LIES PISCATORI^. 549 



Port Kent, yon find stages in readiness to carry you to Keese- 

 ville, a distance of four or five miles inland, where you stay 

 all night, and in the morning after breakfast take wagons, 

 provided with spring-seats, for Baker's or Martin's, on the 

 Lower Saranac. You get an excellent supper and a good 

 bed in Keeseville, at a little hotel kept by Taggard, an obse- 

 quious fussy old fellow, who has a store under the same roof, 

 and occasionally sells an embryo sportsman what he calls his 

 " outfit." 



Nor. Is it necessary to lay in stores or provisions for the 

 excursion ? 



Nes. By no means. Martin, at the lake, can supply all 

 the necessaries a reasonable man may require. If one is over 

 particular he had better take the few luxuries he may want 

 from town. 



Joe. Did you find many persons visiting the Adirondacks 

 in August? 



Nes. Crowds of them ; there are more excursionists at that 

 time than at any other. I found Taggard's hotel crammed 

 with cockney sportsmen, going and returning from the lakes ; 

 some of them the most pretentious, verdant- looking hunters 

 you ever laid eyes on. I recollect one party from Boston — 

 three out of the four were pop-eyed men with spectacles. 

 You meet with a man now and then, don't you, who looks, if 

 you were to slap him on the back with a shingle, as if his eyes 

 would fly out? Well, the Nimrod of the party, who talked 

 about "driving deer" and "shining deer," was of that sort, 

 I'll bet he could not tell a buck from an old stump at thirty 

 yards,, much less hit one. They all affected the rough, and 

 walked about with bowie-knives stuck in the belts of their 

 hunting-shirts, as if they expected next minute to meet a live 

 Indian — perfect Daniel Boones aud Kit Carsons. It almost 

 made me afraid to look at them, though no doubt they were 



