m
i
LIBRARY
OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.
CASE
B
Class
MR. THOREAU'S WRITINGS.
Walden.
1 vol. 16mo. $1.25.
A Week on the Concord and Merrimack
Rivers.
1 vol. ' 12mo. $1.50.
Excursions.
1 vol. 16mo. $1.25.
The Maine Woods.
1 vol. 16mo. $1.25.
TICKNOR AND FIELDS, Publishers.
THE
MAINE WOODS
BY
HENRY D. THOREAU,
AUTHOR OF "A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRI1IACK RIVERS,'
" WALDEN," " EXCURSIONS," ETC., ETC
BOSTON:
TICKNOR AND FIELDS.
1864.
CASE
8
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by
TICKNOR AND FIELDS,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.
UNIVERSITY PRESS:
WELCH, BIGELOW, AND COMPANY,
CAMBRIDGE.
THE first of the papers following was pub-
lished in u The Union Magazine," (New York,)
in 1848 ; the second, " Chesuncook," came out
in the "Atlantic Monthly," in 1858; and the
last is now for the first time printed.
7495
CONTENTS.
PAGB
KTAADN 1
CHESUNCOOK 85
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 161
APPENDIX.
I. TREES 307
IE. FLOWERS AND SHRUBS ..... 308
IH. LIST or PLANTS . . . . . . .312
IV. LIST OF BIRDS 321
V. QUADRUPEDS 322
VI. OUTFIT FOR AN EXCURSION .... 322
VII. A LIST OF INDIAN WORDS .... 324
THE MAINE WOODS.
KTAAD N.
ON the 31st of August, 1846, 1 left Concord in Mas-
sachusetts for Bangor and the backwoods of Maine, by
way of the railroad and steamboat, intending to accom-
pany a relative of mine engaged in the lumber-trade
in Bangor, as far as a dam on the west branch of the
Penobscot, in which property he was interested. From
this place, which is about one hundred miles by the
river above Bangor, thirty miles from the Houlton mili-
tary road, and five miles beyond the last log-hut, I pro-
posed to make excursions to Mount Ktaadn, the second
highest mountain in New England, about thirty miles
distant, and to some of the lakes of the Penobscot, either
alone or with such company as I might pick up there.
It is unusual to find a camp so far in the woods at that
season, when lumbering operations have ceased, and I
was glad to avail myself of the circumstance of a gang
of men being employed there at that time in repairing
the injuries caused by the great freshet in the spring.
The mountain may be approached more easily and di-
rectly on horseback and on foot from the northeast side,
by the Aroostook road, and the Wassataquoik River ; but
in that case you see much less of the wilderness, none of
1 A
2 THE MAINE WOODS.
the glorious river and lake scenery, and have no experi-
ence of the batteau and the boatman's life. I was fortu-
nate also in the season of the year, for in the summer
myriads of black flies, mosquitoes, and midges, or, as
tfce Indians call them, " no-see-ems," make travelling in
the woods almost impossible ; but now their reign was
nearly over.
Ktaadn, whose name is an Indian word signifying
highest land, was first ascended by white men in 1804.
It was visited by Professor J. W. Bailey of West Point
in 1836 ; by Dr. Charles T. Jackson, the State Geolo-
gist, in 1837 ; and by two young men from Boston in
1845. All these have given accounts of their expedi-
tions. Since I was there, two or three other parties
have made the excursion, and told their stories. . Besides
these, very few, even among backwoodsmen and hunters,
have ever climbed it, and it will be a long time before
the tide of fashionable travel sets that way. The moun-
.tainous region of the State of Maine stretches from near
the White Mountains, northeasterly one hundred and
sixty miles, to the head of the Aroostook River, and is
about sixty miles wide. The wild or unsettled portion
is far more extensive. So that some hours only of travel
in this direction will carry the curious to the verge of
a primitive forest, more interesting, perhaps, on all ac-
counts, than they would reach by going a thousand miles
westward.
The next forenoon, Tuesday, September 1st, I started
with my companion in a buggy from Bangor for " up
river," expecting to be overtaken the next day night at
Mattawamkeag Point, some sixty miles off, by two more
Bangoreans, who had decided to join us in a trip to the
mountain. We had each a knapsack or bag filled with
KTAADN. 3
such clothing and articles as were indispensable, and my
companion carried his gun.
Within a dozen miles of Bangor we passed through
the villages of Stillwater and Oldtown, built at the falls
of the Penobscot, which furnish the principal power by
which the Maine woods are converted into lumber. The
mills are built directly over and across the river. Here
is a close jam, a hard rub, at all seasons ; and then the
once green tree, long since white, I need not say as
the driven snow, but as a driven log, becomes lumber
merely. Here your inch, your two and your three inch
stuff begin to be, and Mr. Sawyer marks off those spaces
which decide the destiny of so many prostrate forests.
