In a short time after entering the bay, we were overtaken by Kewaygooshkum and his party, who travelled and encamped with us. In the course of the evening he pointed out a rocky island, at three or four miles distance, containing a large cavern, which has been used by the Indians from early times as a repository for the dead. The chief, as he pointed to it, as if absorbed in a spirit of ancestral reverence, seemed to say:—
"It hath a charm the stranger knoweth not,
It is the [sepulchre] of mine ancestry;
There is an inspiration in its shade,
The echoes of its walls are eloquent,
The words they speak are of the glorious dead;
Its tenants are not human—they are more!
It is the home of memories dearly honored
By many a trace of long departed glory."
The appearance of ancient cultivation of this coast is such as to give semblance to the Winnebago tradition of its having been their former residence. The lands are fertile, alluvion, bearing a secondary growth of trees, mingled with older species of the acer saccharinum, elm, and oak.