night before our visit. Within the hut we found a piece of paper, on which was written :-"This hospice, erected by a party from New York, August 19, 1858, is intended for the use and comfort of visitors to Tahawus.-F. S. P.-M. C.-F. M. N." Under this was written :"This hospice was occupied over night of August 14, 1859, by A. G. C. and T. R. D. Sun rose fourteen minutes to five." Under this:"TAHAWUS HOUSE REGISTER, August 14, 1859, Alfred G. Compton, and Theodore R. Davis, New York. August 16, Charles Newman, Stamford, Connecticut; Charles Bedfield, Elizabeth Town, New York." To these we added our own names, and those of the guides.

Our view from the summit of Tahawus will ever form one of the most remarkable pictures in memory; and yet it may not properly be called a picture. It is a topographical map, exhibiting a surface diversified by mountains, lakes, and valleys. The day was very pleasant, yet a cold north-westerly wind was sweeping over the summit of the mountain. A few clouds, sufficient to cast fine shadows upon the earth, were floating not far above us, and on the east, when we approached the summit at three o'clock, an iridescent mist was slightly veiling a group of mountains, from their thick wooded bases in the valleys, to their bold rocky summits. Our stand-point being the highest in all that region, there was nothing to obstruct the view. To-war-loon-dah, or Hill of Storms (Mount Emmons), Ou-kor-lah, or Big Eye (Mount Seward), Wah-o-par-te-nie, or White-face Mountain, and the Giant of the Valley-all rose peerless above the other hills around us, excepting Colden and M'Intyre, that stood apparently within trumpet-call of Tahawus, as fitting companions, but over whose summits, likewise, we could look away to the dark forests of Franklin and St. Lawrence Counties, in the far north-west. Northward we could see the hills melting into the great St. Lawrence level, out of which arose the Royal Mountain back of the city of Montreal. Eastward, full sixty miles distant, lay the magnificent Green Mountains, that give name to the state of Vermont, and through a depression of that range, we saw distinctly the great Mount Washington among the White Hills of New Hampshire, one hundred and fifty miles distant. Southward the view was bounded by the higher peaks of the Cattskills, or Katzbergs, and westward by the mountain ranges in Hamilton and Herkimer

Counties. At our feet reposed the great wilderness of northern New York, full a hundred miles in length, and eighty in breadth, lying in parts of seven counties, and equal in area to several separate smaller States of the Union. On every side bright lakes were gleaming, some nestling in unbroken forests, and others with their shores sparsely dotted with clearings, from which arose the smoke from the settler's cabin. We counted twenty-seven lakes, including Champlain-the Indian Can-i-a-de-ri Guarun-te, or Door of the Country-which stretched along the eastern view one hundred and forty miles, and at a distance of about fifty miles at the nearest point. We could see the sails of water-craft like white specks upon its bosom, and, with our telescope, could distinctly discern the houses in Burlington, on the eastern shore of the lake.

From our point of view we could comprehend the emphatic significance of the Indian idea of Lake Champlain-the Door of the Country. It fills the bottom of an immense valley, that stretches southward between the great mountain ranges of New York and New England, from the St. Lawrence level toward the valley of the Hudson, from which it is separated by a slightly elevated ridge. To the fierce Huron of Canada, who loved to make war upon the more southern Iroquois, this lake was a wide open door for his passage. Through it many brave men, aborigines and Europeans, have gone to the war-paths of New York and New England, never to return.

Standing upon Tahawus, it required very little exercise of the imagination to behold the stately procession of historic men and events, passing through that open door. First in dim shadows were the dusky warriors

