I
Believe Even The Garden Of Eden Itself Could
Not Have Been Perfect Till Among Its Shady
Groves Fell The
Shadows of our first parents.
The cool retreats, the jutting promontories, the
moss-covered rocks against which the waves
softly
Break, - if these had tongues, they would,
like Tennyson's Brook, "go on forever," for
surely they would never have done telling the
tender tales they have heard. Nor would it be
possible to find a more fitting spot for the
cultivation of love and sentiment than this charming
lake affords; for Nature seems to have created
Lake George in one of her happiest moments.
This lake is about thirty-four miles long, and
varies in width from one to four miles. Its
greatest depth is about the same as that of
Champlain. It possesses (like all the American
lakes when used as fashionable watering-places)
the usual three hundred and sixty-five islands.
When I left the Mayeta I followed a narrow
footpath to a rough mountain road, which in
turn led me through the forests towards Lake
George. In an isolated dell I found the home
of one Levi Smith, who piloted me through the
woods to the lake, and ferried me in a skiff
across to Hague, when I dined at the hotel, and
resumed my journey along the shores to Sabbath
Day Point, where at four o'clock P. M. a steamer
on its trip from Ticonderoga to the south end of
the lake stopped and took me on board. We
steamed southward to where high mountains
shut in the lake, and for several miles threaded
the "Narrows" with its many pretty islands,
upon one of which Mr. J. Henry Hill, the
hermit-artist, had erected his modest home, and
where he toiled at his studies early and late,
summer and winter. Three goats and a squirrel
were his only companions in this lonely but
romantic spot.
During one cold winter, when the lake was
frozen over to a depth of two feet, and the
forests were mantled in snow, Mr. Hill's brother,
a civil engineer, made a visit to this icy region,
and the two brothers surveyed the Narrows,
making a correct map of that portion of the lake,
with all its islands carefully located. Mr. Hill
afterwards made an etching of this map,
surrounding it with an artistic border representing
objects of interest in the locality.
Late in the afternoon the steamer landed me
at Crosbyside, on the east shore, about a mile
from the head of the lake, resting beneath the
shady groves of which I beheld one of the most
charming views of Lake George. Early the
following morning I took up my abode with a
farmer, one William Lockhart, a genial and
eccentric gentleman, and a descendant of Sir
Walter Scott's son-in-law. Mr. Lockhart's little
cottage is half a mile north of Crosbyside, and
near the high bluff which Mr. Charles O'Conor,
the distinguished lawyer of New York city,
presented to the Paulist Fathers, whose
establishment is on Fifty-ninth Street in that metropolis.
Here the members of the new Order come to
pass their summer vacations, bringing with them
their theological students.
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