A BLACK BEAR HUNT 169 



ing to a diameter of upwards of a hundred miles. It is a tract 

 covered in large areas by dark evergreen forests and mossy cedar 

 swamps. It is broken by many shallow lakes with broad margins 

 of low-lying marshes covered with a dense growth of cotton grass, 

 rushes, sphagnum, Indian cup and arrow-head, frequently scored 

 by a network of deeply worn deer-paths. In the more elevated 

 portions there often occur many level savannah-like stretches of 

 tableland crowded with luxuriant bracken, kalmia, and berry- 

 bearing bushes. 



HOUSE-BOAT. A STOP TO FEED THE HORSES. 



Sometimes these dry upland plains assume curious terrace-like 

 forms hemmed in on parallel sides by naked ridges of precipitous 

 rock, while from the other extremities the woods gently slope 

 away to other bench-like plateaus of similar character. 



This tract is further varied by open spaces vast and drear, known 

 as the ' burnt barrens ', exceedingly wild and desolate, where the 

 travelling is painfully tedious, and the barren aridity is such as is 

 scarcely ever seen equalled elsewhere. Here some forgotten fire 

 has once ravaged the evergreen forest. Spectre-like the gaunt 

 white skeleton stems of once noble pines and hemlocks stand some- 

 times singly and sometimes in groups, at every variety of angle, 

 often leaning and creaking against their comrades, their ruin adding a 

 fresh touch of melancholy to the scene such as the sight of wreckage 

 sometimes lends to the sea. There are yet other fire-swept spaces 

 where, as if still cowering under the hot breath of the flames, the 