Through this steel riddle, more or less coarse, is the
arrowy Maine forest, from Ktaadn and Chesuncook, and
the head-waters of the St. John, relentlessly sifted, till it
comes out boards, clapboards, laths, and shingles such
as the wind can take, still perchance to be slit and slit
again, till men get a size that will suit. Think how stood
the white-pine tree on the shore of Chesuncook, its
branches soughing with the four winds, and every indi-
vidual needle trembling in the sunlight, — think how it
stands with it now, — sold, perchance, to the New Eng-
land 'Friction-Match Company! There were in 1837,
as I read, two hundred and fifty saw-mills on the Penob-
scot and its tributaries above Bangor, the greater part of
them in this immediate neighborhood, and they sawed
two hundred millions of feet of boards annually. To
this is to be added the lumber of the Kennebec, Andros-
coggin, Saco, Passamaquoddy, and other streams. No
wonder that we hear so often of vessels which are be-
calmed off our coast, being surrounded a week at a time
by floating lumber from the Maine woods. The mission
THE MAINE WOODS.
of men there seems to be, like so many busy demons, to
drive the forest all out of the country, from every soli-
tary beaver-swamp and mountain-side, as soon as pos-
sible.
At Oldtown we walked into a batteau-manufactory.
The making of batteaux is quite a business here for the
supply of the Penobscot River. We examined some on
the stocks They are light and shapely vessels, calcu-
lated for rapid and rocky streams, and to be carried over
long portages on men's shoulders, from twenty to thirty
feet long, and only four or four and a half wide, sharp
at both ends like a canoe, though broadest forward
on the bottom, and reaching seven or eight feet over the
water, in order that they may slip over rocks as gently
as possible. They are made very slight, only two boards
to a side, commonly secured to a few light maple or
other hard-wood knees, but inward are of the clearest
and widest white-pine stuff, of which there is a great
waste on account of their form, for the bottom is left per-
fectly flat, not only from side to side, but from end to
end. Sometimes they become "hogging" even, after
long use, and the boatmen then turn them over and
straighten them by a weight at each end. They told us
that one wore out in two years, or often in a single trip,
on the rocks, and sold for from fourteen to sixteen dol-
lars. There was something refreshing and wildly musi-
cal to my ears in the very name of the white man's
canoe, reminding me of Charlevoix and Canadian Voya-
geurs. The batteau is a sort of mongrel between the
canoe and the boat, a fur-trader's boat.
The ferry here took us past the Indian island. As
we left the shore, I observed a short, shabby, wasjier-
wojnan-looking Indian — they commonly have the woe-
KTAADN. 5
begone look of the girl that cried for spilt milk — just
from " up river " — land on the Oldtown side near a gro-
cery, and, drawing up his canoe, take out a bundle of
skins in one hand, and an empty keg or half-barrel in
the other, and scramble up the bank with them. This
picture will do to put before the Indian's history, that is,
the history of his extinction. In 1837 there were three
hundred and sixty-two souls left of this tribe. The
island seemed deserted to-day, yet I observed some new
houses among the weather-stained ones, as if the tribe
had still a design upon life ; but generally they have a
very shabby, forlorn, and cheerless look, being all back
side and woodshed, not homesteads, even Indian home-
steads, but instead of home or abroad-steads, for their life
is domi aut militia, at home or at war, or now rather
venatus, that is, a hunting, and most of the latter. The
church is the only trim-looking building, but that is not
Abenaki, that was Home's doings. Good Canadian it
may be, but it is poor Indian. These were once a pow-
erful tribe. Politics are all the rage with them now. I
even thought that a row of wigwams, with a dance of
powwows, and a prisoner tortured at the stake, would
be more respectable than this.
We landed in Milford, and rode along on the east side
of the Penobscot, having a more or less constant view
of the river, and the Indian islands in it, for they retain
all the islands as far up as Nickatow, at the mouth of the
East Branch. They are generally well-timbered, and
are said to be better soil than the neighboring shores.
