FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Aug. 14, 1897. 
MUSKOKA WANDERINGS.-I. 
The Wanderer's Journey Into the Far North 
and Return. 
What care I for books, and the learned looks 
Of scholars both young and old? 
Give me shady nooks and the running brooks, 
And the glorious sunshine gold 
That floods the heart, makes the warm blood start, 
Throbbing loudly in every vein, 
Till the body is part of God's highest art, 
And is straightway born again. 
One bright August afternoon I stood with my good friend 
Donald on Muskoka wharf, and for the second time gazed 
on the island-dotted waters of our beautiful Muskoka lakes. 
Full of anticipation was I of halcyon days to come for wood 
and field, river, lake and stream, the stable rocks, and chang- 
ing heavens, were to me thfrvery breath of life, and made 
deep impressions on my receptive nature. Donald, more 
than I, had the soul of the seer and mystic, and saw many 
strange things, and listened to many voices, unheard by the 
careless steamer tourist. ~ - . 
By the wharf floated '6ur graceful canoe, fit conveyance 
for those seeking to draw closer to the benign bosom of 
mother nature, and to listen to the beatings of her mighty 
heart, A mute farewell to everyday life and we were afloat, 
the canoe leaping beneath us to long drawn rhythmic strokes 
as with c^uickened heart and deepened breath we pushed 
forward into the southern stretches of Lake Muskoka. 
Here, indeed, the eye is not attracted by pictures of sensuous 
beauty, but the mind can find food for reflection none the 
less, for, spreading out on all sides are the crude elements, 
which further north are combined to form those exquisite 
scenic gems, which, in their varied sameness, form Miis- 
koka's charm. 
Here rock meets the eye gray, brown or lichen-tinted, 
rugged and tip-tilted or spread in flattened waterworm 
masses till it seems as though the Titans, who laid the foun- 
dations of the earth, had thrown down here the fragments of 
their unused material, leaving it to the changing seasons, the 
summer sun, the biting frost, the wearing of many waters 
and the touch of Wabun* and Keewaydinf to work over the 
rugged refuse heap into a thing of beauty. In the rocks, as 
we slip through the narrows, we see in the sparkling mica, 
quarts and granite, the reUcs of primeval fires; there on the 
mainland tall, gaunt, leafless pines stand as monuments to 
the passage of recent devastating flames. Yet from the 
chastened fire-tried earth has sprung a gracious second 
growth of oak and maple, beech and birch, nature's proud re- 
sponse to the touch of aflaiction. Thus, feeling these things 
rather than thinking them, we glide on mile after mile past 
islet and rock, scraggy wood and barren hills, till twilight's 
veil and sunset glory throw a tenderer shadow of poesy over 
the passing landscape. 
As the stars begin to twinkle through the tawny glow of 
the dying day the white tower of Beaumaris peeps through 
the trees of a rocky point, and we know that soon our long 
paddle will be at an end and friendly voices welflome us 
back to well remembered scenes. A bugle's clear and ring- 
ing note cuts the air, and simultaneously our paddles flashed 
with greater vigor as we caught the well known signal ; then 
a shout, a- quick flash of oars, a waving of hats and hand- 
kerchiefs, a babble of voices in greeting, and we found our- 
selves in tow of one friendly craft while others hovered 
round in escort. 
Round the end of beautiful Keewaydin we swung, between 
its woody isle and the rocky heights of Point Kaye on the 
north. Then, when all was still, and the idle chatter 
hushed, one stood up and blew a soft, clear bugle call 
toward the sleeping woods. A dryad heard it and in tender 
accents repeated the sweet notes. The spirit of the rocks 
across the water took up the challenge and in more strident 
tones hurled back the refrain, only to be re-echoed by a 
chorus of nymphs, dryads, nereids and water sprites, who 
fPhispered it to one another till the notes died away in the 
jfjaintest, sweetest harmony, like the fairy music pure-hearted 
'innocence alone m&y hear. 
