The expanse is not great, but the beauties which it presents are charming in the extreme. Over its bosom are scattered numerous islands which are very bowers of beauty, green with thickets of hazel and margined with mosaics of wild flowers. The waters are of such limpid purity that they swarm with fish, which may be seen frisking and playing tag twenty feet below the surface. The shores are banked but level, and along the edge is a perfect carriage-road, making a circuit of twenty-one miles, affording the finest excursion that can be made by vehicle. Squam Lake is separated from Lake Winnipiseogee by a strip of land two miles wide, and the village of Center Harbor lies on the west shore of the latter, where steamer may be taken for a ride to Wolfborough, twelve miles distant. The trip is a delightful one through narrow channels between islands of exceeding beauty, so thickly strewed over the water as to make the way appear like a labyrinth. Six miles northwest of the lake is an eminence over two thousand feet high, known as Red Hill, which is annually visited by many hundreds of tourists. There is a good carriage-road to the base, but the ascent is so steep and rugged that by foot or horse-back is the only means for gaining the summit. Though not nearly so lofty as a score or more of the mountains we have mentioned, yet visitors maintain that the view afforded from its peak exceeds in extent and magnificence that obtained from the observatory of Mount Washington or the summits of any of its brothers. This superiority is due to the absence of intervening peaks, as Red Hill is isolated, and overlooks a comparatively level district, in which Squam and Winnipiseogee Lakes are conspicuously visible, with their ragged shore-lines and lovely islands clearly definable. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration: BRIDAL VEIL CASCADE, WHITE MOUNTAINS.—Wild Cat River, inaptly named in the pioneer times of New England, is an enchanting stream for the tourist and the painter. Its course is broken by many ravishingly beautiful waterfalls and cascades, each presenting new and charming features. At Bridal Veil Cascade the bed of the river is full of immense boulders, upon which the descending stream is broken into a thousand forms of diversified loveliness. At the summit the stream is parted by an elevation in the centre of the ledge, and thus falls in a double sheet at almost right angles, greatly enhancing the charming features of the delightful scene. ] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration: THE OLD TOWER AT NEWPORT, RHODE ISLAND.]