SAETJBR LIFE. 177 



but the prospect on the other side was enlivened by the 

 frequent occurrence of hamlets and green pastures, occu- 

 pying the gentle slopes of the hills. Every scrap of land, 

 however small, that would afford footing to a goat, or 

 space for a patch of potatoes, was taken advantage of. 

 These little clearings, surrounded by the deep forest, and 

 intermixed with crags and thickets had a most picturesque 

 appearance. The marvel was how, with their utmost 

 industry, the few roods of soil thus reclaimed could afford 

 even a scanty subsistence to the population, which was 

 evidently numerous. One might have wondered how 

 access was obtained to these insulated settlements, shut 

 in between precipitous cliffs above and the lake below, 

 but that little piers and boat-houses under every cultivated 

 nook indicated that its waters afforded the principal means 

 of communication with each other and with the rest of the 

 world. The winter, when it is one unbroken sheet of ice, 

 must be the principal season for traffic and good neigh- 

 bourhood. 



'As we approached the head of the lake we were 

 delighted with the series of dioramic views which the 

 folds of the hills, stretching down in long slopes to the 

 edge of the water, successively opened. In one place the 

 bordering hills fell back, and left an amphitheatre of two 

 or three miles in diameter, the undulating area of which 

 gave to view the flowing lines of smooth and rounded 

 masses of pines with which it was richly clothed, sur- 

 mounted by bare cliffs behind ; and over these, at some 

 distance, rose a group of mountains of extremely fine 

 contour, on the sides of which rested patches of snow at 

 not a very considerable elevation. The lake terminates 

 among a chain of low islets of graceful outline, some 

 covered with young birch, feathered to the ground ; others 

 with a small clump of spruce firs, dropping their pendu- 

 lous branches ; some so small that a single tree only shot 

 up its spiral form above the tiny patch of greensward that 

 gave it footing. 



' Threading our way through this bowery maze, we 



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