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! The stones have voices, and the walls do live; 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. The next day, after traversing this coast twenty miles further, we reached and passed up Sturgeon Bay, to a portage path leading to Lake Michigan. This path begins in low grounds, where several of the swamp species of plants occur. On reaching the open shores of Lake Michigan, the wind was found strongly ahead, and we were compelled to encamp. At this spot we found several species of madreperes, and some other organic forms, among the shore debris. The next day the wind abated, and, agreeably to the estimate of Capt. Douglass, we advanced along the shore, southwardly, forty-six miles. The day following, we made forty miles, and reached the River Manitowakie,[129] and encamped on the lake shore, five miles south of it. [129] From _Manito_, a spirit, _auk_, a standing or hollow tree that is under a mysterious influence, and the generic inflection _ie_, which is applied to vital or animate nouns. A town, at present, exists at the spot called Manitoowoc. It is the shire town of a county of the same name in Wisconsin; it has a good harbor, and by the census of 1850 contains four churches, twelve stores, two steam mills, two ship-yards, a newspaper, post-office, and 2,500 inhabitants. We found the site inhabited by a village Monomonees of six lodges. In passing along the lake shore this day (25th), we observed it to be strewed abundantly with the carcasses of dead pigeons. This bird, we were told, is often overcome by the fatigue of long flights, or storms, in crossing the lake, and entire flocks drowned. This causes the shores to be visited by great numbers of hawks, eagles, and other birds of prey. The Indians only make use of those carcasses of pigeons, as food, when they are first cast on shore.