we had become so warmly attached was hidden by the meanderings of the neat little brook which conveyed us to the Raquette, and which is admirably described by the poet :

"I wind about, and in and out,
With here a blossom sailing,
With here and there a lusty trout,
And here and there a grayling.

And here and there a foamy flake
Upon me, as I travel,

With many a silvery water-break
Above the golden gravel."

We now set out for Raquette lake, a distance of eighty miles from Wolf Ponds. Every turn in the river displayed some new charm. Sometimes a stately stag would bound along the banks, or a spotted fawn would start and stare at us; sometimes we would stop at the outlet of a little rivulet, to take a mess of trout, or a sudden bend would spread consternation among a flock of wild ducks, while the gracefully curved banks, covered with colossal hemlocks and half a dozen varieties of calmia, azalia and rhododendron were filled with numberless varieties of the feathered creation. Then, too, we had vexations and troubles-a long "carrying place," where there were rapids in the river, and an occasional storm-but these annoyances we had anticipated, and they were of short duration.

The quaint conversation of our guides was a never-failing source of amusement-rough as the pine knots of their own native forests, but with a kind of "hard horse" sense, and withal the genuine milk of human kindness, they never failed to gain the sportsman's sympathy and good will. As an instance of their crude theories, one night as we sat around our camp fire smoking, some one asked Uncle Josh, a short wiry man of forty, what he thought about Spiritualism. He replied, with a wise nod of his head, that "it was nothing less than witchcraft, that there used to be witches, but people got too much larnin' and the witches had to leave, but that now the witches gotlarnin too, and had come back under

this new form."

Raquette Lake is quite a large body of water, ten miles long and indented with deep bays and headlands. Seated upon a bluff of one of the latter, one hundred feet above the surface of the lake, on a bright morning in August, were F-, Pliny and myself, watching for two deer hounds, that a man living on the lake had put out into

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the mountains for us. The rest of the party, with the exception of Tom and Charley, who to our deep regret had left us the day previous, to return by way of Utica, were occupying a similar position a mile further down. In front rose the numerous peaks of the lordly Adirondacks, and behind lay a deep gorge, walled up on either side by lofty precipices. Soon the deep strong baying of the hounds, discoursing sweet music to the hunter's ear," told that they were pressing down the pass close upon their quarry, a moment more and a noble stag, bounding upon the beach, plunged boldly into the lake, and proudly breasted the curling billows. We plunged, scrambled, and fell until we reached our boat, and then Pliny plied the oars with such vigor that before the deer had gone a quarter of a mile we were upon him and immediately dispatched him and drew him into the boat. There was another party on the opposite side of the lake at this time, who sent over their guide to tell us that it was their dog drove in the deer, and according to hunters' laws, the deer belonged to them. We, jealous of our honor as sportsmen, gave up the deer, and apologized for spoiling their sport. We passed near their boats on our return to camp, and noticed that they endeavored to avoid us. The other parties that we met, being amateur hunters like ourselves, had always received us with the heartiest greeting, and we had made some pleasant acquaintances among them.

The cause of these freaks became manifest, when the man whose dogs we had borrowed came to our camp that night, and told us that the dogs belonged to him, but these men had taken them down to their camp, and when he went there for them, had insulted him, and laughed at the manner in which they had cheated us out of our deer. Our indignation exceeded all bounds. We used all manner of persuasion to induce the man to carry us over to their camp that night, and he finally acceded. The night was dark and the lake stormy. Fand I armed to the "teeth," sat silently brooding vengeance, while our boat dashed through the foaming waves until we entered a dark cove. We shouted aloud, but received no response, except the barking of a dog. We landed, called again, but with no better success. We saw our deer hanging above a dog, which we very unceremoniously drove away, loaded the deer in our boat and put back to our camp, three miles distant, where we arrived about eleven o'clock. We expected to see our friends at our camp the next morning, and had resolved ourselves into a force

committee to give them a warm welcome, but as their conduct on the previous day was only the natural promptings of cowardice, they never made their appearance.

The next day ascending the headwaters of the Raquette, about a dozen of miles, we arrived at Blue Mountain, or rather Mount Emmons. We commenced the ascent about noon, and after three hours of severe toil stood upon the summit, four thousand feet above the level of the lake. The sight richly repaid the toil. Now for the first time we could gain an adequate idea of our situation. As far as the eye could reach, there was no evidence of civilization. To the east rose the blue peaks of Vermont, while all around were mountains, forests, rivers and lakes, of which latter thirty-two could be counted, within reach of the naked eye. From one side of the steep ascent rolled down the waters of the Raquette, and immediately beneath on the other side started the Hudson. Little lakes lay nestled between lofty mountains as if to hide themselves from view. Occasionally a deer would walk leisurely down from the woods, drink and lave his heated sides in the cool water, or an eagle would fly up from his eyrie shrieking and circling around, all unconscious that they were watched by human eye. We stood in the very

midst of Nature.

