Canada -- Description and travel; United States -- Description and travel
the district; it is becoming dotted with summer hotels and
camping-grounds; and is one of the most popular American pleasure
resorts.
The highest peak, Mount Marcy, has a summit which is a bare rock of
about four hundred by one hundred feet, elevated more than a mile, and
its outlook gives a splendid map of the Adirondacks. All about are
mountains, though none are as high; McIntyre and Colden are close
companions, with the dark forests of the St. Lawrence region
stretching far behind them to the northwest. To the northward is the
beautiful oval-shaped Lake Placid, with Whiteface rising beyond it,
and nearby, to the westward, is the Indian "Big Eye," Mount Seward,
which, with the "Giant of the Valley," rises far above the attendant
peaks. Behind these, the hills to the northward gradually melt into
the level lands along the St. Lawrence, out of which faintly rises the
distant Mount Royal, back of Montreal. The Vermont Green Mountains
bound the eastern horizon, with the hazy outline of Mount Washington
traced against the sky through a depression in that range, thus
opening an almost deceptive view of the distant White Mountains. The
Catskills close the southern view. The vast wilderness spreads all
around this noble mountain, its white lakes gleaming, its dark forests
broken by a few clearings, and smokes arising here and there
disclosing the abiding-places of the summer sojourner. Off to the
northeast stretches the long glistening streak of Lake Champlain,
low-lying, the telescope disclosing the sails of the vessels like
specks upon its bosom, and the Vermont villages fringing the
farther shore. This narrow, elongated lake, filling the immense
trough-like valley between the Adirondacks and the Green Mountains of
Vermont, the Indians called as one of its names (for it had several)
Cania-de-ri-qua-rante, meaning "The door of the Country." Naming
everything from a prominent attribute, to their minds the chief use of
this long water way was as a door to let in the fierce Hurons from
Canada when they came south to make war upon the Mohawks or the
Mohicans. Many a brave warrior, both Indian and white, has gone
through that door to attack his foes, one way or the other. As far
back as tradition goes, the dusky savages were darting swiftly along
the lake in their canoes, bent upon plunder or revenge. Then came
Champlain, its white discoverer, to aid the Hurons with his arquebuse
in their forays upon the Mohawks and Iroquois. In the ante-Revolutionary
days many a French and Indian horde came along to massacre and destroy
the English and Dutch settlements in the Hudson Valley. Then the
current changed, and the English beat back their foes northward along
the lake. Again it changed, as Burgoyne came in triumph through that
door to meet defeat at Saratoga. Finally, in 1814, the last British
forces moved southward on the lake, but they, too, were beaten. Since
then this famous door has stood wide open, but only tourists and
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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