334 PRAIRIE AND FOREST. 
tant hills fringed with giant timber. On either side, isl- 
ands after islands dot the bosom of the water, while ver- 
dant mountains and primeval forests stretch far, far beyond 
the limits allotted to vision. The two or three hours which 
are taken to cross the lake will flit by rapidly. If you have 
appreciation of what is sublime, of what Nature in her 
grand conceptions formed, the impressions indented on the 
tablets of your memory will doubtless be permanent. It 
matters not how skeptical and unbelieving some may be, 
place them where the giant works of the Creator are vis- 
ible, and how insignificant forever after must they view the 
puny efforts and constructions of their fellow-beings, and 
cease to doubt that there is One above omnipotent and all- 
- powerful ! : 
Fail not, on reaching the centre of the lake, to face about 
and look for the White Mountains,* and, if the day is clear, 
ample will be your recompense; for, towering high above 
all other competitors, they smile gloriously over the land- 
scape, softened into a dreamy reality. by distance, and fur- 
rowed on their summits by lines of virgin snow, reflecting 
a thousand brilliant prismatic colorings. But the irrevo- 
cable pace of time glides on, and pleasure flits with rapid 
stride. Our nondescript boat now appears to head direct 
on shore, and so we advance till, when within a few yards 
of the rocks, the helm is put hard down, and we quickly 
turn to the left and enter the Androscoggin, up whose wa- 
ters a most charming vista is beheld, the drooping limbs of 
the trees on either side playfully kissing the rippling stream, 
and the irregularly-formed rocks splitting the water, and 
diverting its course in tangent lines, making many a min- 
iature whirlpool or gurgling eddy, the haunt and breeding- 
place of innumerable trout. If the river is sufficiently high, 
* Mount Washington is six thousand feet high. 
