coaxing. Since the loss of my father she dreads to have any one
belonging to her go upon the water. It is strange that this beautiful
body of water is called a 'Pond.' The geography tells of many in
Scotland and Ireland not near so large that are called 'Lakes.' It is
not respectful to speak of so noble, deep, and broad a collection of
clear water as a 'Pond'; it makes a stranger think of geese, and then of
goose-pond. Mr. White, who knows all this region, told us that the
streams from thirty-five ponds, large and small, flow into this, and he
calls it Great Basin. We landed on one of the small islands that Captain
Dingley cleared for a sheep pasture when he first came to Raymond. Mr.
Ring said that he had to do it to keep his sheep from the bears and
wolves. A growth of trees has started on the island, and makes a grove
so fine and pleasant, that I wish almost that our house was there. On
the way from the island to the Images Mr. Ring caught a black spotted
trout that was almost a whale, and weighed before it was cut open, after
we got back to Uncle Richard's store, eighteen and a half pounds. The
men said that if it had been weighed as soon as it came out of the water
it would have been nineteen pounds. This trout had a droll-looking
hooked nose, and they tried to make me believe, that if the line had
been in my hands, that I should have been obliged to let go, or have
been pulled out of the boat. They were men, and had a right to say so. I
am a boy, and have a right to think differently. We landed at the
Images, when I crept into the cave and got a drink of cool water. In
coming home we sailed over a place, not far from the Images, where Mr.
White has, at some time, let down a line four hundred feet without
finding bottom. This seems strange, for he told us, too, that his boat,
as it floated, was only two hundred and fifty feet higher than the boats
in Portland Harbor, and that if the Great Pond was pumped dry, a man
standing on its bottom, just under where we then were, would be more
than one hundred and fifty feet lower than the surface of the water at