The river seemed shallow and rocky, and interrupted by
rapids, rippling and gleaming in the sun. We paused a
moment to see a fish-hawk dive for a fish down straight
as an arrow, from a great height, but he missed his prey
6 THE MAINE WOODS.
this time. It was the Houlton road on which we were
now travelling, over which some troops were marched
once towards Mars' Hill, though not to Mars' fold, as it
proved. It is the main, almost the only, road in these
parts, as straight and well made, and kept in as good re-
pair, as almost any you will find anywhere. Everywhere
we saw signs of the great freshet, — - this house standing
awry, and that where it was not founded, but where it
was found, at any rate, the next day ; and that other with
a water-logged look, as if it were still airing and drying
its basement, and logs with everybody's marks upon
them, and sometimes the marks of their having served
as bridges, strewn along the road. "We crossed the Sunk-
haze, a summery Indian name, the Olemmon, Passadum-
keag, and other streams, which make a greater show on
the map than they now did on the road. At Passadum-
keag we found anythmg but what the name implies, —
earnest politicians, to wit, — white ones, I mean, — on the
alert, to know how the election was likely to go ; men
who talked rapidly, with subdued voice, and a sort of
factitious earnestness, you could not help believing, hard-
ly waiting for an introduction, one on each side of your
buggy, endeavoring to say much in little, for they see
you hold the whip impatiently, but always saying little
in much. Caucuses they have had, it seems, and cau-
cuses they are to have again, — victory and defeat.
Somebody may be elected, somebody may not. One
man, a total stranger, who stood by our carriage in the
dusk, actually frightened the horse with his asseverations,
growing more solemnly positive as there was less in him
to be positive about. So Passadumkeag did not look on
the map. At sundown, leaving the river-road awhile
for shortness, we went by way of Enfield, where we
KTAADN. . 7
stopped for the night. This, like most of the localities
bearing names on this road, was a place to name, which,
in the midst of the unnamed and unincorporated wilder-
ness, was to make a distinction without a difference, it
seemed to me. Here, however, I noticed quite an or-
chard of healthy and well-grown apple-trees, in a bear-
ing state, it being the oldest settler's house in this region,
but all natural fruit, and comparatively worthless for
want of a grafter. And BO it is generally, lower down
the river. It would be a good speculation, as well as
a favor conferred on the settlers, for a Massachusetts
boy to go down there with a trunk full of choice scions,
and his grafting apparatus, in the spring.
The next morning we drove along through a high and
hilly country, in view of Cold-Stream Pond, a beautiful
lake four or five miles long, and came into the Houlton
road again, here called the military road, at Lincoln,
forty-five miles from Bangor, where there is quite a vil-
lage for this country, — the principal one above Old-
town. Learning that there were several wigwams here,
on one of the Indian islands, we left our horse and wagon,
and walked through the forest half a mile to the river,
to procure a guide to the mountain. It was not till
after considerable search that we discovered their habi-
tations, — small huts, in a retired place, where the
scenery was unusually soft and beautiful, and the shore
skirted with pleasant meadows and graceful elms. We
paddled ourselves across to the island-side in a canoe,
which we found on the shore. Near where we landed
sat an Indian girl ten or twelve years old, on a rock in
the water, in the sun, washing, and humming or moan-
ing a song meanwhile. It was an aboriginal strain. A
salmon-spear, made wholly of wood, lay on the shore,
8 THE MAINE WOODS.
such as they might have used before white men came.
It had an elastic piece of wood fastened to one side of
its point, which slipped over and closed upon the fish,
somewhat like the contrivance for holding a bucket at
the end of a well-pole. As we walked up to the near-
est house, we were met by a sally of a dozen wolfish-
looking dogs, which may have been lineal descendants
from the ancient Indian dogs, which the first voyageurs
describe as " their wolves." I suppose they were. The
occupant soon appeared, with a long pole in his hand,
with which he beat off the dogs, while he parleyed with
us. A stalwart, but dull and greasy-looking fellow, who
told us, in his sluggish way, in answer to our questions,
as if it were the first serious business he had to do that
day, that there were Indians going " up river " — he and
one other — to-day, before noon. And who was the
other? Louis Neptune, who lives in the next house.
Well, let us go over and see Louis together. The same
doggish reception, and Louis Neptune makes his appear-
ance,— a small, wiry man, with puckered and wrinkled
face, yet he seemed the chief man of the two ; the same,
as I remembered, who had accompanied Jackson to the
mountain in '37. The same questions were put to Louis,
and the same information obtained, while the other In-
dian stood by. It appeared that they were going to
start by noon, with two canoes, to go up to Chesuncook
to hunt moose, — to be gone a month. " Well, Louis,
suppose you get to the Point [to the Five Islands, just
below Mattawamkeag], to camp, we walk on up the
West Branch to-morrow, — four of us, — and wait for
you at the dam, or this side. You overtake us to-mor-
row or next day, and take us into your canoes. We
stop for you, you stop for us. We pay you for your
KTAADN. 9
trouble." "Ye!" replied Louis, "may be you carry
some provision for all, — some pork, — some bread, —
and so pay." He said, " Me sure get some moose " ;
and when I asked if he thought Pomola would let us
go up, he answered that we must plant one bottle of
rum on the top ; he had planted good many ; and when
he looked again, the rum was all gone. He had been
up two or three times: he had planted letter, — Eng-
lish, German, French, &c. These men were slightly
clad in shirt and pantaloons, like laborers with us in
warm weather. They did not invite us into their houses,
but met us outside. So we left the Indians, thinking
ourselves lucky to have secured such guides and com-
panions.
