It was pleasant and unexpected, too, to find our last camp but one amongst the best.

The ground was a flat lying against the river, wooded with stately spruce and birch, and perfectly clear of underbrush.
It was covered with a plentiful growth of a curious fern-like plant which fell at a touch.

The great river flowed in front, and an almost full moon shone divinely across it, and sent shafts of sidelong light into the forest.

The huge camp-fires of the trackers and canoemen, the roughly garbed groups around them, the canoes themselves, the whole scene, in fact, recalled some genre sketch by our half-forgotten colourist, Jacobi.

Our own fire was made at the foot of a giant spruce, and must have been a surprise to that beautiful creature, evidently brimful of life.