We saw abundance of deer feeding quietly upon the narrow meadows, and
upon the lily pads on our way. We had no inclination to injure them,
and we let them feed on. Some of them were hugely astonished, however,
at our presence, and dashed away, whistling and snorting, into the
forest. Two miles from the lake, we came to a rocky barrier, down
which the stream, came rushing and roaring, for fifty or sixty rods,
in a descent of perhaps sixty feet in all. Around these rapids the
boats were carried, and we found, above them, the water deep and
sluggish, flowing through a dense forest, the tall trees on the banks
stretching their leafy arms across the narrow channel, forming above
it an arch delightfully cool, through which the sunlight could
scarcely penetrate. We followed this channel a long way, when we came
to a little lake or pond, four or five miles in circumference. It was
a perfect gem, laying there all alone, so calm, so lovely in its
solitude, with no sign of civilization around it, no sound of
civilization startling its echoes from their sleep of ages, no human
voice having perhaps ever been heard upon its shore since the red man
departed from the hunting-ground of his fathers. The shores all around
it were bold and rocky, save on the western side, where a broad sandy
beach, of a quarter of a mile in extent, lay between the water and the
shadow of the deep forest beyond.
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