There we dismissed our Saranac guides, and despatched on horseback the one who had joined us on the Spectacle Ponds to the home of Mitchell Sabattis, a St. Francis Indian, eighteen miles distant, to procure his services for our tour to the head waters of the Hudson. Sabattis was by far the best man in all that region to lead the traveller to the Hudson waters, aud the Adirondack Mountains, for he had lived in that neighbourhood from his youth, and was then between thirty and forty years of age. He was a grandson of Sabattis mentioned in history, who, with Natanis, befriended Colonel Benedict Arnold, svBAins. while on his march through the wilderness from the Kennebeck to the Chaudiere, in the autumn of 1775, to attack Quebec. Much to our delight and relief, Sabattis returned with our messenger, for the demand for good guides was so great, that we were fearful he might be absent on duty with others.

Thick clouds came rolling over the mountains from the south at

THE HUDSON.

evening, presaging a storm, and the night fell intensely dark. The burning hill above us presented a magnificent appearance in the gloom. The fire was in broken points over a surface of half a mile, near the summit, and the appearance was like a city upon the lofty slope, brilliantly illuminated. It was sad to see the fire sweeping away whole acres of fine timber. But such scenes are frequent in that region, and every bald and blackened hill-top in the ranges is the record of a conflagration.