There were very few houses along the road, yet they
did not altogether fail, as if the law by which men are
dispersed over the globe were a very stringent one, and
not to be resisted with impunity or for slight reasons.
There were even the germs of one or two villages just
beginning to expand. The beauty of the road itself -was
remarkable. The various evergreens, many of which
are rare with jis^rsrjifilijcaje^and^ beautiful specimens of
the larch, arbor-vitse, ball-spruce, and fir-balsam, from a.
fewTnches to many feet in' height, — lined its sides, in
50ffie"places like a long, front yard, springing up from the
smooth grass-plots which uninterruptedly_border it, and
are^made fertilejby its wash ; while it was but a step.-
orTeltEeFTiand to the grim, untrodden wilderness, whose"
tangled labyrinth" "of living, fallen, and decaying trees
only the deer "and moose, the bear and wolf? can easily
penetrate. More perfect specimens than any front-yard
plot can show, grew there to grace the passage of the
Houlton teams.
1*
10 THE MAINE WOODS.
About noon we reached the Mattawamkeag, fifty-six
miles from Bangor by the way we had come, and put up
at a frequented house still on the Houlton road, where
the Houlton stage stops. Here was a substantial cov-
ered bridge over the Mattawamkeag, built, I think they
said, some seventeen years before. We had dinner, —
where, by the way, and even at breakfast, as well as
supper, at the public-houses on this road, the front
rank is composed of various kinds of " sweet cakes," in
a continuous line from one end of the table to the other.
I think I may safely say that there was a row of ten
or a dozen plates of this kind set before us two here.
To account for which, they say that, when the lumberers
come out of the woods, they have a craving for cakes
and pies, and such sweet things, which there are almost
unknown, and this is the supply to satisfy that demand.
The supply is always equal to the demand, and these
hungry men think a good deal of getting their money's
worth. No doubt the balance of victuals is restored
by the time they reach Bangor, — Mattawamkeag takes
off the raw edge. Well, over this front rank, I say,
you, coming from the " sweet cake " side, with a cheap
philosophic indifference though it may be, have to as-
sault what there is behind, which I do not by any means
mean to insinuate is insufficient in quantity or quality to
supply that other demand, of men, not from the woods,
but from the towns, for venison and strong country fare.
After dinner we strolled down to the "Point," formed
by the junction of the two rivers, which is said to be
the scene of an ancient battle between the Eastern In-
dians and the Mohawks, and searched there carefully
for relics, though the men at the bar-room had never
heard of such things ; but we found only some flakes
KTAADN. 11
of arrow-head stone, some points of arrow-heads, one
small leaden bullet, and some colored beads, the last to
be referred, perhaps, to early fur-trader days. The Mat-
tawamkeag, though wide, was a mere river's bed, full
of rocks and shallows at this time, so that you could
cross it almost dry-shod in boots; and I could hardly
believe my companion, when he told me that he had
been fifty or sixty miles up it in a batteau, through
distant and still uncut forests. A batteau could hardly
find a harbor now at its mouth. Deer and carribou, or
reindeer, are taken here in the winter, in sight of the
house.
