of caterpillars. The
farther he sailed the more desolate the banks seemed, and trees ceased
altogether. Even the willows were fewer and stunted, and the highest
thorn bush was not above his chest. His vessel was now more exposed to
the wind, so that he drove past the banks and scattered islands rapidly,
and he noticed that there was not so much as a crow on them. Upturned
mussel-shells, glittering in the sunshine, showed where crows had been
at work, but there was not one now visible.

Felix thought that the water had lost its clearness and had become
thick, which he put down to the action of the wavelets disturbing the
sand in the shallows. Ahead the haze, or mist, was now much thicker, and
was apparently not over a mile distant. It hid the islands and concealed
everything. He expected to enter it immediately, but it receded as he
approached. Along the strand of an island he passed there was a dark
line like a stain, and in still water under the lee the surface was
covered with a floating scum. Felix, on seeing this, at once concluded
that he had unknowingly entered a gulf, and had left the main Lake, for
the only place he had ever seen scum before was at the extremity of a
creek near home, where the water was partly stagnant on a marshy level.
The water of the Lake was proverbial for its purity and clearness.

He kept, therefore, a sharp look-out, expecting every moment to sight
the end of the gulf or creek in which he supposed himself sailing, so
that he might be ready to lower his sail. By degrees the wind had risen
till it now blew with fury, but the numerous sandflats so broke up the
waves that he found no inconvenience from them. One solitary gull passed
over at a great height, flying steadily westwards against the wind. The
canoe now began to overtake fragments of scum drifting before the wind,
and rising up and down on the ripples. Once he saw a broad piece rise to
the surface together with a quantity of bubbles. None of the sandbanks
now rose more than a foot or so above the surface, and were entirely
bare, mere sand and gravel.

The mist ahead was sensibly nearer, and yet it eluded him; it was of a
faint yellow, and though so thin, obscured everything where it hovered.
From out of the mist there presently appeared a vast stretch of weeds.
They floated on the surface and undulated to the wavelets, a pale
yellowish green expanse. Felix was hesitating whether to lower his sail
or attempt to drive over them, w