thought it was the singing of fishermen; and it was rather a disappointment when they found it was only one of ourselves.

On the Monday we saw the lake to the best advantage by going upon it. We took boat, directly after breakfast, having a boy to row us;-a stout boy he must be; for he can row twenty-eight miles on the hottest summer's day. The length of the lake is thirty-six miles; a long pull for a rower; but accomplished by some who are accustomed to the effort. First, we went to Tea Island. I wish it had a better name; for it is a delicious spot, just big enough for a very lazy hermit to live in. There is a tea-house to look out from; and, far better, a few little reposing places on the margin,-recesses of rock and dry roots of trees, made to hide one'sself in for thought or dreaming. We dispersed ; and one of us might have been seen by any one who rowed round the island, perched in every nook. The breezy side was cool, and musical with the waves. The other side was warm as July, and the waters so still that the cypress twigs we threw in seemed as if they did not mean to float away. Our boatman laid himself down to sleep, as a matter of course; thus bearing testimony to the charms of the island; for he evidently took for granted that we should stay some time. We allowed him a long nap, and then steered our course to Diamond

Island. This gay handful of earth is not so beautiful as Tea Island, not being so well tufted with wood; but it is literally carpeted with Forget-menot. You tread upon it as upon clover in a clover field.

We coasted the eastern shore as we returned, winning our way in the still sunshine, under walls of rock, overhung by projecting trees; and round promontories, across little bays, peeping into the glades of the shore, where not a dwelling is to be seen, and where the human foot seems never to have trod. What a wealth of beauty is there here, for future residents yet unborn! The transparency of the waters of this lake is its great peculiarity. It abounds with fish, especially fine red trout. It is the practice of the fishermen to select the prime fish from a shoal; and they always get the one they want. I can easily believe this; for I could see all that was going on in the deep water under our keel, when we were out of the wind; every ridge of pebbles, every tuft of weed, every whim of each fish's tail I could mark from my seat. The bottom seemed to be all pebbles where it was not too deep to be clearly seen. In some parts the lake is of unmeasured depth.

It was three o'clock before we returned; and, as it is not usual for visitors to spend six or seven hours of a morning on the lake, the good people at

the Lake House had been for some time assuring one another that we must have been cast away. The kind-hearted landlady herself had twice been out on the top of the house to look abroad for our boat. I hope the other members of my party will be spared to visit this scene often again. I can hardly hope to do so; but they may be assured that I shall be with them in spirit: for the time will never come when my memory will not be occasionally treated with some flitting image of Lake George.

CEMETERIES.

"Diis manibus."

Ancient Inscription.

As might have been predicted, one of the first directions in which the Americans have indulged their taste, and indicated their refinement, is in the preparation and care of their burial-places. This might have been predicted by any one who meditates upon the influences under which the mind of America is growing. The pilgrim origin of the New England population, whose fathers seemed to think that they lived only in order to die, is in favour of all thoughts connected with death filling a large space in the people's minds. Then, in addition to the moving power of common human affections, the Americans are subject to being more incessantly reminded than others how small a section of the creation is occupied by the living in comparison with that engrossed by the dead. In the busy, crowded empires of the old world, the invisible are liable to be forgotten in the stirring presence of visible beings, who inhabit every corner, and throng the whole surface on which men walk.

In the new world, it is not so. Living men are comparatively scarce, and the general mind dwells more on the past and the future, (of both which worlds death is the atmosphere,) than in the present. By various influences death is made to constitute a larger element in their estimate of collective human experience, a more conspicuous object in their contemplation of the plan of Providence than it is to, perhaps, any other people. As a natural consequence, all arrangements connected with death occupy much of their attention, and engage a large share of popular sentiment.

I have mentioned that family grave-yards are conspicuous objects in country abodes in America. In valley of the Mohawk, on the heights of the Alleghanies, in the centre of the north-western prairie, wherever there is a solitary dwelling there is a domestic burying-place,—generally fenced with neat white palings, and delicately kept, however full the settler's hands may be, and whatever may be the aspect of the abode of the living. The new burial-places which are laid out near the towns may already be known from a distance, by the air of finish and taste about their plantations: and I believe it is allowed that Mount Auburn is the most beautiful cemetery in the world.

Before visiting Mount Auburn, I had seen the Catholic cemetery at New Orleans; and the con