The surrounding country has all the charms that cultivated soil and
undulating hill-and-valley scenery can give. Good roads run in various
directions to the adjacent towns, and strangers often speak of the many
different and delightful drives to be found about Worcester.

Three miles east of the city is the beautiful sheet of water called Lake
Quinsigamond. It is a narrow lake, about five miles long, with thickly
wooded banks, and its surface dotted with picturesque little islands.
Along its shores the Nipmuck Indians are said to have lived and hunted;
and on Wigwam Hill, a wooded eminence overlooking the water, where one
of their encampments is supposed to have been, are still occasionally
found specimens of their rude house utensils.

A large tract of land bordering on the lake has lately been given to the
city by two Worcester gentlemen, and it is expected that in the near
future it will be cleared away and made into a public park. The only
park that the city now possesses, besides the Common, before alluded to,
is a small affair on the west side, at the foot of Elm street, one of
the principal residence streets.

* * * * *




ABRAHAM LINCOLN.


By George Lowell Austin.