ballads are chanted in the midst of such profound
silence and loneliness that they sound spectrally
to our ears.
Bayard Taylor.
Lake George, called by the French "Lac St. Sacrament," was discovered by Father Jacques, who passed through it in 1646, on his way to the Iroquois, by whom he was afterward tortured and burned. It is thirty-six miles long by three miles broad. Its elevation is two hundred and forty-three feet above the sea. The waters are of remarkable transparency; romantic islands dot its surface, and elegant villas line its shores. Fort William Henry and Ticonderoga, situated at either end of the lake, were the salients respectively of the two most powerful nations upon the globe. France and England sent great armies, which crossed each other's track upon the ocean, the one entering the St. Lawrence, the other the harbor of New York. Their respective colonies sent their thousands to swell the number of trained troops, while tribes of red men from the south and the north were marshalled[page 194] by civilized genius to meet in hostile array upon these waters, around the walls of the forts, and at the base of the hills. In 1755, General Johnston reached Lake St. Sacrament, to which he gave the name of Lake George, "not only in honor of his Majesty, but to assert his undoubted dominion here."
The progress of that October month had been like
the stately march of an Orient army, with all the
splendor of blazing banners. It looked as though the