120 ENCAMPMENT UPON 



theatre of gently rising hills, interspersed with 

 rounded and barren rocks, and a few clumps of 

 gloomy-looking pines, rendered more conspicuous 

 by the yellow sand on which they grew, em- 

 braced a calm sheet of water, which, taking a 

 northerly direction, kept gradually widening to 

 a distance of three or four miles. Some old ice 

 still adhered to its banks, and the snow shoes 

 and bundles affixed to the poles of a recently 

 deserted encampment^ showed that it was a 

 resort of the Indians. 



It was too late to gain the pines, for the sun 

 had set ; so we encamped on an island where 

 we had observed that there were shrubs enough 

 to cook the evening meal ; and had no sooner 

 landed than we were assailed by swarms of sand- 

 flies and mosquitos, which for a time irritated 

 us almost to madness. I do not know that 

 there is any thing very original in the idea, but 

 as I contemplated the repose and stillness of the 

 evening landscape, mellowed by the soft tints 

 of the western sky, and contrasted it with the 

 noise, the impetuosity, the intense animation 

 and bustle of the morning, it seemed to me a 

 type of that best period of the life of man, when 

 to the turbulence and energy of youth succeeds 

 the calm sobriety of ripened age. It brought 

 to my mind far distant friends, — one especially 

 long known and well esteemed; in rem em- 