Entranced by the scenery, we remained upon the mountain top until the lengthening shadows of the valleys warned us of the approach of night. Heedless of the admonition, we gave chase to a bear in our descent-lost our compass direction, got benighted, traveled on by the light of a little birch bark, over rocks and logs, through thickets and streams, and finally despairing of reaching camp, stopped and encamped for the night. The report of a rifle at camp soon aroused us, and we started on again by the light of the birchbark, until we actually waded into the lake, thinking it was a stream, and were brought off in a boat by Uncle Josh.

A few days of travel over this the primal land of the continent, as our geologist told us, over lakes and streams on whose bottom you could distinctly see the speckled trout at the depth of twenty feet, and as some one has observed could see further toward heaven, we landed again at Martin's, on the Lower Saranac-feeling like inhabitants of another planet.

It is to be regretted that there are not more students who make similar use of their summer vacations. The scenery is so varied, sometimes climbing lofty peaks, around which you may have seen the lightning

play, and in concert with those around, echo and re-echo a thousand times, the deep-toned thunder, again gliding over the tranquil and unruffled lake, the oars keeping time to "Lauriger" or "Alma Mater," lying upon the bare ground with no canopy but the leafy trees and the spangled heavens, and no pillow but your boots and gunlocks; what could give loftier conceptions of nature, or truer ideas of life? In physical training, it is but carrying out Mr. Calthrop's theory of uniting pleasure with exercise, which no one can doubt is the correct one. In fine, as Mr. Hammond told one of our party, in reply to a letter for advice, “after a month spent in this manner, you could not fail to come back better men, morally mentally, and physically." If then any one would have a profitable and pleasant vacation, let him

The Old Schoolhouse.

I see it now, as years ago; within the open door

The broken streams of sunshine throw bright ripples on the floor;
The vine-leaves varying shadows trace; from meadows newly mown
The fragrance-bearing breezes pass the schoolhouse old and brown.

Beneath its rafters, rude and old, my childish hand hath caught
The Midas-touch, that turned to gold the forms my fancy wrought;
Again the murmur 'round me seems with prophet-voice to bear
Assurance to my idle dreams of joy I yet shall share.

As shells that on the strand are flung, though tossed by angry waves,
Remember still the gentle song they learned in ocean caves;
A harp within my soul I bear, whose faint and trembling thrill,
Wakened by one who touched it here, is music with me still.

I see the shades of coming night, her childish features wear,
Even amid the holy light that lingers on her hair,

And sheds a brightness on the brow, waiting a Heavenly Crown,
And spirit eyes that even now behold the Golden Throne.

Blindly we walk the earth awhile, nor think our weary hands
Hold daily, 'mid the dross of toil, a wealth of glittering sands;
We mourn the goblet's wasted wine, the loved of yesterday
Stand in the present's mystic shrine, and there our sick souls pray.

The sacred power that touched me when, Endymion-like, I slept,
Over my later life, as then, a faithful watch hath kept;
Unto its presence all my fears their anxious faces turn-
Thither my soul its pleasure bears-thither it goes to mourn.

Thus when in memory I build the schoolhouse old, and see
Again the vanished forms that filled the time-worn room with me,
The sighs, that to the lost I give, cease at my thankful prayer
For one who bore where angels live the love I gave her there.

Iconoclasm.

Every man has his key-note, which when touched draws forth the finest music of his nature. To the keener sense each word is a torch, flashing its ray of light far back into the darkness of his being. Whence this mystery? Why does the astronomer always dream of planets, and comets, and stars? the geometer of sines and angles? Why is the poet an incarnate poem, so that his very sins bear with them a strange refinement and fascination, that reveal the glory of the inner man as clouds, veiling the sun, with silver fringes tell us there's something beautiful beyond?

All men are by nature different. So externals are seen by them as it were from different points, and each receives a different idea of things, as of the general term "a house" no two make mentally the same picture. Therefore, men are qualified to investigate various kinds of truth as they see clearer different points by looking through different media or from separate positions. Each sees clearest in his special province. Thus every man has images of truth peculiar to himself. They mould his mind to a particular course of thought, which is the province of his nature. The destruction of this natural course of thought, by the destruction or violation of these peculiar images or ideas, making the man artificial and thereby weakening or failing to develop his true powers, is the Iconoclasm of which we speak.

We set up idols in ourselves that claim our worship and direct our