with the singularly beautiful prospect. The shadows of summer clouds
were slowly creeping up and down the sides of the mountains that hemmed
it in. On the far eastern shore, near the head, banks of what was
doubtless white sand shone dimly in the sun, and the illusion that
there was a town nestled there haunted my mind constantly. It was like
a section of the Hudson below the Highlands, except that these waters
were bluer and colder, and these shores darker, than even those Sir
Hendrik first looked upon; but surely, one felt, a steamer will round
that point presently, or a sail drift into view! We paddled a mile or
more up the east shore, then across to the west, and found such
pleasure in simply gazing upon the scene that our rods were quite
neglected. We did some casting after a while, but raised no fish of any
consequence till we were in the outlet again, when they responded so
freely that the "disgust of trout" was soon upon us.

At the rapids, on our return, as I was standing to my knees in the
swift, cold current, and casting into a deep hole behind a huge boulder
that rose four or five feet above the water amidstream, two trout, one
of them a large one, took my flies, and, finding the fish and the
current united too strong for my tackle, I sought to gain the top of
the boulder, in which attempt I got wet to my middle and lost my fish.
After I had gained the rock, I could not get away again with my clothes
on without swimming, which, to say nothing of wet garments the rest of
the way home, I did not like to do amid those rocks and swift currents;
so, after a vain attempt to communicate with my companion above the
roar of the water, I removed my clothing, left it together with my
tackle upon the rock, and by a strong effort stemmed the current and
reached the shore. The boat was a hundred yards above, and when I
arrived there my teeth were chattering with the cold, my feet were numb
with bruises, and the black flies were making the blood stream down my