Before our companions arrived, we rode on up the
Houlton road seven miles, to Molunkus, where the
Aroostook road comes into it, and where there is a spa-
cious public house in the woods, called the ** Molunkus
House," kept by one Libbey, which looked as if it had
its hall for dancing and for military drills. There was
no other evidence of man but this huge shingle palace
in this part of the world ; but sometimes even this is
filled with travellers. I looked off the piazza round the
corner of the house up the Aroostook road, on which
there was no clearing in sight. There was a man just
adventuring upon it this evening in a rude, original,
what you may call Aroostook wagon, — a mere seat,
with a wagon swung under it, a few bags on it, and a
dog asleep to watch them. He offered to carry a mes-
sage for us to anybody in that country, cheerfully. I
suspect that, if you should go to the end of the world,
you would find somebody there going farther, as if just
starting for home at sundown, and having a last word
before he drove off. Here, too, was a small trader,
whom I did not see at first, who kept a store — but no
12 THE MAINE WOODS.
great store, certainly — in a small box over the way,
behind the Molunkus sign-post. It looked like the
balance-box of a patent hay-scales. As for his house,
we could only conjecture where that was ; he may have
been a boarder -in the Molunkus House. I saw him
standing in his shop-door, — his shop was so small, that,
if a traveller should make demonstrations of entering
in, he would have to go out by the back way, and confer
with his customer through a window, about his goods
in the cellar, or, more probably, bespoken, and yet on
the way. I should have gone in, for I felt a real im-
pulse to trade, if I had not stopped to consider what
would become of him. The day before, we had walked
into a shop, over against an inn where we stopped, the
puny beginning of trade, which would grow at last into
a firm copartnership in the future town or city, — indeed,
it was already " Somebody & Co.," I forget who. The
woman came forward from the penetralia of the at-
tached house, for " Somebody & Co." was in the burning,
and she sold us percussion-caps, canales and smooth,
and knew their prices and qualities, and which the hunt-
ers preferred. Here was a little of everything in a
small compass to satisfy the wants and the ambition . of
the woods, — a stock selected with what pains and care,
and brought home in the wagon-box, or a corner of the
Houlton team ; but there seemed to me, as usual, a pre-
ponderance of children's toys, — dogs to bark, and cats to
mew, and trumpets to blow, where natives there hardly
^are yet. As if a child, born into the Maine woods, among.
/ the pine-cones and cedar-berries, could not do without
such a sugar-man, or skipping-jack, as the young Roths-
child has.
I think that there was not more than one house on
KTAADN. . 13
the road to Molunkus, or for seven miles. At that place
we got over the fence into a new field, planted with
potatoes, where the logs were still burning between the
hills ; and, pulling up the vines, found good-sized pota-
toes, nearly ripe, growing like weeds, and turnips mixed
with them. The mode of clearing and planting is, to
fell the trees, and burn once what will burn, then cut
them up into suitable lengths, roll into heaps, and burn
again ; then, with a hoe, plant potatoes where you can
come at the ground between the stumps and charred
logs ; for a first crop the ashes sufficing for manure, and
no hoeing being necessary the first year. In the fall,
cut, roll, and burn again, and so on, till the land is
cleared ; and soon it is ready for grain, and to be laid
down. Let those talk of poverty and hard times who
will in the towns and cities ; cannot the emigrant who
can pay his fare to New York or Boston pay five dol-
lars more to get here, — I paid three, all told, for my
passage from Boston to Bangor, two hundred and fifty
miles, — and be as rich as he pleases, where -land vir-
tually costs nothing, and houses only the labor of build-
ing, and he may begin life as Adam did ? If he will
still remember the distinction of poor and rich, let him
bespeak him a narrower house forthwith.
When we returned to the Mattawamkeag, the Houlton
stage had already put up there ; and a Province man
was betraying his greenness to the Yankees by his ques-
tions. Why Province money won't pass here at par,
when States' money is good at Frederickton, — though
this, perhaps, was sensible enough. From what I saw
then, it appears that the Province man was now the
only real Jonathan, or raw country bumpkin, left so far
behind by his enterprising neighbors that he did n't know
14 THE MAINE WOODS.
enough to put a question to them. No people can long\
continue provincial in character who have the propensity
for politics and whittling, and rapid travelling, which the
Yankees have, and who are leaving the mother country
behind in the variety of their notions and inventions.
The possession and exercise of practical talent merely
are a sure and rapid means of intellectual culture and /
independence.
The last edition of Greenleaf's Map of Maine hung
on the wall here, and, as we had no pocket-map, we re-
solved to trace a map of the lake country. So, dipping
a wad of tow into the lamp, we oiled a sheet of paper
on the oiled table-cloth, and, in good faith, traced what
we afterwards ascertained to be a labyrinth of errors,
carefully following the outlines of the imaginary lakes
which the map contains. The Map of the Public Lands
of Maine and Massachusetts is the only one I have seen
that at all deserves the name. It was while we were
engaged in this operation that our companions arrived.
They had" seen the Indians' fire on the Five Islands, and
so we concluded that all was right.
Early the next morning we had mounted our packs,
and prepared for a tramp up the West Branch, my com-
panion having turned his horse out to pasture for a week
or ten days, thinking that a bite of fresh grass, and a
taste of running water, would do him as much good as
backwoods fare and new country influences his master.