Donald lay back m the canoe with a rapt light in his eyes, 
which was to me the sign that already the quieter voices of 
nature were penetrating his ears. When at last the sounds 
faded into nothing, he said in a hushed voice: ''Portia com- 
pared a good deal in this naughty world to the shining of •« " 
candle; I say it is like that bugle blast which finds an echo 
in many hearts, and awakes in them harmonies which may 
re-echo far beyond the reach of the little life which first 
stood for truth and right." 
That night we slept beneath a friendly roof, but the trees 
lustled against the windows and the chipmunks chattered 
on the shingles, and so we were content. 
Afterward followed many golden days, during which we 
traversed tortuous waterways and broad and sunny reaches, 
camping by night beside the lapping waters of the lakes or 
in the silent woods, where an unseen river sang all night the 
cradle song of the forest. We tarried but little near the tourist 
haunts, yet here and there met familiar faces or renewed 
old acquaintances, l^ow, a greeting would come from some 
rustic wharf scarce jutting from the rocky marge of a little 
green clad isle, forming a leafy background to a splash of 
red tarn or jersey and waving white handkerchiefs; then 
again, a hail from a passing steamer, a smile, an answering 
salute, and sohtude once more. 
Near Fair Venetia In Lake Eosseau is a little isle I will not 
name, but pleasant people lived there, and Donald at least 
needs no printed page to keep its memory green. 
There were we made welcome, and there met a "nut- 
brown maiden" whose name indeed I knew by heart, for had 
not Donald day by day uttered its music in my ears? 
By day the little archipelago of Venetia formed a charm- 
ing picture with its miniature isles and tinted cottages, but 
night, and one above all others, seemed its chiefest glory. I 
lay that evening on a little bluff fragrant with sun dried 
cranberry and wintergi-een, when Donald and the maiden 
joined me, moved as 1 by the spell of beauty to sit and gaze 
at a masterpiece of the great Artist of the Universe. 
In front of us spread the lake, dai-k, rippleless and pro- 
found, lit only with the swarming images of the stars, which 
twinkled aloft with their softest summer radiance. No 
sound broke the stillness save the never altogether silent buzz 
of insect life and that deeper, quieter sound of the working 
• The east vylnd, 
t The northwest wind. 
of life forces in tree and plant, which seems to be felt rather 
than caught by our dull sense of heariftg. 
Humanity spoke to us only through the twinkling yellow 
lights which began to shine on point and islet all about us, 
but God seemed to speak to the heart as though all things 
were but the emanations of his Divine Spirit. 
The maiden first broke the stillness with a question that 
loosed Donald's tongue to speak his inmost thoughts. "Do 
you not feel lonely being so much alone in the woods and 
among the islands with so few to talk to?" "Lonely! No. 
I have so much to see and think of, and so many voices to 
whisper wonderful things to me. that I could not be lonely. 
Are there not tall pines to sigh to me the aspirations'that 
made them climb so high toward heaven when Shawondasee* 
stirs their boughs, and to shout to me their struggles and 
their battle cry when fierce Keewaydin sweeps across the 
land? Are there not oaks to tell me how they thrust their 
sturdy limbs to right and left and broadened and grew till 
they became a very inspiration of rugged strength and 
grandeur? Is there not the gentler rustle of the maple to 
speak to me of grace and beauty? Does not the quivering 
birch fill- night and day with its tender chatter? Ferns, 
flowers, shrubs, trees, all have a life story to tell, and all can 
say something worth the hearing if we will but listen. There 
is a charm in nature that is distinctly grateful to one tired of 
looking at the jarring units of humanity and trying to guess 
BALA PALLS. 
at the great meaning and end of it all. Among men I, the 
unit, am too tragically concerned in the tiny eddies of the 
stream of events to catch more than a puzzled glimpse of 
the great sweep of the river. 
"Here, as with the eyes of omnipotence, I can survey the 
mighty unfolding of organic nature from moneron to man, 
from the lowest cryptogam to the daisy and dahlia. 
"Here at least I can understand and admire the designs of 
the great Originator, and so find courage and strength to 
take my part in the daily evolution of the moral and spirit- 
ual life of humanity toward the unknown end. Here, and 
here alone, can I see perfection — the plant perfect after its 
kind, and the animal perfect after its kind ; so that as I gaze 
and the spell of the forest sinks into me, 1 dream of the 
golden age yet to come, when man shall walk the earth per- 
fect in the Divine sight, needing but the dissolution of his 
mortal frame to fit him for the larger life of Eternity." 
