Here amidst such sylvan beauty, where the air is rife with the fragrance of birch and balsam, as you gaze at the Adirondacks that lift their startling cliffs into the air, or farther along the horizon stand bathed in a radiant glow, while a gold tangle of sunset glitters among the white birch trees or casts a soft sheen like the tints on a mourning dove's neck--pray tell me, have you ever seen anything fairer than your own placid lakes? On such evenings as these your thoughts will become as serene as the lake and ripple now and then with a thousand vague, sweet visions like its placid surface when dimpled by the leap of a trout. Morning here brings scenes almost as fair. Singing brooks flash like silver across green valleys, the rays of the sun fall upon the yellow and white birch boles that look mellow and rich as "pillars of amber and gleaming pearl." The rocky ledges are covered with lichens, ferns and mosses; myriads of campanula look blue-eyed towards a bluer sky; and out over the lake white- bellied swallows write poems of grace and beauty on the air. The frescoes of dawn touch the tips of the eastern ranges whose stern gray summits break into rosy flame. We climbed to the summit of a towering mountain and a glorious prospect met our view. Looking out over the billows of verdure that seemed to be rolling down the mountains, we saw Lake Placid, with its green islands, like a lovely painting in the quiet morning light. Far as the eye can reach the forest-crowned mountains stretched, now surging into summits, now sinking into valleys, holding in their embrace the lovely Saranac lakes that gleamed like the flashing of distant shields. Far beyond to the south like a glittering mirror lay Tupper's lake, while farther away the pointed pinnacles of the Adirondacks thrust themselves boldly into the sky. Looking northward we beheld a lovely cultivated region with meadows and grain fields. We also caught sight of several towns, and glimpses of dark forests between the billowy folds of other ranges, that melted into the sky. Like a narrow band of light, Lake Champlain was just visible, while the faint summits of the Green mountains with their misty veils seemed like far, thin shadows. CHAPTER XIV LONG LAKE, LAKE GEORGE, AND SARATOGA Long Lake is one of the most charming of any found in the Adirondacks. Its islands are lovely beyond words to describe. No artist, not even Turner, has ever caught the magic sheen that clothes it, nor portrayed the rosy clouds the crimson west has painted, that seem to hang motionless above it. Neither has anyone caught those ethereal blues or royal purples that the soft semi-light of evening makes upon its bosom where the darker mountains seem to be floating. But this lake requires not the aid of morning or evening to make it fair. When the rays of the sun sprinkle the trees along its sides like golden rain, or while stirred with darkening ripples beneath a clouded sky, it is clothed in grandest beauty.