128 THE LABRADOR PENINSULA. CHAP. vm. 



Our expectations had been roused by the associations 

 which had hitherto attached themselves to the idea of a 

 mountain lake. We expected to find water-fowl at least 

 but there were none. The Nasquapee told us w r e should 

 see no duck, but AVC scarcely liked to believe him. We 

 thought that we should see fish rising, but the surface of 

 the lake was like a mirror, and you could detect no 

 difference between the mountain pointing to the sky 

 above and its image below. 



The only motion was produced by our own canoes, 

 the only sound by the gentle subdued dipping of the 

 paddles in the water. One blessed little bird suddenly 

 broke out into a sweet song on that desolate shore, and 

 woke me as from a dream. 



This will never do, I thought the men will get 

 superstitious, and want to go back. 



' Now for a race!' I shouted, 'a race to the point 

 a-head.' The men in the other canoes stared at me 

 wonderingly, as if I had rudely broken in upon their 

 meditations, and profaned a place sacred to day-dreams 

 or self-communing, but they showed no signs of increasing 

 their speed or arousing themselves from the half stupor 

 in which they were plunged. 



There is nothing like action in such a case, so I told 

 my men to paddle with a will. As soon as the others 

 saw us leaping away from them, they caught the 

 spirit, and in two minutes more we were waking the 

 echoes with our shouts in the brief excitement of a canoe 

 race. 



' Suppose we put out a trolling hue, and try and catch 

 a trout,' said Mr. Caley. ' I see them about the canoe ; 



