CHAPTER XVIII.

LAKE GEORGE.

AKE George and the Adirondack region were at first chosen for successive tours. Owing to a slight misapprehension, two members had come prepared to lead the tourists through these very attractive fields of observation, on this, the ninth evening, at the house of the President. As this was expected to be the last but one of the regular meetings of the club, and as the tour for the tenth evening was already decided upon, it was agreed, after some conversation, to combine the two tours into one and to undertake them both. "This," remarked somebody, "is one of the advantages connected with this mode of traveling. We are not bound by any of the fixed and definite rules of time or space, but can accommodate these to our wishes or dispense with them altogether."

Accordingly Miss Lilian was requested to conduct the club to a brief visit to Lake George.

LILIAN (reading from notes): Lake George is situated in Warren county, New York State, about sixty miles north of Albany. We reach it from Saratoga by rail to Glen Falls-to appreciate which spot, we must not only see it but read "The Last of the Mohicans," and thence by stage to Caldwell at the head of the lake. We pass by the spot where Col. Williams, the founder of Williams College, fell in battle, Sept. 8, 1755, and where a monument has been erected to his memory.

GILBERT: Col. Williams was leading his regiment on a reconnoissance of the French troops, when he fell into an Indian ambuscade and was shot through the head. It was found that he had willed all his property to the support of a free school, and this was the foundation of Williams College.

MR. MERRIMAN: The monument was erected in 1854 by the alumni of the college.

LILIAN: How can I begin to describe the charms of this lake and its surroundings, or bring before you the many interesting historic reminiscences connected with it? I hardly know how to begin, and I am afraid that I shall hardly know how to end. However, as our time is short, and as verbosity is forbidden by the

usages of this club, I will draw at once upon my portfolio, and while the pictures are being handed about I will " say my say."

First, let me inform you that this is not a little lake by any means. As compared with any of the great lakes of the north it is, of course, very small; but its thirty-six miles of length and its four miles of breadth at the widest, form no incon

siderable area. It is a good day's trip to go by steamer right along it and back the same day; from Caldwell on the south, to Baldwin on the north, where the lake finds its outlet, through Wood Creek, into the larger waters of Lake Champlain, some three or four miles distant.

Here there is a view of Fourteen Mile Island, or at least of a part of it. That is it, where the people are pushing off with their boat. I suppose there are steps cut somewhere in these rocks, so that we can climb up. This is a large island, and

has a good hotel upon it. Before we get there we pass a good many points of interest, of which I will name a few. The general features of the scenery are the same of course as in the views now presented. There is a little island called Diamond Island, on account of the quartz-crystals found upon it. During the war of Independence a battle or skirmish took place on this island, and I am sorry to say that the patriots were beaten. Then there is Dome Island, where General Putnam once encamped his troops during the French war. In fact, it is astonishing how much history has been not written but made in this romantic region.

Of course you all know about the great French general Montcalm. We might spend the whole evening in following his footsteps (in imagination) over and around these waters.

MRS. GOLDUST: Please let us hear something about him.

LILIAN: He was a French marquis—Marquis de Saint Véran Montcalm—and a brilliant and successful soldier, trained to war from his youth, and dying on the battle-field of Quebec at forty-seven years of age, in the service of his country. He was general commander of the French troops during the French war in Canada in 1756-60. In 1757 he besieged Fort William Henry-the ruins of which we can explore at the south end of this lake-with 8,000 soldiers, and compelled the garrison of 2,500, including women and children, to surrender at discretion after a brave defense. But I am sorry to say he was either unable or unwilling, or, perhaps, both unable and unwilling to prevent the Indians who fought under him from barbarously massacring the entire garrison after they had given up their arms. This will always be a blot upon his memory. On the east shore of the lake is Ferris's Bay, where he marshaled his army and moored the boats in which he had descended the lake.

THE COLONEL: It was strange that both Montcalm and Wolfe, the two oppos

ing generals, should be slain at that decisive battle on the plains of Abraham which fixed the destiny of America.

DR. PAULUS: And quite as strange the dying utterances of both men. Wolfe exclaimed, when he heard of the victory of his soldiers: "Then I die happy."

Montcalm, on being told that he must soon die, said: "So much the better; I shall not live to see the surrender of Quebec." I have sometimes thought, if a human soul can be thus lifted above the fear of death by earthly emotions, how much more reasonable to believe in the triumph of the apostle Paul and of all

believers as expressed in the words: "Thanks be unto God who giveth us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord."

LILIAN: Here is another view from Fourteen Mile Island, and to vary the scene the artist has pictured it by moonlight with very grand cloud effects. How bold and sombre the rocks stand out in the foreground, and how beautiful the shadows on the rippling waters!

CLARA That suggests the Indian name of this lake-Horicon, or silvery

waters.

LILIAN: The steamer stops at a number of landing places on both shores, crossing and recrossing several times, giving many picturesque views. At length

it enters the Narrows, passing by numerous islets, and with views of Black Mountains and Sugar Loaf Mountain on the east, and Deer's Leap Mountain on