CHAPTER XXII. 
MUSKALLONGE. 
Every person has, more or less, a conception of what 
Fairyland must be like; my ideas run into caves and grot- 
toes, with’ shady nooks and flower-clad rocks, ferns luxuri- 
ously covering jagged peaks, and creepers festooning im- 
aginary roofs; one moment the eye resting upon the eva- 
nescent oleander; at another, gazing with admiration upon 
the pure and spotless water-lily ; but to léave the realms of 
fancy and return to reality is but the work of an instant— 
the arousing of the sleeping man to the realities of life. 
Fancy the season of the year autumn, the day cloudless, 
with the bluest and most transparent sky overhead that 
mortal ever gazed upon, the water underneath your keel 
the most pellucid, rapid, and laughing that eye ever rested 
on, hundreds of islands on every side of the most fantas- 
tic shapes, trees and shrubs crowding every available inch 
of soil, covered with the most gorgeous colorings that ever 
were represented by the are of heaven, and a distance so 
soft and undefinable, that the beholder wonders if he can 
not see into another planet. Such, in truth, is the St. Law- 
rence amidst the Thousand Islands on a fine day toward 
the end of September. Where under the sun can such a 
scene be looked upon? I search my memory in vain for 
its counterpart; and although the inland seas of Japan, the 
broad and placid waters of the Hudson at the Highlands, 
the palm-clad islands of the Indian Archipelago, the azure 
seas and skies of the Mediterranean rise. before me, beauti- 
ful and perfect as they are, they can not compare with the 
