CHAPTER VI. ARRIVAL AT THE LAKE. "It sleeps among a hundred
hills Where no man ever trod, And only Nature's music fills The
silences of God." After going about two thousand three hundred
miles up this serpentine river, we discovered the entrance to
the lake. Many had been the conjectures and counsels of would-be
advisers when we started. Some said that there was no entrance
to the lake from the river; others, that there was not
sufficient depth of water for the steamer to pass through. On
our port bow rose frowning rocks of forbidding aspect. Drawing
nearer, we noticed, with mingled feelings of curiosity and
wonder, that the face of these rocks was rudely carved by
unmistakably Indian art. There were portrayed a rising sun,
tigers' feet, birds' feet, etc. Why were they thus carved? Are
those rocks the everlasting recorders of some old history - some
deed of Indian daring in days of old? What these hieroglyphics
signify we may never know; the workman is gone, and his stone
hammer is buried with him. To twentie