n
fastnesses in days gone by, still add to make the comparison more
close. Our path at times seemed to be literally strewn with roses,
for the different colored leaves that carpeted our way conveyed that
thought. The depth and variegated beauty of coloring that marks this
season of decaying foliage, would enrapture the heart of an artist.
In my vocation I have had occasion to visit the four quarters of the
globe, but never have I seen tints so strikingly beautiful."

* * *

The early fragments of our Colonial poetry and Revolutionary
ballads are chanted in the midst of such profound
silence and loneliness that they sound spectrally
to our ears.

_Bayard Taylor._

* * *

=Lake George=, called by the French "Lac St. Sacrament," was
discovered by Father Jacques, who passed through it in 1646, on his
way to the Iroquois, by whom he was afterward tortured and burned. It
is thirty-six miles long by three miles broad. Its elevation is
two hundred and forty-three feet above the sea. The waters are of
remarkable transparency; romantic islands dot its surface, and elegant
villas line its shores. Fort William Henry and Ticonderoga, situated
at either end of the lake, were the salients respectively of the two
most powerful nations upon the globe. France and England sent great
armies, which crossed each other's track upon the ocean, the one
entering the St. Lawrence, the other the harbor of New York. Their
respective colonies sent their thousands to swell the number of
trained troops, while tribes of red men from the south and the north
were marshalled by civilized genius to meet in hostile array upon
these waters, around the walls of the forts, and at the base of the
hills. In 1755, General Johnston reached Lake St. Sacrament, to which
he gave the name of Lake George, "not only in honor of his Majesty,
but to assert his undoubted dominion here."

* * *

The progress of that October month had been like
the stately march of an Orient army, with all the
splendor of blazing banners. It looked as though the glories of the
sunset had been distilled into it decked
with the glowing hues of crimson, scarlet and gold.

_John Henry Brandow._

* * *

The village of Lake George is situated at the head of the lake.
It contains two churches, a court house, and a number of pretty
residences. Just behind the court house is the bay where Montcalm
landed his cann