1 8 A SPORTSMAN'S EDEN. 



picked up an. American paper (The Doctor, July 

 1st, 1887) and read there that one of the con- 

 tributors considered his compatriots ' much less 

 than half baked, so infernally and eternally crude,' 

 I felt inclined to agree with him, and to long for 

 the more mellow manners and greater comfort 

 (without the glare) of the old country. 



All American hotels seem to me mere hot- 

 house productions, ' forced,' so to speak, until 

 they have all the outward marks of the last 

 degree of civilized excellence, without any of the 

 thousand and one little things which come of 

 slow growth and a century's experience, and are 

 so essential to one's comfort. But I will stop 

 grumbling if I can, for as in fancy I step with 

 you on board the great lake steamer, to begin 

 our journey down Lakes George and Champlain, 

 scenes of real beauty open out all round us, and 

 if only man were less and nature more, if the 

 great saloon, ' finished in black walnut and butter- 

 nut,' were a little less noisy than the parrot-house 

 at the ' Zoo,' I could be content almost to sail 

 for ev^r on those silver waters, studded with isles 

 innumerable, wooded to the very water with dark 

 pine and silver-white birch-trees. I have never 

 read what other people say of these lakes (more 

 shame to me, perhaps), but they strike me as 

 being the cockney camping-grounds of New 



