194 THE THOUSAND ISLSES. 



lying upon one side, out of the force of the current, and 

 filled with innumerable islands. It probably holds within 

 itself a thousand isles. They are of all kinds, shape, 

 form and appearance, some half a mile in extent, consti- 

 tuting a cultivated farm, others a bare rock scarcely pro- 

 jecting above the surface, some covered with a dense 

 foliage, others furnishing a single tree, and many bare 

 of tree, bush or grass. There is immense variety of 

 appearance, but all are inconceivably picturesque. None 

 are very high, but at times the rocks run straight up 

 like a wall of stone, while others are long, low and flat, 

 They are clustered together, often affording barely 

 room for the boat to pass, and offer to the eye every 

 variety of shape and foliage. Amid them we now wan 

 dered, admiring their bewitching beauty as they lay 

 basking in the broad sunlight upon the calm bosom of 

 the river. Seldom are they inhabited, and most of the 

 primeval forest trees having been cut, they have grown 

 up with a dense underwood, occasionally relieved by 

 some tall monarch of the forest that has survived the 

 fury of man. 



Keeping close along under the overhanging tree or 

 rock, or passing into the open water with ever-changing 

 scenery, we drew from the "vasty deep," where the 

 long pickerel weed could be seen reaching up toward 

 the surface, one after another of those savage monsters, 

 the Great Northern Pickerel. "Without catching any- 

 thing of wonderful size, we had taken an unusual num- 

 ber, when the calls of hunger warned us that the hours 

 were fleeting faster than we thought. 



Landing at the point of an island where there was a 



