand. 18 I was eagerto visit so remarkable a spot, and being toldthat in clear weather it was visible from thesouthward of the He de Maurepas, I waitedthere two days; but the weather continuinghazy, I returned unsatisfied to my post.18Captain Carver, who visited Lake Superior aboutthe year 1766, learned something of the fables of theyellow sand, though he places the treasure upon the Hede Maurepas, and falls into other errors. His observationsare as follows: "There are many islands in thislake, two of which are very large; and if the land ofthem is proper for cultivation, there appears to besufficient to form on each a considerable province;especially on He Royale, which cannot be less than ahundred miles long and in many places forty broad.But there is no way at present of ascertaining theexact length or breadth of either. Even tfye French,who. always kept a small schooner on this lake whilstthey were in possession of Canada, by which theycould have made this discovery, have only acquired aslight knowledge of the external parts of these islands:at least, they have never published any account of theinternal parts of them that I could get intelligence of."Nor was I able to discover, from any of the conversationswhich I had with the neighboring Indians,that they had ever made any settlements on them, oreven landed there on their hunting excursions. Fromwhat I could gather by their discourse, they supposethem to have been, from the first formation, theresidence of the Great Spirit; and relate many magicaltricks that had been experienced by such as wereobliged through stress of weather to take shelter onthem.216