68 THE ADIKONDACKS. 



sportsmen's secrets, and restrained withal by the instincts 

 of self-interest, I should hesitate to reveal them, were it not 

 that concealment is no longer a virtue. The considerations 

 that permit publicity are these : 



In the first place, the several great railway routes that 

 have been recently completed or are now in progress the In- 

 tercolonial, the European and North American, and the va- 

 rious Pacific roads are opening up to tourists and sports- 

 men regions hitherto inaccessible. Civilization and its con- 

 comitants inevitably follow in their train, and hidden places 

 become open as the day. What would the negative force 

 of silence avail to hinder or prevent ? 



There is not much danger of the musquito swamps and 

 inaccessible fastnesses of the Adirondacks being invaded by 

 " good society." The crowd comes only where the way is 

 made easy, and because it is easy. It follows the natural 

 water-courses and avoids the tedious "carries." It halts 

 where the sporting-houses invite, and selects those which 

 provide the most abundant creature comforts. 



Murray's book attracted its crowds, not because a legion of 

 uninitiated sportsmen and ambitious Amazons stood waiting 

 for the gates of some new Paradise to open, but because it 

 presented the wilderness in new aspects and fascinating 

 colors. It showed how its charms could be made enjoyable 

 even . for ladies. It was a simple narrative of personal 

 experience -and impressions, written con amore, with a vigor 

 and freshness that touched a sympathetic chord in the 

 hearts of its readers. It aroused a latent impulse and pro- 

 vided *a new sensation for those who had become surfeited by 

 the weary round of watering-place festivities. And it has 

 accomplished much good by encouraging a taste for field 

 sports and that health-giving exercise which shall restore the 

 bloom to faded cheeks and vigor to attenuated valetudina- 

 rians. 



What though the door-posts of Adirondack hostelries be 

 penciled o'er with names of those who fain would seek re- 



