SAETER 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 reciaimed 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 bebind; 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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