GARDEN ISLAND. 



97 



wild rice and blue berries is a very palatable dish, and 

 eagerly sought after by those who have been living on 

 salt food for several weeks. 



On approaching and receding from Keating's Island, 

 the effects of refraction were most astonishing, elevating 

 low detached island rocks into huge precipitous promon- 

 tories, and giving to a shore, a few feet above the level 

 of the water, the appearance of a high rock-bound coast. 

 On nearing a small island about four miles east of Garden 

 or Cornfield Island, the grasshoppers on the surface of 

 the lake became more numerous, the green confervas was 

 visibly less in quantity, and before we landed to dine it 

 had disappeared altogether, but the grasshoppers were 

 found in great numbers on the shore. The island on 

 which we rested for an hour was about three acres in 

 extent, and sustained some fine old oaks and elms, with a 

 profusion of long grass, not much destroyed by the grass- 

 hoppers, which had evidently only just arrived there, as 

 was afterwards inferred, while those which had been 

 observed scattered over the surface of the lake were 

 probably stragglers from a vast flight of these insects, 

 whose main body we saw subsequently on Garden 

 Island. 



During the morning the sky had been cloudless, the 

 air still, and the sun oppressively hot ; but in the after- 

 noon a long gentle swell began to rise upon the lake, 

 and when we put off for our destination, a wind arose 

 which gradually increased to a gale before we landed 

 during the evening of the 24th August, on a low gravelly 

 beach, at the north-west corner of Garden Island. 



We camped near a well-cultivated field of Indian corn, 

 and a rapid exploration of the island revealed to us a 

 large potato patch, and a small area devoted to squashes 

 and pumpkins of different kinds. We ascertained that 



VOL. I. h 



