Lake, one of the most beautiful sheets of water that the sun
or the stars ever looked upon. Our sea-biscuit was getting low, and
our egress from the wilderness was therefore becoming, in some sort, a
necessity. There was no lack of venison, or fish, but these are rather
luxuries than actual necessaries, and they were becoming somewhat
stale to as. The staff of life is bread, and of this we had but two
days' supply. It is entirely true that our jerked venison, now dry and
hard as chips, could, if necessary, be made to furnish, to some
extent, a substitute; still, while "it is written that man shall not
live by bread alone," it is equally the law that he cannot very well
get along without it.

We launched our boats upon the lake and rowed to the head of Long
Island, where we put up our tents for the night. I have spoken so
often of the loveliness of the evenings on these beautiful lakes, that
to attempt a description of the one we enjoyed on this romantic
island, would be only a tiresome repetition. But there was a splendor
about the heavens above, and their counterpart in the depths below,
which I have scarcely ever seen equalled. There was no moon in the
early evening, and so pure and clear was the atmosphere, so moveless
and still the waters, that the stars seemed to come out in vaster
numbers, and with an intenser glow, and to be reflected back from away
down in the lake with a brighter refulgence; the hills along the shore
seemed to stand up in bolder outline; the bays to lay in deeper
shadow; while the tall peaks stood in grim solemnity, like pillars
supporting the mighty arches of the sky.

"I was asking myself," said Smith, as we sat looking out over the
water, in the evening, or gazing down into the glowing depths, and
listening to the night voices, faint and far off in the old forests,
as they came floating over the lake, "I was asking myself, as we
journeyed around the falls to-day, and as we stood on the rock where
the river comes leaping down and plunging into the lake, whether the
march of improvement would ever spread a Lowell around those falls, or
subject those wild waters to the uses of civilization. Whether
progress would ever invade those mountain regions; or the ingenuity of
man ever discover uses for these rocks and boulders, or coin wealth
from the sterile and sandy soil of this old wilderness? Hitherto a
country like this has been regarded of no value, save for the timber
which it grows; and whe