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194 THE THOUSAND ISLSES. 
lying upon one side, out of the force of the current, and 
filled with innumerable islands. It probably holds within 
itself a thousand isles. They are of all kinds, shape, 
form and appearance, some half a mile in extent, consti- 
tuting a cultivated farm, others a bare rock scarcely pro- 
jecting above the surface, some covered with a dense 
foliage, others furnishing a single tree, and many bare 
of tree, bush or grass. There is immense variety of 
appearance, but all are inconceivably picturesque. Kone 
are very high, but at times the rocks run straight up 
like a wall of stone, while others are long, low and flat. 
They are clustered together, often affording barely 
room for the boat to pass, and offer to the eye every 
variety of shape and foliage. Amid them we now wan- 
dered, admiring their bewitching beauty as they lay 
basking in the broad sunlight upon the calm bosom of 
the river. Seldom are they inhabited, and most of the 
primeval forest trees having been cut, they have grown 
up with a dense underwood, occasionally relieved by 
some tall monarch of the forest that has survived the 
fury of man. 
Keeping close along under the overhanging tree or 
rock, or passing into the open water with ever-changing 
scenery, we drew from the "vasty deep," where the 
long pickerel weed could be seen reaching up toward 
the surface, one after another of those savage monsters, 
the Great ISTorthern Pickerel. "Without catching any- 
thing of wonderful size, we had taken an unusual num- 
ber, when the calls of hunger warned us that the hours 
were fleeting faster than we thought. 
Landing at the point of an island where there was a 
