e. To the young
generation of Americans who yearly visit its shores it is an El Dorado,
and the very air breathes love as they glide in their light boats over
its pellucid waters, adding to the picturesqueness of the scene, and
supplying that need ever felt, no matter what the natural beauty,--the
presence of man. I believe even the Garden of Eden itself could not
have been perfect till among its shady groves fell the shadows of our
first parents. The cool retreats, the jutting promontories, the
moss-covered rocks against which the waves softly break,--if these had
tongues, they would, like Tennyson's Brook, "go on forever," for surely
they would never have done telling the tender tales they have heard. Nor
would it be possible to find a more fitting spot for the cultivation of
love and sentiment than this charming lake affords; for Nature seems to
have created Lake George in one of her happiest moments. This lake is
about thirty-four miles long, and varies in width from one to four
miles. Its greatest depth is about the same as that of Champlain. It
possesses (like all the American lakes when used as fashionable
watering-places) the usual three hundred and sixty-five islands.

When I left the Mayeta I followed a narrow footpath to a rough mountain
road, which in turn led me through the forests towards Lake George. In
an isolated dell I found the home of one Levi Smith, who piloted me
through the woods to the lake, and ferried me in a skiff across to
Hague, when I dined at the hotel, and resumed my journey along the
shores to Sabbath Day Point, where at four o'clock P. M. a steamer on
its trip from Ticonderoga to the south end of the lake stopped and took
me on board. We steamed southward to where high mountains shut in the
lake, and for several miles threaded the "Narrows" with its many pretty
islands, upon one of which Mr. J. Henry Hill, the hermit-artist, had
erected his modest home, and where he toiled at his studies early and
late, summer and winter. Three goats and a squirrel were his only
companions in this lonely but romantic spot.

During one cold winter, when the lake was frozen over to a depth of two
feet, and the forests were mantled in snow, Mr. Hill's brother, a civil
engineer, made a visit to this icy region, and the two brothers surveyed
the Narrows, making a correct map of that portion of the lake, with all
its islands carefully located. Mr. Hill afterwards made an etching of
this map, surrounding it w