lumined cloud soared
above, to console the sky and the water for the coming of night.
Northward, a forest darkled, whose glades of brightness I could not see.
Eastward, the bank mounted abruptly to a bare fire-swept table-land,
whereon a few dead trees stood, parched and ghostly skeletons draped
with rags of moss.

Furthermost and topmost, I saw Katahdin twenty miles away, a giant
undwarfed by any rival. The remainder landscape was only minor and
judiciously accessory. The hills were low before it, the lake lowly,
and upright above lake and hill lifted the mountain pyramid.
Isolate greatness tells. There were no underling mounts about this
mountain-in-chief. And now on its shoulders and crest sunset shone,
glowing. Warm violet followed the glow, soothing away the harshness of
granite lines. Luminous violet dwelt upon the peak, while below the
clinging forests were purple in sheltered gorges, where they could climb
nearer the summit, loved of light, and lower down gloomed green and
sombre in the shadow.

Meanwhile, as I looked, the quivering violet rose higher and higher, and
at last floated away like a disengaged flame. A smouldering blue dwelt
upon the peak. Ashy-gray overcame the blue. As dusk thickened and stars
trembled into sight, the gray grew luminous. Katahdin's mighty presence
seemed to absorb such dreamy glimmers as float in limpid night-airs:
a faint glory, a twilight of its own, clothed it. King of the
daylit-world, it became queen of the dimmer realms of night, and like a
woman-queen it did not disdain to stoop and study its loveliness in
the polished lake, and stooping thus it overhung the earth, a shadowy
creature of gleam and gloom, an eternized cloud.

I sat staring and straying in sweet reverie, until the scene before me
was dim as metaphysics. Suddenly a flame flashed up in the void. It
grew and steadied, and dark objects became visible about it. In the
loneliness--for Iglesias had disappeared--I allowed myself a moment's
luxury of superstition. Were these the Cyclops of Katahdin? Possibly.
Were they Trolls forging diabolic enginery, or Gypsies of Yankeedom? I
will see,--and went tumbling down the hill-side.

As I entered the circle about the cooking-fire of drift-wood by the
lake, Iglesias said,--

"The beef-steak and the mutton-chops will do for breakfast; now, then,
with your bear!"

"Haw, haw!" guffawed Cancut; and the sound, taking the lake at a stride,
found echoes everywhere, till he gr