of the spectators.

The evening was dark, and the navigation in the tortuous channels
sometimes difficult, and might have been dangerous but for the
lighthouses. The steamer crept along in the shadows of the low
islands, making frequent landings, and never long out of sight of
the illuminations of hotels and cottages. Possibly by reason of these
illuminations this passage has more variety by night than by day. There
was certainly a fascination about this alternating brilliancy and gloom.
On nearly every island there was at least a cottage, and on the larger
islands were great hotels, camp-meeting establishments, and houses and
tents for the entertainment of thousands of people. Late as it was in
the season, most of the temporary villages and solitary lodges were
illuminated; colored lamps were set about the grounds, Chinese lanterns
hung in the evergreens, and on half a dozen lines radiating from the
belfry of the hotel to the ground, while all the windows blazed and
scintillated. Occasionally as the steamer passed these places of
irrepressible gayety rockets were let off, Bengal-lights were burned,
and once a cannon attempted to speak the joy of the sojourners. It was
like a continued Fourth of July, and King's heart burned within him
with national pride. Even Mrs. Farquhar had to admit that it was a fairy
spectacle. During the months of July and August this broad river,
with its fantastic islands, is at night simply a highway of glory. The
worldlings and the camp-meeting gatherings vie with each other in the
display of colored lights and fireworks. And such places as the Thousand
Islands Park, Wellesley and Wesley parks, and so on, twinkling with
lamps and rosy with pyrotechnics, like sections of the sky dropped upon
the earth, create in the mind of the steamer pilgrim an indescribable
earthly and heavenly excitement. He does not look upon these displays
as advertisements of rival resorts, but as generous contributions to the
hilarity of the world.

It is, indeed, a marvelous spectacle, this view for thirty or forty
miles, and the simple traveler begins to realize what American
enterprise is when it lays itself out for pleasure. These miles and
miles of cottages, hotels, parks, and camp-meetings are the creation of
only a few years, and probably can scarcely be paralleled elsewhere
in the world for rapidity of growth. But the strongest impression
the traveler has is of the public spirit of these summer sojourners,