You cringe with fear as your boat glides towards that huge boulder, as large as a church, thinking surely your vessel will be wrecked; but there is no danger, as the rock is many feet beneath you. The transparency of the water makes the danger seem so near. How often have I wished this place--mountains, lake, and all--could be the place of one of the grand Eastern camp-meetings! This bracing air, this unique spot, this wonderful lake, this rich, healthful aroma of deep pine-forests, this grand scenery, all combined, make it one of the best of places for religious summer resort. Yonder is a quaint spot, a veritable Gibraltar on a small scale, a lonely, rocky island in the centre of Emerald Bay. Some foolish man built a tomb in the solid rock on its summit, intending to be buried there, where the marks of decay would come slowly over his grave, and where he might sleep undisturbed amid the incomparable grandeur that would have surrounded him. His sarcophagus and all were prepared, but the treacherous billows of the lake, that occasionally foam and roar with fury, seized him, and he lies buried at the bottom,--no man knows where, for no one going down ever comes up again from these waters. It was first an artless, genial party of three of us that drank in the poetry of the scenery around Lake Tahoe. The "elect lady," whose presence has ever been an inspiration and encouragement in life's blackest, bitterest hours, her best and dearest friend, Miss Torreyson, and the writer, made up the trio. We were joined by and by with a party of others kindred in spirit, who entered into all our schemes and reconnoissances after pleasure. Those were memorable six weeks; and now, at this distance of many months on the road of time, that period of frolic and recuperation gleams as with the radiance of youth's happiest sunset scene. How strange that happy days even never look so charming as when they are mellowed in the deep past!... During the days we enlivened many a bright morning hour with boat-riding, fishing, gathering wild-flowers, and such other amusements as this delightful place afforded. On one of these fishing excursions one of our party came very near falling into the treacherous waters of the lake. Our favorite resorts, and it is so with all tourists, were Emerald and Carnelian Bays. The former is a beautiful, land-locked arm of the lake, walled in by rugged and towering cliffs. The latter is a long, gravelly beach, where by the hour we have searched for carnelian stones, of which some of the purest quality are found.