In the morning we sent forward our boatman with the tents and baggage to an island on the Upper Saranac, and coasted this pleasant little lake.  On the right, as you approach the head, is a deep bay, skirted by a natural meadow, where the rank wild grass, and the pond lilies that grow along the shore furnish a rich pasture for the deer.  We saw several feeding quietly like sheep, on the little plain and upon the lily pads in the edge of the water.  We paddled silently to within a dozen rods of them, when, as they discovered us, they dashed snorting and whistling away.

On the right of this meadow, and among the tall forest trees are great boulders which, piled up and partly obscured by the undergrowth, resemble from the lake the massive ruins of some ancient fortification.  We landed by a spring, which came bubbling up from beneath one of these great moss-covered rocks, to lunch.  It was a pleasant spot, and while we sat there dozens of small birds, of the size and general appearance of the cuckoo, save in their hooked beaks, attracted by the scent of our cold meats, came hopping tamely about on the lower limbs of the forest trees around us.  They were called by our boatmen, “meat hawks,” and have less fear of man than any wild birds that I have ever seen.

We crossed the carrying place of a quarter of a mile around the rapids, in which distance the river falls some sixty feet, roaring and tumbling down ledges and boiling in mad fury around boulders.  We entered the Upper Saranac at the hour appointed, and found our tents pitched and a dinner of venison and trout awaiting us on the island selected for our encampment.

As the sun sank behind the hills, the breeze died away, and the lake lay without a ripple around as, so calm, so smooth, and still, that it seemed to have sunk quietly to sleep in its forest bed.  The fish were jumping in every direction, and while the rest of us sat smoking our meerchaums after dinner, or rather supper, Smith rigged his trolling rod, and having caught half a dozen minnows, he with Martin, rowed out upon the water to troll for the lake trout.  These are a very different fish from the speckled trout of the streams and rivers.  They had none of the golden specks of the latter, are of a darker hue, and much larger.  They are dotted with brown spots, like freckles upon the face of a fair-skinned girl.  They are shorter too, in proportion to their weight than the speckled trout.  They are caught in these lakes, weighing from three to fifteen pounds, and instances have been known of their attaining to the weight of five and twenty.  It is an exciting sport to take one of these large fellows on a line of two hundred and fifty or three hundred feet in length.  They play beautifully when hooked, and it requires a good deal of coolness and skill to land them safely in your boat.  A trolling rod for these large fish should be much stiffer, and stronger than those used for the fly, on the rivers and streams;