could be easily distinguished. But a short distance from where he
stood, it bent again, and proceeded due east.

CHAPTER XIV

THE STRAITS

The passage contracted there to little over half a mile, but these
narrows did not continue far; the shores, having approached thus near
each other, quickly receded, till presently they were at least two miles
apart. The merchant vessel had passed the narrows with the aid of her
sweeps, but she moved slowly, and, as it seemed to him, with difficulty.
She was about a mile and a half distant, and near the eastern mouth of
the strait. As Felix watched he saw her square sail again raised,
showing that she had reached a spot where the hills ceased to shut off
the wind. Entering the open Lake she altered her course and sailed away
to the north-north-east, following the course of the northern mainland.

Looking now eastwards, across the Lake, he saw a vast and beautiful
expanse of water, without island or break of any kind, reaching to the
horizon. Northwards and southwards the land fell rapidly away, skirted
as usual with islets and shoals, between which and the shore vessels
usually voyaged. He had heard of this open water, and it was his
intention to sail out into and explore it, but as the sun now began to
decline towards the west, he considered that he had better wait till
morning, and so have a whole day before him. Meantime, he would paddle
through the channel, beach the canoe on the islet that stood farthest
out, and so start clear on the morrow.

Turning now to look back the other way, westward, he was surprised to
see a second channel, which came almost to the foot of the hill on which
he stood, but there ended and did not connect with the first. The
entrance to it was concealed, as he now saw, by an island, past which he
must have sailed that afternoon. This second or blind channel seemed
more familiar to him than the flat and reedy shore at the mouth of the
true strait, and he now recognised it as the one to which he had
journeyed on foot through the forest. He had not then struck the true
strait at all; he had sat down and pondered beside this deceptive inlet
thinking that it divided the mainlands. From this discovery he saw how
easy it was to be misled in such matters.

But it even more fully convinced him of the importance of this
uninhabited and neglected place. It seemed like a canal cut on purpose
to supply a fort from the Lake in the rear with provisions an