The maiden looked at him with a light in her eyes that 
told me someone else was beginning to understand Donald as 
I thought I alone could do. 
Quiet fell again upon us, and from above Vega, Altair, Arc- 
turus, in their vastness looked down upon the puny inhabitants 
THE INDIAN RIVEB, 
of one of the least of the worlds of the universe, and calmly 
ignored the little affairs of their brief lives ; yet there seemed 
in them an inspiration to look up and ever up, to know and 
live the best in this earthly life, and to hope for fuller life in 
an eternity beyond. 
The next day we said auf iciedersehn to fair Venetia, and, 
with many backward glances, plied our glancing paddles 
toward Port Sandfield, set like a sentinel between Rosseau 
and Joseph. 
Sandfield past, tortuous, island-studded Lake Joseph 
opened up before us, and two days and nights we explored 
its beauties as far north as beautiful Craigie Lea. 
Sunshine and cloud, winter and summer, work and play, 
each is but a preparation for the enjoyment of the other, 
and, like true rovers, when the sky above us changed its 
smile into a frown w^e were ready to greet the change with 
cheerful front. 
Elsinore was just abeam that afternoon, when a gathering 
blackness creeping up over the southwestern sky suddenly 
eclipsed the sun and threw a chill shadow over land and 
lake. Whitish-gray scud was flying beneath the blackness, 
and the ominous dropping of the northerly breeze warned 
us to seek a place of safety till the coming storm had passed. 
On Elsinore's shore we landed, and from beneath the shel- 
ter of a rock watched the blotting out of the heavens and 
the awed expectancy of the silent earth. Now, before our 
eyes, was enacted the great aettlernent of accounts between 
* The south wind. 
earth and sky. Day after day had wind and sun stolen the 
moisture from land and water and borne it aloft in triumph 
to the clouds, and day after day had gone with it the fet- 
tered lightning of the earth; but now, in pouring rain, in 
lashing hail, in scourging wind and steely jags of fire, was 
paid the debt of the powers of the air to the great earth 
spirit, the mighty voice of the thunder rolling round the 
throne of the storm king proclaimed to all men, thus and so, 
must be paid by all the dues of nature. 
Then passed on its awful circuit the court of the storm 
king, and again the aun poured out and lit with a wintry 
gleam the diamond-sprinkled emerald of Arma and Laurie 
to the south. The sunshine spread, and as the sun emerged 
from its vapory shroud a glorious arc of prismatic color 
flashed into view against the background of cloud in the 
east, the Bifrost bridge of the Norse, across which the souls 
of the brave pissed to Asgard, the shadowy city of the gods 
beyond. The storm was over and we went our way, seeing 
on either hand the visible thanksgiving of nature for the 
gracious rain, and hearing again the chirping of the buds 
now emerging from their temporary shelter. 
From Craigie Lea by easy stages we returned to Lake 
Muskoka, passing all the well-known places on the way 
without a glance of regret, saving only the fairy land of 
Venetia. 
Down the graceful curves of the Indian River we swung 
past Port Oarling with its little lock forming a loop round 
the rapids with their timber dam and slide, between tangled 
wooded banks where flamed the cardinal lobelia, over pale 
green shallows and deep dark channels; here through a tiny 
lake bordered with rushes and lily pads, then on past a little 
fertile farm, forming with its tender green and cultivated 
freshness a grateful contrast to the brown and rugged rock 
and wild tangle of the trees, and out by the curve of Horse- 
shoe Island into the dark waters of Lake Muskoka, a long- 
legged crane sweeping out before us toward the western 
mainland where a solitary maple already glowed in gold and 
red against the sombre evergreens. 
Near Keewaydin was the hospitable roof beneath which 
we were to spend the next few nights, making it head- 
quarters for short expeditions to Bala Falls, Milford Bay, 
Brandy Lake, and other places near at hand. 
