Mackinac
"This small island is the most picturesque thing I have yet seen in this region. Generally the soil is very flat, and the accidents of nature are very rare. (I am speaking of the country bordering the Great Lakes.) Michilimackinac on the contrary is almost entirely bordered by cliffs. It is defended by a fort, which is little fortified by the hand of man but draws a great advantage from its natural position. It is occupied by a hundred men of the American army. The population is altogether industrial and commercial. Everybody speaks French, and there are some wealthy and distinguished inhabitants, among others Mr. and Mme Abbet [Abbott] who received us with the greatest kindness, though Tocqueville and I presented ourselves at their door entirely unaccompanied. The only things which appear to agitate this island are the thirst for riches and religion. Like all Americans, they are unbelievably keen to make money. But they have also, which all Americans do not, a religious warmth which makes veritable enemies of the votaries of the different sects. The Catholic religion and the Presbyterian communion divide the believers. The Catholics are the more numerous. It was to Michilimackinac that our priest of the steamboat, Mr. Mul[l]on, was coming.
We passed the whole of the seventh in this island. I saw few Indians there: several days before there had been a great number, but they were already far away. They cover immense distances in tiny canoes which, in their smallness, almost resemble the small boat which you made twenty years ago and on which, a new Columbus, you crossed the ocean of Beaumont-la-Chartre, that is to say, the spring in the lower garden. We spent the day visiting two natural curiosities of the island. The first is an arch cut by nature in a very high rock. Some call it the Rocher Perce, others the Arche du Geant. The fact is that this rock is of extraordinary shape. I observed it from every direction. I climbed to its top with Tocqueville and two companions. Nothing is easier; the only thing to fear is dizziness. We had a guide who was so unfortunate as to have the vertigo; at once the poor devil began to tremble in all his limbs; he only recovered by letting himself slide gently to the bottom. In order to judge the point of view, I and the Englishman took a small barque, and a short distance out we both of us sketched the Giant's Arch.
The other no less curious phenomenon is in the middle of the island. It's a pyramid which seems to lift itself regularly to a height of fifty feet, and which is composed of one rock, never touched by the hand of man. In the rock are crevasses and faults where the Indians sometimes deposed the bones of the dead. I found a small fragment of these relics, and it's one of the riches that I shall bring back to my country."
Beaumont, journal (Pierson 301-2)
Itinerary