10 ADVENTURES IN THE WILDERNESS. 



ridge-board of the vast water-shed which slopes 

 northward to the St. Lawrence, eastward to the 

 Hudson, and southward to the Mohawk, you can 

 enter upon a voyage the like of which, it is safe 

 to say, the world does not anywhere else furnish. 

 For hundreds of miles I have boated up and down 

 that wilderness, going ashore only to "carry" 

 around a fall, or across some narrow ridge divid- 

 ing the otherwise connected lakes. For weeks I 

 have paddled my cedar shell in all directions, 

 swinging northerly into the St. Eegis chain, west- 

 ward nearly to Potsdam, southerly to the Black 

 Eiver country, and from thence penetrated to that 

 almost unvisited region, the " South Branch," with- 

 out seeing a face but my guide's, and the entire 

 circuit, it must be remembered, was through a 

 wilderness yet to echo to the lumberman's axe. 

 It is estimated that a thousand lakes, many yet 

 unvisited, lie embedded in this vast forest of pine 

 and hemlock. From the summit of a mountain, 

 two years ago, I counted, as seen by my naked 

 eye, forty-four lakes gleaming amid the depths 

 of the wilderness like gems of purest ray amid the 

 folds of emerald-colored velvet. Last summer I 

 met a gentleman on the Racquette who had just 

 received a letter from a brother in Switzerland, an 

 artist by profession, in which he said, that, " having 

 travelled over all Switzerland, and the Ehine 

 and Rhone region, he had not met with scenery 



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