Agassiz to the engraving, turned gravely to his followers and said, "Yes, it's him;" and they proceeded with the same gravity to shake hands in their order, ignoring all the other luminaries. I had in the mean time been into the Wilderness and selected a site for the camp on one of the most secluded lakes, out of the line of travel of the hunters and fisherfolk,--a deep _cul de sac_ of lake on a stream that led nowhere, known as Follansbee Pond. There, with my guide, I built a bark camp, prepared a landing-place, and then returned to Saranac in time to meet the arriving guests. I was unfortunately prevented from accompanying them up the lakes the next morning, because a boat I had been building for the occasion was not ready for the water, and so I missed what was to me of the greatest interest,--the first impressions of Emerson of the Wilderness, absolute nature. I joined them at night of the first day's journey, in a rainstorm such as our summer rarely gives in the mountains, and we made the unique and fascinating journey down the Raquette River together; Agassiz taking his place in my boat, each other member of the party having his own guide and boat. The scene, like the company, exists no longer. There is a river which still flows where the other flowed; but, like the water that has passed its rapids, and the guests that have gone the way of all those who have lived, it is something different. Then it was a deep, mysterious stream, meandering through unbroken forests, walled up on either side in green shade, the trees of centuries leaning over to welcome and shelter the voyager, flowing silently in great sweeps of dark water, with, at long intervals, a lagoon setting back into the wider forest around, enameled with pond lilies and sagittaria, and the refuge of undisturbed waterfowl and browsing deer. Our lake lay at the head of such a lagoon, a devious outlet of the basin of which the lake occupied the principal expanse, reached through three miles of no-man's route, framed in green hills forest-clad up to their summits. The camp was a shelter of spruce bark, open wide in front and closed at the ends, drawn on three faces of an octohedron facing the fireplace. The beds were made of layers of spruce and other fir branches spread on the ground and covered with the fragrant twigs of the arbor vitae. Two huge maples overhung the camp, and at a distance of twenty feet from our lodge we entered the trackless, primeval forest. The hills around furnished us with venison, and the lake with trout, and there we passed the weeks of the summer heats. We were ten, with eight guides, and while we were camping there we received the news that the first Atlantic cable was laid, and the first message sent under the sea from one hemisphere to the other,--an event which Emerson did not forget to record in noble lines. CHAPTER XIII THE ADIRONDACK CLUB--EMERSON AND AGASSIZ