That the "maiden" was also a fellow-guest was a coin- 
cidence that I will not attempt to explam, but as a conse- 
quence I often found myself dispossessed of my accustomed 
place in our little canoe and compelled to seek other com- 
panionship in our Lake Muskoka experiences. 
J. Edw. Maibek. 
fTO BE CONCLrDED.] 
THE CHESTNUT RIDGE 
And Alons Its Foot. —IV. 
The name Conemaugh is said to mean "otter creek." I 
should not have suspected this, for I have never heard of an 
otter in the Conemaugh. Dr. Jackson, writing forty years 
ago, says that the otter "is occasionally found on the moun- 
tain, but is rare in Pennsylvania, and fast disappearing on 
account of its valuable fur." I should think the passing of 
the otter in Pennsylvania was now an accomplished fact. 
The largest tributary of the Conemaugh is the Loyalhanna, 
which flows into it at Saltsburg, twenty six miles above the 
confluence of the river with the Allegheny. The lower 
Conemaugh — that is, from its junction with the Loyalhauna 
to its mouth— is called the Kiskiminetas— a name which is 
said to mean "make daylight"— an exclamation uttered at 
some time by an Indian brave who was impatient to be on 
the march. Loyalhanna is said to mean "middle stream." 
These are the meanings of these words as X find them m my 
friends. G. Boyd's excellent book on "Indian Local Names." 
The Loyalhanna was so called because the old Indian trading- 
path between the forks of the Ohio and Raystown, now 
Bedford, in Pennsylvania, crossed this stream at the point 
where Ligonier now stands, which was just half-way 
between the two places. The next largest afluents 
of the Conemaugh are the Stony Creek, which joins it 
at Johnstown, and the Blacklick, which comes in about 
two miles below Blairsville. Who was the first white 
man to explore the Conemaugh Valley I have not been able 
to learn. By the middle of the last century the river was a 
well-known stream, and one of the most traveled Indian 
trails from the foot of the mountains westward, followed 
more or less closely the line of this river. This road was 
traveled by Croghan, Weiser, Post, and others in going to 
and from the Indian country on the Ohio. 
Settlements were made in the valley of the Conemaugh 
before the end of the last century, though they could not 
have been numerous. Maciay, the surveyor, in coming up 
the river in the year 1790, thinks it worth remarking in his 
journal, that shortly after entering the mouth of the Kiski- 
minetas he "saw two white men on the river in a canoe." 
It must have been an unexpected sight. Again, under date 
of Friday, Aug. aO, he says: "We had this day been at- 
tempting to procure some fresh provisions on our way up, 
from the inhabitants along the river, and had been unsuc- 
cessful." From his journal we learn that one Samuel Hay 
lived a little way below the mouth of the Loyalhanna, that 
Colonel William Perry lived a short distance above the 
mouth of that creek, and that one Dennison had a mill eight 
miles up the same stream. He mentions also that above the 
Pack Saddle one David Ingard lived, and near the mouth of 
the Stony Creek was another settler, Daniel La Vere, "who," 
says Maciay, "received us with an open countenance," how- 
ever that was. 
From this time forward settlements were constantly made. 
Johnstown, which may be regarded as the metropolis of this 
valley, was settled by Joseph Johns about 1791. The cabins 
of pioneer settlers were soon to be seen at closer intervals 
along the course of the stream. Of one of these early comers 
I must be permitted to tell a story. 
'Twas sixty years since. No railroad then ran along the 
bank of the Conemaugh, and no steam whistle awoke the 
echoes among the hills. The canal, which for years served 
its purpose, and has long since almost faded from the recol- 
lection of men, was then a new enterprise, and in the first 
flush of its fame. A number of thriving villages had sprung 
up along the line of the canal, with occasional houses be- 
tween. A few houses were also built on the opposite side of 
the river, and one of these was occupied by old Zack Upson. 
It was a mere cabin of roimd logs, the roof of clapboards, 
which were held in place by slender poles extending from 
end to end of the house. The chimney was of sticks well 
coyered with a coating of clay, and the top surmounted by a 
flour barrel with both rnds out by way of a chimney pot. 
The whole architecture was of the primitive kind, which is 
remembered by a few of the oldest inhabitants. The house 
