MUD LAKE. 143 



* 



The mink, the muskrat, and other animals that hunt along 

 the water, and have a taste for fish, have a good time of it 

 among them, for we saw bushels of shells in places where the 

 fish had been extracted and devoured. 



We arrived at Mud Lake towafds evening, and pitched 

 our tent on a little rise of ground on the north side, a few 

 rods back from the lake, among a cluster of spruce and 

 balsam, and surrounded by a dense growth of laurel and high 

 whortleberry bushes. We saw a deer occasionally on our 

 route, and the banks of the stream in many places were 

 trodden up by them like the entrance to a sheep-fold. Why 

 this sheet of water should be called Mud Lake is a mystery, 

 for though gloomy enough in every other respect, its bed is 

 of sand, and it is surrounded by a sandy beach from fifteen 

 to forty feet wide. ' It is perhaps four miles in circumfer- 

 ence, its waters generally shallow, and so covered with pond 

 lilies, and skirted with wild grass, as to form the most 

 luxuriant pasture for the deer and moose to be found in all 

 this region. Of all the lakes I have visited in these northern 

 wilds, this is the most gloomy. Indeed it is the only one 

 that does not wear a cheerful and pleasant aspect. It 

 seems to be the highest water in this portion of the wilder- 

 derness, lying, as one of our boatmen expressed it, " up on 

 the top of the house." In only one direction could any 

 higher land be seen, and that was a low hill on the western 

 shore, not exceeding fifty feet in height. There are no tall 

 mountain peaks reaching their heads towards the clouds, 

 overlooking the waters-; no ranges stretching away into 



