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��Lake Winnifiseogce in October.
��every spot is conDected with a legend or some association of the past. The lake was the fishing ground of the Ossipees, the Pequaketts, and the Winnipisaukees, once mighty tribes, and the traces of their footsteps have not yet disappeared. Relics, skele- tons, and implements of their labor are even now turned up with the sod ; and besides, they have left to us that musical patronymic which the lake now bears — evidence that the abo- rio^ines were not insensible to the charms of nature here so profusely exhibited.
Sitting here at my table, yet "sail- ing the lake over," nothing gives me greater pleasure than to return a vote of thanks to the early settlers of the Granite state, because, instead of spoiling this lake by some dreadful, common-place appellation, they just let it alone. And so Winnipiseogee it is, thanks to the aborigines ! Who shall say that the savage who wan- dered through these hunting-grounds, or skimmed over this placid lake in his birchen craft, was insensible to the charms of nature, when, as he gazed, he cried, "This is Winni- piseogee," — "The Smile of the Great Spirit"? Which of the two was the poet, the man who dared to call those sublime summits, sixty miles away, the "White Hills," or the savage, to whom they were the mysterious " Agiocochook," which he never dared to ascend, because he imagined them peopled witl) invisible spirits, who controlled the storms and tempests? There may be nothing in a name, after all, but I do thank our Whittier for wresting "Round pond," in Ha- verhill, Mass., from sacrilegious hands, and returning it to its abo-
��rio;inal christening as "Kenosha lake." I only wish he would do the same to "Plug pond" (think of it!), a neighboring charming bit of water. If there is nothing else that can save our picturesque gems of nature from such commonplace and oftentimes vulgar names, let us bv all means turn to the vocabulary of the aborigi- nal poet, and humbly rechristen them. There has been a dispute among the learned in Indian lore as to the true rendering of the word Winni- piseogee. Does it mean "The Smile of the Great Spirit," or "Pleasant Water in a High Place"? Some scholars favor the former, while the latter has no less earnest advocates. Whatever the word means, the lake itself signifies both. To[)ographically, under the surveyor's eye and the mill owner's estimate, it is pleasant water in a high place. To the poet, and all who have an eye anointed like his, it is the smile of the Great Spirit. lu this connection it may be well to re- late the origin of tlie name accordiag to the Indian tradition, which may be taken for what it is worth, though, for that matter, it is probably as true as many in the white men's annals. We curtail it of most of its rhetorical appendages, and give the mere out- line of the legend.
p]llacoya, daughter of the proud chief Ahanton, was the belle of the Indian land. She was beautiful as a sunbeam, and the willow by the lake- side was not more fair. Like a wild fawn was she upon the hills ; her voice wa,s like the music of rippling waters. Far and wide went the re- nown of her beautv among the tribes, and many were the chiefs who sought her hand. But she listened not to
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