Leaping over a fence, we began to follow an obscure
trail up the northern bank of the Penobscot. There
was now no road further, the river being the only high-
way, and but half a dozen log-huts confined to its banks,
to be met with for thirty miles. On either hand, and
beyond, was a wholly uninhabited wilderness, stretching
KTAADN. 15
to Canada. Neither horse nor cow, nor vehicle of any
kind, had ever passed over this ground ; the cattle, and
the few bulky articles which the loggers use, being got
up in the winter on the ice, and down again before it
breaks up. The evergreen woods had a decidedly sweet
and bracing fragrance ; the air was a sort of diet-drink,
and we walked on buoyantly in Indian file, stretching
our legs. Occasionally there was a small opening on"
the bank, made for the purpose of log-rolling, where we
got a sight of the river, — always a rocky and rippling]
stream. The roar of the rapids, the note of a whistler^
duck on the river, of the jay and chickadee around us,]
and of the pigeon-woodpecker in the openings, were th<
sounds that we heard. This was what you might call
a bran-new country ; the only roads were of Nature's
making, and the few houses were camps. Here, then,
one could no longer accuse institutions and society, but
must front the true source of evil.
There are three classes of inhabitants who either fre-
quent or inhabit the country which we had now entered; —
first, the loggers, who, for a part of the year, the winter
and spring, are far the most numerous, but in the sum-
mer, except a few explorers for timber, completely desert
it ; second, the few settlers I have named, the only per-
manent inhabitants, who li ve on the verge of it, and help
raise supplies for the former ; third, the hunters, mostly
Indians, who range over it in their season.
At the end of three miles, we came to the Mattaseunk
stream and mill, where there was even a rude wooden
railroad running down to the Penobscot, the last railroad
we were to see. We crossed one tract, on the bank of
the river, of more than a hundred acres of heavy timber,
which had just been felled and burnt over, and was still
16 THE MAINE WOODS.
smoking. Our trail lay through the midst of it, and wag
wellnigh blotted out. The trees lay at full length, four
or five feet deep, and crossing each other in all directions,
all black as charcoal, but perfectly sound within, still
good for fuel or for timber ; soon they would be cut into
lengths and burnt again. Here were thousands of cords,
enough to keep the poor of Boston and New York amply
warm for a winter, which only cumbered the ground and
were in the settler's way. And the whole of that solid
and interminable forest is doomed to be gradually de-
voured thus by fire, like shavings, and no man be warmed
by it. At Crocker's log-hut, at the mouth of Salmon
River, seven miles from the Point, one of the party com-
menced distributing a store of small cent picture-books
among the children, to teach them to read, and also
newspapers, more or less recent, among the parents, than
which nothing can be more acceptable to a backwoods
people. It was really an important item in our outfit,
and, at times, the only currehcy that would circulate. I
walked through Salmon River with my shoes on, it being
low water, but not without wetting my feet. A few mile§
farther we came to " Marm Howardfs7J~at the end of an
extensive clearing, where there were two or three log-
huts in sight at once, one on the opposite side of the
river, and a few graves, even surrounded by a wooden
paling, where already the rude forefathers of a hamlet
lie, and a thousand years hence, perchance, some poet
will write his " Elegy in a Country Churchyard." The
"Village Hampdens," the "mute, inglorious Miltons,"
and Cromwells, "guiltless of" their "country's blood,"
were yet unborn.
" Perchance in this wild spot there will be laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire ;
KTAADN. 17
Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed,
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre."
The next house was Fisk's, ten miles from the Point,
at the mouth of the East Branch, opposite to the island
Nickatow, or the Forks, the last of the Indian islands.
I am particular to give the names of the settlers and the
distances, since every log-hut in these woods is a public
house, and such information is of no little consequence
to those who may have occasion to travel this way. Our
course here crossed the Penobscot, and followed the.
southern bank. One of the party, who entered the
house in search of some one to set us over, reported a
very neat dwelling, with plenty of books, and a new
wife, just imported from Boston, wholly new to the
woods. We found the East Branch a large and rapid
stream at its mouth, and much deeper than it appeared.
Having with some difficulty discovered the trail again,
we kept up the south side of the West Branch, or main
river, passing by some rapids called Rock-Ebeeme, the
roar of which we heard through the woods, and, shortly
after, in the thickest of the wood, some empty loggers'
camps, still new, which were occupied the previous win-
ter. Though we saw a few more afterwards, I will make
one account serve for all. These were such houses as
the lumberers of Maine spend the winter in, in the wil-
derness. There were the camps and the hovels for the
cattle, hardly distinguishable, except that the latter had
no chimney. These camps were about twenty feet long
by fifteen wide, built of logs, — hemlock, cedar, spruce,
or yellow birch, — one kind alone, or all together, with
the bark on ; two or three large ones first, one directly
above another, and notched together at the ends, to the
height of three or four feet, then of smaller logs resting
18 THE MAINE WOODS.
upon transverse ones at the ends, each of the last suc-
cessively shorter than the other, to form the roof. The
chimney was an oblong square hole in the middle, three
or four feet in diameter, with a fence of logs as high as
the ridge. The interstices were filled with moss, and
the roof was shingled with long and handsome splints of
cedar, or spruce, or pine, rifted with a sledge and cleaver.
