THE ADIRONDACKS 76 



Pond, — a pretty sheet of water, lying like a silver 

 mirror in tlie lap of the mountain, about a mile 

 long and half a mile wide, surrounded by dark for- 

 ests of balsam, hemlock, and pine, and, like the 

 one we had just passed, a very picture of unbroken 

 solitude. 



It is not in the woods alone to give one this 

 impression of utter loneliness. In the woods are 

 sounds and voices, and a dumb kind of companion- 

 ship ; one is little more than a walking tree himself ; 

 but come upon one of these mountain lakes, and the 

 wildness stands revealed and meets you face to face. 

 Water is thus facile and adaptive, that it makes the 

 wild more wild, while it enhances culture and art. 



The end of the pond which we approached was 

 quite shoal, the stones rising above the surface as 

 in a summer brook, and everywhere showing marks 

 of the noble game we were in quest of, — foot- 

 prints, dung, and cropped and uprooted lily-pads. 

 After resting for a half hour, and replenishing our 

 game-pouches at the expense of the most respectable 

 frogs of the locality, we filed on through the soft, 

 resinous pine-woods, intending to camp near the 

 other end of the lake, where, the guide assured us, 

 we should find a hunter's cabin ready built. A 

 half hour's march brought us to the locality, and a 

 most delightful one it was, — so hospitable and in- 

 viting that all the kindly and beneficent influences 

 of the woods must have abided there. In a slight 

 depression in the woods, about one hundred yards 

 from the lake, though hidden from it for a hunter's 



