82 ADIRONDAC. 



Once, while in advance of my companions, I saw, from 

 a high rock, a commotion in the water near the shore, 

 but on reaching the point found only the marks of a 

 musquash. 



Pressing on through the forest, after many adventures 

 with the pine-knots, we reached, about the middle of 

 the afternoon, our destination, Nate's Pond, — a pretty 

 sheet of water, lying like a silver mirror in the lap of 

 the mountain, about a mile long and half a mile wide, 

 surrounded by dark forests of balsam, hemlock, and 

 pine, and, like the one we had just passed, a very pic- 

 ture of unbroken solitude. 



It is not in the woods alone to give one this impres- 

 sion of utter loneliness. In the woods are sounds and 

 voices, and a dumb kind of companionship ; one is lit- 

 tle more than a walking tree himself; but come upon 

 one of these mountain-lakes, and the wildness stands 

 relieved and meets you face to face. Water is thus 

 facile and adaptive, that it makes the wild more wild, 

 while it enhances culture and art. 



The end of the pond which we approached was quite 

 shoal, the stones rising above the surface as in a sum- 

 mer-brook, and everywhere showing marks of the no- 

 ble game we were in quest of — footprints, dung, and 

 cropped and uprooted lily-pads. After resting for a half 

 hour, and replenishing our game-pouches at the expense 

 of the most respectable frogs of the locality, we filed 

 on through the soft, resinous pine-woods, intending to 

 camp near the other end of the lake, where, the guide 



