a century since,
with the more accurate sketches of our own time, will at once perceive
that the men of the woods had a sufficient justification for all their
criticism on this branch of the skill of the colonial governments, which
did not at all hesitate to place a river or a lake a degree or two out
of the way, even though they lay within a day's march of the inhabited
parts of the country.

"I'm glad it has no name," resumed Deerslayer, "or at least, no
pale-face name; for their christenings always foretell waste and
destruction. No doubt, howsoever, the red-skins have their modes of
knowing it, and the hunters and trappers, too; they are likely to call
the place by something reasonable and resembling."

"As for the tribes, each has its tongue, and its own way of calling
things; and they treat this part of the world just as they treat
all others. Among ourselves, we've got to calling the place the
'Glimmerglass,' seeing that its whole basin is so often hinged with
pines, cast upward to its face as if it would throw back the hills that
hang over it."

"There is an outlet, I know, for all lakes have outlets, and the rock
at which I am to meet Chingachgook stands near an outlet. Has that no
colony-name yet?"

"In that particular they've got the advantage of us, having one end, and
that the biggest, in their own keeping: they've given it a name which
has found its way up to its source; names nat'rally working up stream.
No doubt, Deerslayer, you've seen the Susquehannah, down in the Delaware
country?"

"That have I, and hunted along its banks a hundred times."

"That and this are the same in fact, and, I suppose, the same in sound.
I am glad they've been compelled to keep the redmen's name, for it would
be too hard to rob them of both land and name!"

Deerslayer made no answer; but he stood leaning on his rifle, gazing
at the view which so much delighted him. The reader is not to suppose,
however, that it was the picturesque alone which so strongly attracted
his attention. The spot was very lovely, of a truth, and it was then
seen in one of its most favorable moments, the surface of the lake
being as smooth as glass and as limpid as pure air, throwing back
the mountains, clothed in dark pines, along the whole of its eastern
boundary, the points thrusting forward their trees even to nearly
horizontal lines, while the bays were seen glittering through an
occasional arch beneath, left by a vault fretted with branc