60 East and West 
miles seem far by land, but no distance at 
all by water. This is the peculiar influence 
of the wilderness: one becomes amphibious, 
whereas in most mountain regions the tend- 
ency is quite the reverse and the energy all 
goes to climbing. 
The result of this constant association with 
water is not alone a modification of habit, but 
an increased sense of companionship with the 
lakes. With its inlet and outlet and con- 
tiguous swamps, a pond is an unexplored sea 
upon which to make many a voyage of dis- 
covery. There is, perhaps, nothing more 
companionable in Nature. It is alive and has 
moods, changing day by day and hour by 
hour: an eye in the wilderness, expressive 
when all else is uncommunicative. It is so 
different from different points of view, at 
different seasons and times of the day, that 
you may be years exploring it and then not 
feel you have come to the end. A pond whose 
shores are unindented, all parts of which can 
be seen at any one point, is like a common- 
place personality not difficult to read, though 
even such a one borrows divine moods from 
the sky. But a lake dotted with islands and 
with a diversified shore, with bays and straits, 
smiling beaches and grim cliffs descending to 