* In the introduction to his published sermon, preached at Plymouth, in New England, in the year 1621 (and the first ever preached there), the Rev. Robert Cushman, speaking of that country, says :"So far as we can find, it is an island, and near about the quantity of England, being cut out from the mainland in America, as England is from the main of Europe, by a great arm of the sea [Hudson's River], which entereth in forty degrees, and runneth up north-west and by west, and goeth out, either into the South Sea [Pacific Ocean], or else into the Bay of Canada [the Gulf of St. Lawrence]." The old divine was nearly right in his conjecture that New England was an island. It is a peninsula, connected to the main by a very narrow isthmus, the extremities of which are at the villages of Whitehall, on Lake Champlain, and Fort Edward, on the Hudson, about twenty-five miles apart. The lowest portion of that isthmus is not more than fifty feet above Lake Champlain, whose waters are only ninety above the sea. This isthmus is made still narrower by the waters of Wood Creek, which flow into Lake Champlain, and of Fort Edward Creek, which empty into the Hudson. These are navigable for light canoes, at some seasons of the year, to within a mile and a-half of each other. The canal, which now connects the Hudson and Lake Champlain, really makes New England an island.

of the ante-Columbian period, darting swiftly through in their baik canoes, intent upon blood and plunder. Then came Champlain and his men [1609], with guns and sabres, to aid the Hurons in contests with the Adirondacks and other Iroquois at Crown Point and Ticonderoga. Then came French and Indian allies, led by Marin [1745], passing swiftly through that door, and sweeping with terrible force down the Hudson valley to Saratoga, to smite the Dutch and English settlers there. Again French and Indian warriors came, led by Montcalm, Dieskau, and others [1755-1759], to drive the English from that door, and secure it for the house of Bourbon. A little later came troops of several nationalities, with Burgoyne at their head [1777], rushing through that door with power, driving American republicans southward, like chaff before the wind, and sweeping victoriously down the valley of the Hudson to Saratoga and beyond. And, lastly, came another British force, with Sir George Prevost at their head [1814], to take possession of that door, but were turned back at the northern threshold with discomfiture. In the peaceful present that door stands wide open, and people of all nations may pass through it unquestioned. But the Indian is seldom seen at the portal.

CHAPTER III.

HE cold increased every moment as the sun declined, and, after remaining on the summit of Tahawus only an hour, we descended to the Opalescent River, where we encamped for the night. Toward morning there was a rain-shower, and the water came trickling upon us through the light bark roof of our "camp." But the clouds broke at sunrise, and, excepting a copious shower of small hail, and one or two of light rain, we had pleasant weather the remainder of the day. We descended the Opalescent in its rocky bed, as we went up, and at noon dined on the margin of Lake Colden, just after a slight shower had passed by.

We were now at an elevation of almost three thousand feet above tide water. In lakes Colden and Avalanche, which lie close to each other, there are no fishes. Only lizards and leeches occupy their cold waters. All is silent and solitary there. The bald eagle sweeps over them occasionally, or perches upon a lofty pine, but the mournful voice of the Great Loon, or Diver (Colymbus glacialis), heard over all the waters of northern New York and Canada, never awakens the echoes of these solitary lakes.* These waters lie in a high basin between the Mount Colden and Mount M'Intyre ranges, and have experienced great changes. Avalanche Lake, evidently once a part of Lake Colden, is about eighty feet higher than the latter, and more than two miles from it. They have been separated by, perhaps, a series of avalanches, or mountain slides, which still occur in that region. From

*The water view in the picture of the Loon is a scene on Harris's Lake, with Goodenow Mountain in the distance.

the top of Tahawus we saw the white glare of several, striping the sides of mountain cones.

At three o'clock we reached our camp at Calamity Pond, and just before sunset emerged from the forest into the open fields near Adirondack village, where we regaled ourselves with the bountiful fruitage of the raspberry shrub. At Mr. Hunter's we found kind and generous entertainment, and at an early hour the next morning we started for the great Indian Pass, four miles distant.

Half a mile from Henderson Lake we crossed its outlet upon a picturesque bridge, and following a causeway another half a mile through a

clearing, we penetrated the forest, and struck one of the chief branches of the Upper Hudson, that comes from the rocky chasms of that Pass. Our journey was much more difficult than to Tahawus. The undergrowth of the forest was more dense, and trees more frequently lay athwart the dim trail. We crossed the stream several times, and, as we ascended, the valley narrowed until we entered the rocky gorge between the steep slopes of Mount M'Intyre and the cliffs of Wall-face Mountain. There we encountered enormous masses of rocks, some worn by the abrasion of the elements, some angular, some bare, and some covered with moss, and many of them bearing large trees, whose roots, clasping

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