We left the “second chain of ponds” by the narrow and sluggish inlets, still the Bog River, here so small that the boatman’s oars spanned the narrow channel, and as crooked a stream as it is possible for one to be.  It flows for miles through a low and marshy region, with dense alderbushes clustering along the shore, and scattering fir-trees, dead at the top, standing between these and the forests in the background.  The bottom, much of the way, is of clean yellow sand, in which are imbedded millions of clams, resembling, in every respect, those of the ocean beach.  Some of these we opened, and found the living bivalves in appearance precisely like their kindred of the salt water.  I have seen occasionally muscle shells in other streams, and along the shores of the lakes, but I never before saw any such as these save near the ocean, where the salt water ebbs and flows, and not even there in such quantities.  One might gather barrels and barrels of them, large and apparently fat, and yet there would be hundreds or thousands of barrels left.  The mink, the muskrat, and other animals that hunt along the water, and have a taste for fish, have a good time of it among them, for we saw bushels of shells in places where the fish had been extracted and devoured.

We arrived at Mud Lake towards evening, and pitched our tent on a little rise of ground on the north side, a few rods back from the lake, among a cluster of spruce and balsam, and surrounded by a dense growth of laurel and high whortleberry bushes.  We saw a deer occasionally on our route, and the banks of the stream in many places were trodden up by them like the entrance to a sheep-fold.  Why this sheet of water should be called Mud Lake is a mystery, for though gloomy enough in every other respect, its bed is of sand, and it is surrounded by a sandy beach from fifteen to forty feet wide.  It is perhaps four miles in circumference, its waters generally shallow, and so covered with pond lilies, and skirted with wild grass, as to form the most luxuriant pasture for the deer and moose to be found in all this region.  Of all the lakes I have visited in these northern wilds, this is the most gloomy.  Indeed it is the only one that does not wear a cheerful and pleasant aspect.  It seems to be the highest water in this portion of the wilderness, lying, as one of our boatmen expressed it, “up on the top of the house.”  In only one direction could any higher land be seen, and that was a low hill on the western shore, not exceeding fifty feet in height.  There are no tall mountain peaks reaching their heads towards the clouds, overlooking the waters; no ranges stretching away into the distance; no gorges or spreading valleys; no sloping hillsides, giving back the sunlight, or along which gigantic shadows of the drifting clouds float.  All around it are fir, and tamarac, and spruce of a stinted and slender growth, dead at the top, and with lichens and moss hanging down in sad and draggled festoons from their desolate branches.