578 



Among the Thousand Islands. 



Wells Island, the so-called 

 Thousand Island Park ; and 

 finally, taking a sudden turn, 

 she seems to direct her course 

 against an abrupt shore. As 

 she advances, however, a little 

 inlet gradually opens to view j 

 a few rods further and the land 

 seems to shift and change like a dissolving view, 

 while the little craft glides into a narrow chan- 

 nel between two abrupt islands, the banks on 

 either hand being shaded by overhanging pines 

 and hemlocks. The channel, not more than six 

 or seven feet deep, is thickly covered along the 

 bottom with the usual tangle of waving water- 

 grasses and weeds, long ribbons of eel-grass, 

 feathery Carolina weed, and other varieties, 

 purple, green, and brown. Now and then a 

 startled pickerel darts from under the bows of 

 the steamer, or a solitary heron flops heavily 

 away from among the water-lilies along the 

 bank. On past a shallow sheet of water, Eel 

 Bay, where an occasional fisherman with his 

 assistant may be seen ; past the white towers 

 of a stumpy light-house, perched upon the corner 

 of a little island and defined against the dark 

 green of the pines at its back ; on, at last, 

 into the Canadian channel. Here a bewildering maze of beautiful 

 islands, north, south, east, and west, rises upon every hand. At times, 

 the channel seems a lake surrounded by an amphitheater of thickly 

 wooded hills and bluffs, with no outlet but that through which the 

 boat has just entered ; proceeding onward, it dissolves into a long 

 channel, contracts into an abrupt inlet, or widens to an open bay. 

 Further on is that sudden variation in the course of the channel 

 known to all St. Lawrence voyagers and boatmen as the "Fiddler's 

 Elbow." As the boat enters this portion of the channel, it seems to 

 be directed by the helmsman point blank into an island. At the 

 very moment, however, when a few rods of further progress in that 



FLOWERS FROM IRON 

 SPRING. 