The fire-place, the most important place of all, was in
shape and size like the chimney, and directly under it,
defined by a log fence or fender on the ground, and a
heap of ashes, a foot or two deep, within, with solid
benches of split logs running round it. Here the fire
usually melts the snow, and dries the rain before it can
descend to quench it. The faded beds of arbor-vitse
leaves extended under the eaves on either hand. There
was the place for the water-pail, pork-barrel, and wash-
basin, and generally a dingy pack of cards left on a log.
Usually a good deal of whittling was expended on the
latch, which was made of wood, in the form of an iron
one. These houses are made comfortable by the huge
fires, which can be afforded night and day. Usually the
scenery about them is drear arid savage enough ; and the
loggers' camp is as completely in the woods as a fungus
at the foot of a pine in a swamp ; no outlook but to the
sky overhead ; no more clearing than is made by cutting
down the trees of which it is built, and those which are
necessary for fuel. If only it be well sheltered and con-
venient to his work, and near a spring, he wastes no
thought on the prospect. They are very proper forest
houses, the • stems of the trees collected together and
piled up around a man to keep out wind and rain, —
made of living green logs, hanging with moss and lichen,
and with the curls and fringes of the yellow-birch bark,
KTAADN. 19
and dripping with resin, fresh and moist, and redolent of
swampy odors, with that sort of vigor and perenriialness
even about them that toadstools suggest.*/ The logger's
fare consists of tea, molasses, flour, pork (sometimes beef),
and beans. A great proportion of the beans raised in
Massachusetts find their market here. On expeditions
it is only hard bread and pork, often raw, slice upon
slice, with tea or water, as the case may be.
The primitive wood is always and everywhere damp
and mossy, so that I travelled constantly with the im-
pression that I was in a swamp ; and only when it was
remarked that this or that tract, judging from the qual-
ity of the timber on it, would make a profitable clearing,
was I reminded, that if the sun were let in it would
make a dry field, like the few I had seen, at once. The
best shod for the most part travel with wet feet. If the
ground was so wet and spongy at this, the dryest part
of a dry season, what must . it be in the spring ? The
woods hereabouts abounded in beech and yellow birch,
of which last there were some very large specimens ;
also spruce, cedar, fir, and hemlock ; but we saw only
the stumps of the white pine here, some of them of
great size, these having been already culled out, being
the only tree much sought after, even as low down as
this. Only a little spruce and hemlock beside had been
* Springer, in his " Forest Life" (1851), says that they first re-
move the leaves and turf from the spot where they intend to build a
camp, for fear of fire; also, that " the spruce-tree is generally select-
ed for camp-building, it being light, straight, and quite free from
sap " ; that " the roof is finally covered with the boughs of the fir,
spruce, and hemlock, so that when the snow falls upon the whole, the
warmth of the camp is preserved in the coldest weather"; and that
they make the log seat before the fire, called the " Deacon's Seat,"
of a spruce or fir split in halves, with three or four stout limbs left
on one side for legs, which are not likely to get loose.
20 THE MAINE WOODS.
logged here. The Eastern wood which is sold for fuel
in Massachusetts all comes from below Bangor. It was
the pine alone, chiefly the white pine, that had tempted
any but the hunter to precede us on this route.
Waite's farm, thirteen miles from the Point, is an ex-
tensive and elevated clearing, from which we got a fine
view of the river, rippling and gleaming far beneath us:
My companions had formerly had a good view of Ktaadn
and the other mountains here, but to-day it was so smoky
that we could see nothing of them. We could overlook
an immense country of uninterrupted forest, stretching
away up the East Branch toward Canada, on the north
and northwest, and toward the Aroostook valley on the
northeast ; and imagine what wild life was stirring in its
midst. Here was quite a field of corn for this region,
whose peculiar dry scent we perceived a third of a
mile off, before we saw it.
Eighteen miles from the Point brought us in sight of
McCauslin's, or " Uncle George's," as he was familiarly
called by my companions, to whom he was well known,
where we intended to break our long fast. His house
was in the midst of an extensive clearing of intervale,
at the mouth of the Little Schoodic River, on the op-
posite or north bank of the Penobscot. So we collected
on a point of the shore, that we might be seen, and fired
our gun as a signal, which brought "out his dogs forth-
with, and thereafter their master, who in due time took
us across in his batteau. This clearing was bounded
abruptly, on all sides but the river, by the naked stems
of the forest, as if you were to cut only a few feet
square in the midst of a thousand acres of mowing, and
set down a thimble therein. He had a whole heaven
and horizon to himself, and the sun seemed to be jour-
KTAADN. . 21
neying over his clearing only the livelong day. Here
we concluded to spend the night, and wait for the In-
dians, as there was no stopping-place so convenient
.above. He had seen no Indians pass, and this did not
often happen without his knowledge. He thought that
his dogs sometimes gave notice of the approach of In-
dians half an hour before they arrived.
