THE PONDS. 
207 
alive with ducks and other water fowl, and that there 
were many eagles about it. He came here a-fishing, 
and used an old log canoe which he found on the shore. 
It was made of two white-pine logs dug out and pinned 
together, and was cut off square at the ends. It was 
very clumsy, but lasted a great many years before it 
became water-logged and perhaps sank to the bottom. 
He did not know whose it was; it belonged to the pond. 
He used to make a cable for his anchor of strips of hick¬ 
ory bark tied together. An old man, a potter, who lived 
by the pond before the Revolution, told him once that 
there was an iron chest at the bottom, and that he had 
seen it. Sometimes it would come floating up to the 
shore; but when you went toward it, it would go back 
into deep water and disappear. I was pleased to hear 
of the old log canoe, which took the place of an Indian 
one of the same material but more graceful construction, 
which perchance had first been a tree on the bank, and 
then, as it were, fell into the water, to float there for a 
generation, the most proper vessel for the lake. I re¬ 
member that when I first looked into these depths there 
were many large trunks to be seen indistinctly lying on 
the bottom, which had either been blown over formerly, 
or left on the ice at the last cutting, when wood was 
cheaper; but now they have mostly disappeared. 
When I first paddled a boat on Walden, it was com¬ 
pletely surrounded by thick and lofty pine and oak 
woods, and in some of its coves grape vines had run 
over the trees next the water and formed bowers under 
which a boat could pass. The hills which form its 
shores are so steep, and the woods on them were then 
so high, that, as you looked down from the west end, it 
had the appearance of an amphitheatre for some kind 
