On every side bright lakes were gleaming, some nestling in unbroken forests, and others with their shores sparsely dotted with clearings, from which arose the smoke from the settler's cabin. We counted twenty-seven lakes, including Champlain -- the Indian Can-i-a-de-ri Guarim-te, or Door of the Country -- which stretched along the eastern view one hundred and forty miles, and at a distance of about fifty miles at tlie nearest point. We could see the sails of water-craft like white specks upon its bosom, and, with our telescope, could distinctly discern the houses in Burlington, on the eastern shore of the lake.

From our point of view we could comprehend the emphatic significance of the Indian idea of Lake Champlain -- the Boor of the Coimtry. It fills the bottom of an immense valley, that stretches southward between the great mountain ranges of New York and New England, from the St. Lawi ence level toward the valley of the Hudson, from which it is separated by a slightly elevated ridge. '^•- To tlie fierce Huron of Canada, who loved to make war upon the more southern Iroquois, this lake was a wide open door for his passage. Through it many brave men, aborigines and Europeans, have gone to the war-paths of New York and New England, never to return.

Standing upon Tahawus, it required very little exercise of the imagination to behold the stately procession of historic men and events, passing through that open door. First in dim shadows were the dusky warriors