It was, of course, a delightful sail, abounding in charming views, up “lost channels,” through vistas of gleaming water overdrooped by tender foliage, and now and then great stretches of sea, and always islands, islands.
“Too many islands too much alike,” at length exclaimed Mrs. Farquhar, “and too many tasteless cottages and temporary camping structures.”
The performance is, indeed, better than the prospectus. For there are not merely the poetical Thousand Islands; by actual count there are sixteen hundred and ninety-two. The artist and Miss Lamont were trying to sing a fine song they discovered in the Traveler's Guide, inspired perhaps by that sentimental ditty, “The Isles of Greece, the Isles of Greece,” beginning,
“O Thousand Isles! O Thousand Isles!”
It seemed to King that a poem might be constructed more in accordance with the facts and with the scientific spirit of the age. Something like this:
“O Sixteen Hundred Ninety-two Isles!
O Islands 1692!
Where the fisher spreads his wiles,
And the muskallonge goes through!
Forever the cottager gilds the same
With nightly pyrotechnic flame;
And it's O the Isles!
The 1692!”
Aside from the pyrotechnics, the chief occupations of this place are boating and fishing. Boats abound—row-boats, sail-boats, and steam-launches for excursion parties. The river consequently presents an animated appearance in the season, and the prettiest effects are produced by the white sails dipping about among the green islands. The favorite boat is a canoe with a small sail stepped forward, which is steered without centre-board or rudder, merely by a change of position in the boat of the man who holds the sheet. While the fishermen are here, it would seem that the long, snaky pickerel is the chief game pursued and caught. But this is not the case when the fishermen return home, for then it appears that they have been dealing mainly with muskallonge, and with bass by the way. No other part of the country originates so many excellent fish stories as the Sixteen Hundred and Ninety-two Islands, and King had heard so many of them that he suspected there must be fish in these waters. That afternoon, when they returned from Gananoque he accosted an old fisherman who sat in his boat at the wharf awaiting a customer.
“I suppose there is fishing here in the season?”