XIII 



THB UPPER SARANAO. A SONG ON THE "WATER- A WOODMAN'S 

 NOTION o? THE PAST, THE PRESENT, AND THE FUTURE, OF 

 AMERICA. 



WE struck the Upper Saranac towards sundown. 

 Here we found a shantee of poles, for whatever hunter 

 might stray away to that lonely region. "We took 

 possession, and having cleared away the dry branches 

 used the year before for a bed, and having swept and 

 garnished the floor, we supplied new boughs on which 

 to repose, and went out to secure a supper. This, the 

 watdr and the air supplied us with, for while I caught 

 a string of trout in the stream which forms the imet, 

 my guide shot a brace of partridges, which Shack 

 treed for him on a hemlock near the shantee. We 

 supped as the sun gave his last rays, to glisten on the 

 brow of the mountains, on the opposite side of the 

 lake. My guide had hid away his canoe at some dis- 



