t as we were losing consciousness, and we were lulled
to sleep by the beating of the surf upon the shore.

It is always very cold on that Lake shore in the night, but we
had plenty of blankets and were warm enough. We never moved
a muscle all night, but waked at early dawn in the original
positions, and got up at once thoroughly refreshed, free from
soreness, and brim full of friskiness. There is no end of
wholesome medicine in such an experience. That morning
we could have whipped ten such people as we were the day
before--sick ones at any rate. But the world is slow, and
people will go to "water cures" and "movement cures" and to
foreign lands for health.
to Three months of camp life on Lake Tahoe would restore an
Egyptian mummy to his pristine vigor, and give him an appetite
like an alligator. I do not mean the oldest and driest
mummies, of course, but the fresher ones. The air up there in
the clouds is very pure and fine, bracing and delicious. And
why shouldn't it be?--It is the same the angels breathe.
I think that hardly any amount of fatigue can be gathered
together that a man cannot sleep off in one night on the sand
by its side. Not under a roof, but under the sky; it seldom or
never rains there in the summer time.

... Next morning while smoking the pipe of peace after
breakfast we watched the sentinel peaks put on the glory of
the sun, and followed the conquering light as it swept down
among the shadows, and set the captive crags and forests free.
We watched the tinted pictures grow and brighten upon the
water till every little detail of forest, precipice, and
pinnacle was wrought in and finished, and the miracle of the
enchanter complete. Then to "business."

That is, drifting around in the boat. We were on the north
shore. There, the rocks on the bottom are sometimes gray,
sometimes white. This gives the marvelous transparency of the
water a fuller advantage than it has elsewhere on the Lake. We
usually pushed out a hundred yards or so from the shore, and
then lay down on the thwarts in the sun, and let the boat
drift by the hour whither it would. We seldom talked. It
interrupted the Sabbath stillness, and marred the dreams the
luxurious rest and indolence brought. The shore all along was
indented with deep, curved bays and coves, bordered by