Number of pumpkin,
raspberry, cherry, and currant pies, with fresh butter and green
cheese (as the new cream-cheese is called), molasses, preserves, and
pickled cucumbers, besides tea and coffee - the latter, be it known,
I had watched the American woman boiling in the frying-pan. It was a
black-looking compound, and I did not attempt to discuss its merits.
The vessel in which it had been prepared had prejudiced me, and
rendered me very sceptical on that score.
We were all very hungry, having tasted nothing since five o'clock in
the morning, and contrived, out of the variety of good things before
us, to make an excellent dinner.
I was glad, however, when we rose to prosecute our intended trip up
the lake. The old man, whose heart was now thoroughly warmed with
whiskey, declared that he meant to make one of the party, and Betty,
too, was to accompany us; her sister Norah kindly staying behind to
take care of the children.
We followed a path along the top of the high ridge of limestone
rock, until we had passed the falls and the rapids above, when we
found Pat and Mat Y - - waiting for us on the shore below, in two
beautiful new birch-bark canoes, which they had purchased the day
before from the Indians.
Miss Betty, Mat, and myself, were safely stowed into one, while the
old miller, and his son Pat, and my husband, embarked in the other,
and our steersmen pushed off into the middle of the deep and silent
stream; the shadow of the tall woods, towering so many feet above
us, casting an inky hue upon the waters.
The scene was very imposing, and after paddling for a few minutes in
shade and silence, we suddenly emerged into light and sunshine, and
Clear Lake, which gets its name from the unrivalled brightness of
its waters, spread out its azure mirror before us. The Indians
regard this sheet of water with peculiar reverence. It abounds in
the finest sorts of fish, the salmon-trout, the delicious white
fish, maskinonge, and black and white bass. There is no island in
this lake, no rice beds, nor stick nor stone to break its tranquil
beauty, and, at the time we visited it, there was but one clearing
upon its shores.
The log hut of the squatter P - -, commanding a beautiful prospect
up and down the lake, stood upon a bold slope fronting the water;
all the rest was unbroken forest.
We had proceeded about a mile on our pleasant voyage, when our
attention was attracted by a singular natural phenomenon, which
Mat Y - - called the battery.
On the right-hand side of the shore rose a steep, perpendicular wall
of limestone, that had the appearance of having been laid by the
hand of man, so smooth and even was its surface.
