The mountains and canons are most delightful points of interest as places of observation and rest, and often charm by the echoes they throw back. We were given to song; and many a time summering here, and travelling over the lake, we united in singing the "Evergreen Mountains of Life" and "A Thousand Years," our favorite lake airs; the former suggested, no doubt, by the towering mountains that surrounded us. The effect is peculiarly fascinating, as the song rings out over the waters, in the pure mountain air, and echoing dies away, after many reverberations of "evergreen mountains of life"--"mountains of life"--"life"--in some deep canyon. Or "a thousand years, Columbia,"--"years, Columbia,"--"Columbia,"--the vowels of the last becoming beautifully distinct in the echoes. Nearly south of the head of Lake Tahoe, a distance of perhaps a mile and a half, is a little lake that bears the name of Fallen Leaf; and then to the west of this some three miles is Cascade Lake, as charming a little body of water as ever flashed back the sunlight. Of all the objects of interest here, none of its kind is more interesting than this delightful lake, that spreads itself out a half-mile by a mile and a half, and that at an altitude of four or five hundred feet above Tahoe. Above this, from the summit of Tallac Mountain, it is positively asserted _seventeen_ lakes, varying in size, can be seen at one glance nestled away like a cluster of diamonds in the bosom of the Sierras. All these lakes abound with the finest of trout, and are surrounded by the best of game. On the east side of Tahoe are Cave Rock and Shakespeare Rock. The former is a bald precipitous peak, that presses its perpendicular side almost to the water's edge, leaving just room enough for the road of the old overland stage-coach. Under this rock is a cave of small pretensions, but with the wild scenery, the bald, dizzy height of the cliff, and the fine view of the lake, it is one of the many frequented places. Shakespeare Rock stands back perhaps full half a mile from the landing at Pray's Bay, or Glenbrook. It is a perpendicular cliff of well on towards a thousand feet above the waters of the lake. It has its name from a well-defined portrait of a man, moss-formed or wind-chiselled, doubtless, that is seen plainly several hundred feet up the rugged side. It is said to look very much like the old bard of Stratford-upon-Avon. But of this we cannot say; we never saw him. It was on one of Nature's brightest days that our trio, lunch-armed, toiled up its rugged side, the only accessible point, and flung our handkerchief banners to the breeze from the improvised flag-staff, while we grew enraptured at the rich perspective from the dizzy height. It seemed almost like being on "cloud's rest" as some cloud's shadow fell upon us while there.