This island has been long known as a prominent point in the fur trade. But of this I am not prepared to speak. It was selected by Mr. J. J. Astor, in 1816, as the central point of outfit for his clerks and agents in this region; and the warehouses erected for their accommodation constitute prominent features in its modern architecture. The capital annually invested in this business is understood to be about three hundred thousand dollars. This trade was deemed an object of the highest consequence from the first settlement of Canada, but it was not till 1766, agreeably to Sir Alexander Mackenzie, that it commenced from Michilimackinac.[27] The number of furred animals taken in a single year, the same author states to be one hundred and eighty-two thousand two hundred; of which number, the astonishing proportion of one hundred and six thousand were beavers.[28] Estimating each skin at but one pound, and the foreign market price at four dollars per pound, which are both much below the average at this era, this item of beaver alone would exceed by more than one-third the whole capital employed, taking the data before mentioned, and leave the seventy-six thousand smaller furred animals to be put on the profit side. No wonder that acts of perfidy arose between rivals, such as the shooting of Mr. Waden at his own dinner-table, where he was entertaining an opponent or copartner in the trade; or the foul assassination of Owen Keveny on the Rainy Lakes.[29] Indeed, the fur trade has for a long period been more productive, if we are to rely on statements, than the richest silver mines of Mexico or Peru. [27] Mackenzie's Voyages, Hist. Fur Trade, vii. [28] Mackenzie, xxiv. [29] Report of the Trials of De Reinhard, &c. Montreal, 1818. Society at Michilimackinac consists of so many diverse elements, which impart their hue to it, that it is not easy for a passing traveller to form any just estimate of it. The Indian, with his plumes, and gay and easy costume, always imparts an oriental air to it. To this, the Canadian, gay, thoughtless, ever bent on the present, and caring nothing for to-morrow, adds another phase. The trader, or interior clerk, who takes his outfit of goods to the Indians, and spends eleven months of the year in toil, and want, and petty traffic, appears to dissipate his means with a sailor-like improvidence in a few weeks, and then returns to his forest wanderings; and boiled corn, pork, and wild rice again supply his wants. There is in these periodical resorts to the central quarters of the Fur Company, much to remind one of the old feudal manners, in which there is proud hospitality and a show of lordliness on the one side, and gay obsequiousness and cringing dependence on the other, at least till the annual bargains for the trade are closed.