Presently he furled the sail, took his paddle, and set his face for the land.  He laboured steadily, but made no apparent progress.  The canoe was heavy, and the outrigger or beam, which was of material use in sailing, was a drawback to paddling.  He worked till his arms grew weary, and still the blue land seemed as far off as ever.

But by the time the sun began to approach the horizon, his efforts had produced some effect, the shore was visible, and the woods beyond.  They were still five miles distant, and he was tired; there was little chance of his reaching it before night.  He put his paddle down for refreshment and rest, and while he was thus engaged, a change took place.  A faint puff of air came; a second, and a third; a tiny ripple ran along the surface.  Now he recollected that he had heard that the mariners depended a great deal on the morning and the evening—­the land and the Lake—­breeze as they worked along the shore.  This was the first breath of the Land breeze.  It freshened after a while, and he re-set his sail.

An hour or so afterwards he came near the shore; he heard the thrushes singing, and the cuckoo calling, long before he landed.  He did not stay to search about for a creek, but ran the canoe on the strand, which was free of reeds or flags, a sign that the waves often beat furiously there, rolling as they must for so many miles.  He hauled the canoe up as high as he could, but presently when he looked about him he found that he was on a small and narrow island, with a channel in the rear.  Tired as he was, yet anxious for the safety of his canoe, he pushed off again, and paddled round and again beached her with the island between her and the open Lake.  Else he feared if a south wind should blow she might be broken to pieces on the strand before his eyes.  It was prudent to take the precaution, but, as it happened, the next day the Lake was still.

He could see no traces of human occupation upon the island, which was of small extent and nearly bare, and therefore, in the morning, paddled across the channel to the mainland, as he thought.  But upon exploring the opposite shore, it proved not to be the mainland, but merely another island.  Paddling round it, he tried again, but with the same result; he found nothing but island after island, all narrow, and bearing nothing except bushes.  Observing a channel which seemed to go straight in among these islets, he resolved to follow it, and did so (resting at noon-time) the whole morning.  As he paddled slowly in, he found the water shallower, and weeds, bulrushes, and reeds became thick, except quite in the centre.

After the heat of midday had gone over, he resumed his voyage, and still found the same; islets and banks, more or less covered with hawthorn bushes, willow, elder, and alder, succeeded to islets, fringed round their edges with reeds and reed canary-grass.  When he grew weary of paddling, he landed and stayed the night; the next day he went on again, and still for hour after hour rowed in and out among these banks and islets, till he began to think he should never find his way out.