174 THE ADIRONDACK. 



directly in our teeth, making the miniature waves 

 leap and dance around us as if welcoming us to their 

 home — a white gull rose from a rock at our side — a 

 fish hawk screamed around her huge nest on a lofty 

 pine-tree on the shore, as she wheeled and circled 

 ahove her offspring — a raven croaked overhead — ^the 

 cry of loons arose in the distance — and all was wild 

 yet beautifal. The sun was stooping to the west- 

 ern mountains, whose sea of summits were calmly 

 sleeping against the golden heavens : the cool breeze 

 stirred a world of foliage on our right — green islands, 

 beautiful as Elysian fields, rose out of the water as 

 we advanced ; the sparkling waves rolled as merrily 

 under as bright a sky as ever bent over the earth, and 

 for a moment I seemed to have been transported into 

 a new world. I never was more struck by a scene in 

 my life : its utter wildness, spread out there where 

 the axe of civilization has never struck a blow — the 

 evening — ^the sunset — the deep purple of the moun- 

 tains — ^the silence and solitude of the shores, and the 

 cry of birds in the distance, combined to render it one 

 of enchantment to me. My feelings were more ex- 

 cited, perhaps, by the consciousness that we were 

 without any definite object before us — no place of 



