occasionally muscle shells in other streams, and along the shores of
the lakes, but I never before saw any such as these save near the
ocean, where the salt water ebbs and flows, and not even there in such
quantities. One might gather barrels and barrels of them, large and
apparently fat, and yet there would be hundreds or thousands of
barrels left. The mink, the muskrat, and other animals that hunt
along the water, and have a taste for fish, have a good time of it
among them, for we saw bushels of shells in places where the fish had
been extracted and devoured.

We arrived at Mud Lake towards evening, and pitched our tent on a
little rise of ground on the north side, a few rods back from the
lake, among a cluster of spruce and balsam, and surrounded by a dense
growth of laurel and high whortleberry bushes. We saw a deer
occasionally on our route, and the banks of the stream in many places
were trodden up by them like the entrance to a sheep-fold. Why this
sheet of water should be called Mud Lake is a mystery, for though
gloomy enough in every other respect, its bed is of sand, and it is
surrounded by a sandy beach from fifteen to forty feet wide. It is
perhaps four miles in circumference, its waters generally shallow, and
so covered with pond lilies, and skirted with wild grass, as to form
the most luxuriant pasture for the deer and moose to be found in all
this region. Of all the lakes I have visited in these northern wilds,
this is the most gloomy. Indeed it is the only one that does not wear
a cheerful and pleasant aspect. It seems to be the highest water in
this portion of the wilderness, lying, as one of our boatmen
expressed it, "up on the top of the house." In only one direction
could any higher land be seen, and that was a low hill on the
western shore, not exceeding fifty feet in height. There are no
tall mountain peaks reaching their heads towards the clouds,