Saratoga Lake must depend for celebrity on the campaigns of General Burgoyne, and its fish dinners. Of the first, the history has been written and read. Of the last, the traditions are oral; but while appetite returns, and trout venture to the angler’s hook, the memory will be renewed. The Springs are distant only three miles; and hither drive the more luxurious visitors of Saratoga, to dine in parties,—those coming early who prefer sympathy with the catastrophe of the fish, and broiling themselves, during the morning, in a flat-bottomed boat among the trout-catchers.
There was a gay party on this lake some six or eight years since, fishing and airing their wit, under the auspices of a belle of some fame and authority. The boat had been pulled into water of five or six feet depth, on the eastern side, and the ladies sat at the ends of their rods, about forty yards from the shore, watching their floats, which lay on the surface of the glassy water like sleeping flies, but, as the old fisherman in the bow could have told them, laughing loud enough to fright even the eels from their appetites. After several hours’ bobbing, without bite or nibble, the belle above mentioned discovered that her hook was caught at the bottom. She rose in the stern, to draw it up more easily, and, all the party leaning over at the same time, she lost her balance, and, in falling overboard, upset the boat. For the first minute it was a scene of some terror. The gentlemen were very near drowning the ladies, and the ladies the gentlemen; but the old fisherman, a tall fellow who knew the ground, and was just within his depth, quietly walked about, picking them up one by one, and giving them a hold of the inverted gunwale, and so pushed them safely to shore, suspended round the boat, like herrings on a hoop. Nobody caught cold; other people had caught fish; they dined merrily, and the principal actor in the scene has since been known by the sobriquet of the diving belle.
There is an Indian superstition attached to this lake, which probably had its source in its remarkable loneliness and tranquillity. The Mohawks believed that its stillness was sacred to the Great Spirit, and that, if a human voice uttered a sound upon its waters, the canoe of the offender would instantly sink. A story is told of an Englishwoman, in the early days of the first settlers, who had occasion to cross this lake with a party of Indians, who, before embarking, warned her most impressively of the spell. It was a silent, breathless day, and the canoe shot over the smooth surface of the lake like a shadow. About a mile from the shore, near the centre of the lake, the woman, willing to convince the savages of the weakness of their superstition, uttered a loud cry. The countenances of the Indians fell instantly to the deepest gloom. After a moment’s pause, however, they redoubled their exertions, and, in frowning silence, drove the light bark like an arrow over the waters. They reached the shore in safety, and drew up the canoe, and the woman rallied the chief on his credulity. “The Great Spirit is merciful,” answered the scornful Mohawk; “He knows that a white woman cannot hold her tongue.”
Saratoga Lake is eight miles in length, and a little over two miles broad. It is about eight miles west of Hudson River, which receives its outlet waters under the name of Fish Creek. The same stream, before its entrance into the lake, is called by the sesquipedalian title of Kayaderosseras River. With its pretty maiden name it loses its beauty, and flows forth from its union with the lake, in a dull and murky stream, and so drops sluggishly into the Hudson. Ah! many an edifying homily has been read from a blinder text.
THE COLONNADE OF CONGRESS HALL.
(SARATOGA SPRINGS.)
Congress Hall has for many years held the palm of fashion among the rival Hotels of Saratoga. It is an immense wooden caravanserai, with no pretensions to architecture beyond what is seen in the drawing, and built with the sole view of affording the average accommodations of packed herrings to an indefinite number of persons. The roominess and liberal proportions of the Colonnade are one of those lies of architecture common to the hotels of this country. The traveller passes from the magnificent promise of the outside, to a chamber ten feet by four, situated in a remote gallery, visited once a day by the “boots” and chambermaid. His bed, chair, and wash-stand, resemble those articles as seen in penitentiaries; and if he chance to be ill at night, he might die like a Pagan, “without bell or candle.” The arrangements of the house are, of necessity, entirely gregarious. A bell rings at half-past seven in the morning, at which every body who intends to breakfast, must get up; another bell at eight, to the call of which, if he prefers hot omelette to cold, he must be punctual. Dinner and tea exact the same promptitude; and the latter, which in other countries is a thing of no circumstance or importance, becomes, where you dine at two, a meal not willingly missed. “Tea” is at six or half past, and consists of cold meats, hot rolls, Indian cakes, all other kinds of cakes, all kinds of berries, pies, sweetmeats, and jellies, coffee and tea. This is not a matter to be slighted after a fast of four hours; and home hurry beaux and belles from their abbreviated drives, with a loss of sentiment and sunset, and with profit to the keepers of stables, who let their horses “by the afternoon.”