that,
being unable to swim, I could _not_ reach them--that upon the islet
there was neither tree, nor log, nor bush; not a stick out of which I
might make a raft--I say, when I reflected upon all these things, there
arose in my mind a feeling of well-defined and absolute horror.

"It is true I was only in a lake, a mile or so in width; but so far as
the peril and helplessness of my situation were concerned, I might as
well have been upon a rock in the middle of the Atlantic. I knew that
there was no settlement within miles--miles of pathless swamp. I knew
that no one could either see or hear me--no one was at all likely to
come near the lake; indeed, I felt satisfied that my faithless boat was
the first keel that had ever cut its waters. The very tameness of the
birds wheeling round my head was evidence of this. I felt satisfied,
too, that without some one to help me, I should never go out from that
lake: I must die on the islet, or drown in attempting to leave it!

"These reflections rolled rapidly over my startled soul. The facts were
clear, the hypothesis definite, the sequence certain; there was no
ambiguity, no supposititious hinge upon which I could hang a hope; no,
not one. I could not even expect that I should be missed and sought
for; there was no one to search for me. The simple _habitans_ of the
village I had left knew me not--I was a stranger among them: they only
knew me as a stranger, and fancied me a strange individual; one who made
lonely excursions, and brought home hunches of weeds, with birds,
insects, and reptiles, which they had never before seen, although
gathered at their own doors. My absence, besides, would be nothing new
to them, even though it lasted for days: I had often been absent before,
a week at a time. There was no hope of my being missed.

"I have said that these reflections came and passed quickly. In less
than a minute, my affrighted soul was in full possession of them, and
almost yielded itself to despair. I shouted, but rather involuntarily
than with any hope that I should be heard; I shouted loudly and
fiercely: my answer--the echoes of my own voice, the shriek of the
osprey, and the maniac laugh of the white-headed eagle.

"I ceased to shout, threw my gun to the earth, and tottered down beside
it. I can imagine the feelings of a man shut up in a gloomy prison--
they are not pleasant. I have been lost upon the wild prairie--the land
sea--without bush, break, or sta