40
ng through the underwood, and poking his way like an elongated and mobile mushroom through the thick shrubbery. Ever and anon, as Iglesias and I paused, we would be aware of the canoe thrusting itself above our heads in the covert, and a voice would come from an unseen head under its shell,--"It's soul-breaking, carrying is!"
The portage was short. We emerged from the birchen grove upon the river, below a brilliant cascading rapid. The water came flashing gloriously forward, a far other element than the tame, flat stuff we had drifted slowly over all the dullish hours. Water on the go is nobler than water on the stand; recklessness may be as fatal as stagnation, but it is more heroic.
Presently, over the edge, where the foam and spray were springing up into sunshine, our canoe suddenly appeared, and had hardly appeared, when, as if by one leap, it had passed the rapid, and was gliding in the stiller current at our feet. One of the muskrateers had relieved Cancut of his head-piece, and shot the lower rush of water. We again embarked, and, guided by the trappers in their own canoe, paddled out upon Lake Pepogenus.
LOUIS LEBEAU'S CONVERSION.
Yesterday, while I moved with the languid crowd on the Riva, Musing with idle eyes on the wide lagoons and the islands, And on the dim-seen seaward glimmering sails in the distance, Where the azure haze, like a vision of Indian-Summer, Haunted the dreamy sky of the soft Venetian December,-- While I moved unwilled in the mellow warmth of the weather, Breathing air that was full of Old-World sadness and beauty, Into my thought came this story of free, wild life in Ohio, When the land was new, and yet by the Beautiful River Dwelt the pioneers and Indian hunters and boatmen.
Pealed from the campanile, responding from island to island, Bells of that ancient faith whose incense and solemn devotions Rise from a hundred shrines in the broken heart of the city; But in my reverie heard I only the passionate voices Of the people that sang in the virgin hear