THE ComMMODORE AND CREW. 343 

water before trailing, succeeded in capturing the large, wary _ 
ones. Then back to camp, long before the dinner hour; and 
while the crew prepares a luncheon and a cup of tea, the 
Commodore snugly bundles up all the lady’s burden, and gets 
her all ready for the last part of her journey by water, down 
the now smooth-running river and over the lake. And in an 
even forty-five minutes, from returning from fishing, we are 
again guiding the lady downward, over the river. 
For a long time we are sailing over smooth water, yet run- 
ning quick and strong, making fast time with such a current, 
often close in shore, where it is more rapid; then out again 
to midstream. And at a time during the afternoon’s rather 
dull light, owing to the peculiar condition of the atmosphere 
(which the crew could not explain,) the dark, smooth, deep 
water has seemed, to look ahead at it, a steep, down-hill 
grade; and as if the next moment we must surely slide down- 
ward with such velocity as to run the little lady completely 
under. Was it a mirage? But instead she sails over it all 
the same as before, steadily down over the smooth, slightly 
inclined mirror. 
After which we see pictured again to-day, and as many 
have seen often before, all varying and changing sufficiently, 
to be always an ever delight, as they pass by them, and are 
always pleased to see again and again, the banks and the 
trees pictured in the smooth waters below. Large and 
ancient pine stumps, more than old, more than gray with age, 
their level cut tops mossed over with gray, yet sound, and as 
well as the rocks, will be with the picture for a lifetime; and 
old granite boulders, on the shores beneath the trees, gray 
mossed to their tops, and on the top of one lying more in the 
sunlight, we notice as we pass, large flakes of elegant ‘‘ stag 
horn moss,” which we are very loath to leave behind. 
