into the heart of man as
it is to spy out the nakedness of Montcalm's camp from this spot,
hypocrites would grow scarce, and the cunning of a Mingo might prove a
losing game, compared to the honesty of a Delaware."

When the travelers reached the verge of the precipices they saw, at
a glance, the truth of the scout's declaration, and the admirable
foresight with which he had led them to their commanding station.

The mountain on which they stood, elevated perhaps a thousand feet in
the air, was a high cone that rose a little in advance of that range
which stretches for miles along the western shores of the lake, until
meeting its sisters miles beyond the water, it ran off toward the
Canadas, in confused and broken masses of rock, thinly sprinkled with
evergreens. Immediately at the feet of the party, the southern shore
of the Horican swept in a broad semicircle from mountain to mountain,
marking a wide strand, that soon rose into an uneven and somewhat
elevated plain. To the north stretched the limpid, and, as it appeared
from that dizzy height, the narrow sheet of the "holy lake," indented
with numberless bays, embellished by fantastic headlands, and dotted
with countless islands. At the distance of a few leagues, the bed of the
water became lost among mountains, or was wrapped in the masses of vapor
that came slowly rolling along their bosom, before a light morning air.
But a narrow opening between the crests of the hills pointed out the
passage by which they found their way still further north, to spread
their pure and ample sheets again, before pouring out their tribute
into the distant Champlain. To the south stretched the defile, or rather
broken plain, so often mentioned. For several miles in this direction,
the mountains appeared reluctant to yield their dominion, but within
reach of the eye they diverged, and finally melted into the level and
sandy lands, across which we have accompanied our adventurers in their
double journey. Along both ranges of hills, which bounded the opposite
sides of the lake and valley, clouds of light vapor were rising in
spiral wreaths from the uninhabited woods, looking like the smoke of
hidden cottages; or rolled lazily down the declivities, to mingle with
the fogs of the lower land. A single, solitary, snow-white cloud floated
above the valley, and marked the spot beneath which lay the silent pool
of the "bloody pond."

Directly on the shore of the lake, and nearer to its western