128 HILLS AND LAKES. 



ests will never hear her voice, nor their sleepily 

 echoes waken to its harmony. Long years hence, the 

 sweet voice of some other songstress may float over 

 those slumbering waters, but those old primeval trees 

 will be gone. Broad meadows, waving grain, and 

 rich pastures will be there, but these old forests will 

 have been swept away. The songtress will sit on the 

 doorsill of her own dwelling, on the margin of that 

 beautiful lake, her kindred will be around her, and 

 her song will be a lullaby to her little one that slum- 

 bers upon her bosom. The wild deer, the moose, the 

 catamount, and the panther will have disappeared, 

 and that they ever existed there, will remain only in 

 tradition. The iron horse will go thundering among 

 those sequestered valleys, dragging his ponderous 

 train, and snorting in the greatness of his strength. 



As we sat on that moss-covered boulder, watching 

 the fire-flies flashing their tiny torches as they floated 

 over the lake, dotting the shadows of night with spots 

 of brightness, gone almost as soon as seen, my guide, 

 in his quiet way, began one of his curious but modest 

 discourses, to which it was always a pleasant thing to 

 listen; "I've often thought," said he, " how strange 

 it was that this great country of America, equal as 



