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rending the air with the yell, and the war-whoop, and waking the echoes with the roll of their primitive drums. In addition, there are eleven Frenchmen (armed with short matchlocks, which their companions expect will spread dismay among the enemies), who trust themselves among the bloodthirsty and unknown warriors of the woods. It is a curious party. Slowly they advance in their boats up the St. Lawrence, until they arrive at the mouth of the Richelieu River. They follow that stream until they hear the hoarse roar of a waterfall, though their guides, to lead them onward, had assured them of an uninterrupted passage with their boats. Most of the Indians had already turned their backs on the expedition, and now eight of the Frenchmen return to Quebec, leaving our hero with but two of his countrymen, to go on with the wild men of the forest!

The advance was tedious. At one time there was a halt to hunt and fish and rest in ease. At another, it was necessary to consult the "medicine man," who pitching his repulsive lodge in the woods, mumbled an invocation to the spirits,

allowed himself to be seized with convulsions as he exercised his savage divination, and, as our hero thought, received the messages of the Devil.

Falls and rapids and every other obstacle to progress were at last passed in safety, and one July day the party passed into a broad expanse of water. It was a lake, but it spread out before them like a sea. Forests of great trees fringed the shores. Islands of loveliness dotted the wide expanse of waters, and our hero felt that his toils had won their recompense. He said: "Here is the spot on which I will stamp my name!" And from that day to this the beautiful and placid lake has been called after him Lake Champlain

for the discoverer whose name I have not mentioned until now, was none other than Samuel de Champlain. Ardent adventurer in distant portions of our continent, discoverer and founder, he had given his name to no portion of the territory that he had explored until now; and now he stamps it so firmly upon the water that time and changes have not been sufficient to wipe it out. France and England have fought on the bosom of that

lake, and struggled for its possession, but never has any one thought of taking from its discoverer the name he gave it. Bloody battles have marked its shores, ships have hurtled at each other there, and cannon have roared on its placid surface. Men have sought its woods and islands for pleasure and for fame, but the name first stamped on it has endured!

How changed since he whose name thy waters bear,

The silent hills between,

Led by his swarthy guides to conflict there,

Entranced beheld the scene!

On Adirondack's lake-encircled crest,

Old war-paths mark the soil,

Where idly bivouacs the summer guest,

And peaceful miners toil.

Where lurked the wigwam, cultured households throng, Where rung the panther's yell,

I heard the low of kine, a blithesome song

Or chime of village bell.

The battle that was expected by the Indians came at last, but the two Frenchmen, by firing

their rude guns, sent such alarm into the breasts of the enemy that they incontinently fled, and the power of civilization was asserted in the woods, though, alas! it was shown by the butchery of war.

Our story ends with the naming of the lake, but the hero of the first battle there lived long afterwards. He returned to France, married a young wife, came back to his wild domain, ruled, explored, fought, and finally died on Christmas Day,

in the year 1635. Mr. Parkınan tells us that

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purpose, nothing for himself." He sought truth, fact, and he won fame.

CHAPTER VI.

THE HERMIT OF SHAWMUT.

A

GREAT poct has told us that to be truly

alone one must roam the streets of a great city, "midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of

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men," where there are none to bless us, none whom we can bless," where every one is intent upon his own affairs, and not a soul can stop a moment to think of the solitary just at his side. He says also, on the other hand:

To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell,
To slowly trace the forest's shady scene,
Where things that own not man's dominion dwell
And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been;
To climb the trackless mountain all unseen,
With the wild flock that never needs a fold;
Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to lean;
This is not solitude.

There lies before me a great city. It clusters

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