WILD LAKES OF THE ARIONDACK. 473 



Spirit" of them all witli this most gossip and desultory 

 mood in which our volume was at first conceived. 



A summer's journey of sporting adventure towards the 

 North, dating at a much later period in my life than those 

 previously given as personal, included a sojourn amongst 

 that linked and wonderful cluster of Lakes, extending from 

 Hamilton county, in the west of New York, north to Lake 

 Champlain and the St. Lawrence. Something of the "Wild 

 Scenes" and characteristic incidents amidst the haughty 

 solitudes of those rugged hemlock-bristled Ariondacks, 

 and their chaste, cold, glistening Lakes, I must give in a 

 fragmentary way. 



I had reached Lake Pleasant in Hamilton county, the 

 semi-civilized outpost of the wilderness interior of " Sporting 

 Grounds," through the ordinary tribulations of jolting, 

 fatigue, mud, rain, etc., in company with an English friend, 

 a placid "son of the angle," in the strict Waltonian sense, 

 but altogether an unaccustomed hunter of wilderness game. 



Lake Pleasant, upon the outlet end of which we were 

 temporarily located in a rude board hovel, dignified as " mine 

 inn !" — was overlooked at the opposite by an abrupt moun- 

 tain — one of the Ariondacks — named from the Indian name, 

 the Speclater. The inlet came in at its foot, and from the 

 steep top, a bird's-eye view could be obtained of the whole 

 scene of our future operations. After a night's rest, we 

 made a day of it to clamber the huge rocky sides of this 

 ancient sentinel that from its bald crest we should look 

 forth, that our eyes might be "made aware." 



I wanted to convey some idea of what we saw, but I find 

 that though very nice in theory the practice is difficult. I 

 could only think, as we ascended, in the words of one who 

 spake of old — " Get thee up into the top of Pisgah, and lift 

 thine eyes westward, and northward, and southward, and east- 

 ward, behold it with thine own eyes !" And, verily, when we 



