There were few human beings in that region. The northern
portions of the noble peninsula of Michigan are some-what low and
swampy, or are too broken and savage to tempt the native hunters
from the openings and prairies that then lay, in such rich
profusion, further south and west. With the exception of the shores,
or coasts, it was seldom that the northern half of the peninsula
felt the footstep of man. With the southern half, however, it was
very different; the "openings," and glades, and watercourses,
offering almost as many temptations to the savage as they have since
done to the civilized man. Nevertheless, the bison, or the buffalo,
as the animal is erroneously, but very generally, termed throughout
the country, was not often found in the vast herds of which we read,
until one reached the great prairies west of the Mississippi. There
it was that the red men most loved to congregate; though always
bearing, in numbers, but a trifling proportion to the surface they
occupied. In that day, however, near as to the date, but distant as
to the events, the Chippewas, Ottawas, Pottawattamies, kindred
tribes, we believe, had still a footing in Michigan proper, and were
to be found in considerable numbers in what was called the St.
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