By the way, I wonder that our artists do not summer among these mountains and lakes, sketching and painting the transcendently beautiful views they everywhere present.  There is nothing like them on all this continent.  We talk about the scenery of Lake George.  It is all tame and spiritless compared with what may be seen here; it possesses not a tithe of the variety, the bold and grand, the placid and beautiful, all mingled, and changing always, as you pass from point to point along these lakes.  Why do not the artists whose business it is to make the “canvas speak,” drift out this way, and deal with nature in all her ancient loveliness, clothed in her primeval robes, and smiling in her freshness and beauty, as when thrown from the hand of Deity?  It would repay them for their labor, and yield them a rich harvest of gain.

We had heard of the shanty in which we were to encamp, and we rowed straight through the whole length of the lake towards it.  We reached it as the sun was going down, and stowed away our luggage before the darkness had gathered over the forest.  We took possession by the right of squatter sovereignty, the owner being unknown, or at all events, absent from the woods.  This lake is one of the few in all this region that I had never visited before, and is next in beauty to its namesake, two days’ journey nearer to civilization.  It is about twelve miles in length, and from one to two miles in width, with many beautiful bays stealing around behind bold rocky promontories, and sleeping in quiet beauty under the shadows of the tall forest trees that tower above their shores.  It is dotted, too, with beautiful islands, some rising with a gentle slope from the water, covered with scattering Norway pines, and a dense undergrowth of low bushes; others are covered with tall spruce, fir, and hemlocks, standing up in stately and solemn grandeur, their arms lovingly intertwined, through the everlasting verdure of which the sun never shines; and others still are gigantic rocks, rising up out of the deep water, all treeless and shrubless, remaining always in brown and barren desolation, on which the eagle and osprey devour their prey, and the flocks of gulls that frequent the lake ’light to rest from their almost ceaseless flight.  Civilization has not as yet marred in anything this beautiful sheet of water; even the lumberman has not forced his way to the majestic old pines that tower in stately grandeur above the forest trees of a lesser growth; not a foot of laud has been cleared within thirty miles of it.  The old woods stand around it just as God placed them, in all their pristine solemnity, stately and motionless; the wild things that roamed among them in the day of old, are there still, and the same species of birds that sported in their branches thousands of years ago, are there still.  We heard the howl of the wolf at night; we heard the scream of the panther; we saw the tracks of the moose, and where he had fed on the pastures along the shore; we saw the footprints