McCauslin was a Kennebec man, of Scotch descent,
who had been a waterman twenty-two years, and had
driven on the lakes and head-waters of the Penobscot
five or six springs in succession, but was now settled
here to raise supplies for the lumberers and for himself.
He entertained us a day or two with true Scotch hospi-
tality, and would accept no recompense for it. A man
of a dry wit and shrewdness, and a general intelligence
which I had not looked for in the backwoods. In fact,
the deeper you penetrate into the woods, the more in-
telligent, and, in one sense, less countrified do you find
the inhabitants ; for always the pioneer has been a trav-
eller, and, to some extent, a man of the world ; and, as
the distances with which he is familiar are greater, so
is his information more general and far reaching than
the villagers. If I were to look for a narrow, unin-
formed, and countrified mind, as opposed to the intelli-
gence and refinement which are thought to emanate from
cities, it would be among the rusty inhabitants of an old-
settled country, on farms all run out and gone to seed
with life-everlasting, in the towns about Boston, even
on the high-road in Concord, and not in the backwoods
of Maine.
Supper was got before our eyes in the ample kitchen,
by a fire which would have roasted an ox ; many whole
logs, four feet long, were consumed to boil our tea-kettle,
22 THE MAINE WOODS.
— birch, or beech, or maple, the same summer and win-
ter ; and the dishes were soon smoking on the table,
late the arm-chair, against the wall, from which one of
the party was expelled. The arms of the chair formed,
the frame on which the table rested; and, when the
round top was turned up against the wall, it formed
the back of the chair, and was no more in the way than
the wall itself. This, we noticed, was the prevailing
fashion in these log-houses, in order to economize in
room. There were piping-hot wheaten cakes, the flour
having been brought up the river in batteaux, — no In-
dian bread, for the upper part of Maine, it will be re-
membered, is a wheat country, — and ham, eggs, and
potatoes, and milk and cheese, the produce of the farm ;
and also shad and salmon, tea sweetened with molasses,
and sweet cakes, in contradistinction to the hot cakes not
sweetened, the one white, the other yellow, to wind up
with. Such we found was the prevailing fare, ordinary
and extraordinary, along this river. Mountain cran-
berries ( Vaccinium Vitis-Id&a), stewed and sweetened,
were the common dessert. Everything here was in pro-
fusion, and the best of its kind. Butter was in such
plenty that it was commonly used, before it was salted,
to grease boots with.
In the night we were entertained by the sound of
rain-drops on the cedar-splints which covered the roof,
and awaked the next morning with a drop or two in our
eyes. It had set in for a storm, and we made up our
minds not to forsake such comfortable quarters with this
prospect, but wait for Indians and fair weather. It
rained and drizzled and gleamed by turns, the livelong
day. What we did there, how we killed the time,
would perhaps be idle to tell ; how many times we but-
KTAADN. 23
tered our boots, and how often a drowsy one was seen
to sidle off to the bedroom. When it held up, I strolled
up and down the bank, and gathered the harebell and
cedar-berries, which grew there ; or else we tried by
turns the long-handled axe on the logs before the door.
The axe-helves here were made to chop standing on the
log, — a primitive log of course, — and were, therefore,
nearly a foot longer than with us. One while we
walked over the farm and visited his well-filled barns
with McCauslin. There were one other man and two
women only here. He kept horses, cows, oxen, and
sheep. I think he said that he was the first to bring
a plough and a cow so far ; and he might have added
the last, with only two exceptions. The potato-rot had
found him out here, too, the previous year, and got half
or two thirds of his crop, though the seed was of his
own raising. Oats, grass, and potatoes were his staples ;
but he raised, also, a few carrots and turnips, and " a
little corn for the hens," for this was all that he dared
risk, for fear that it would not ripen. Melons, squashes,
sweet-corn, beans, tomatoes, and many other vegetables,
could not be ripened there.
The very few settlers along this stream were obvi-
ously tempted by the cheapness of the land mainly.
When I asked McCauslin why more settlers did not
come in, he answered, that one reason was, they could
not buy the land, it belonged to individuals or companies
who were afraid that their wild lands would be settled,
and so incorporated into towns, and they be taxed for
them ; but to settling on the States' land there was no
such hinderance. For his own part, he wanted no
neighbors, — he did n't wish to see any road by his
house. Neighbors, even the besta were a trouble and
24 THE MAINE WOODS.
expense, especially on the score of cattle and fences.
They might live across the river, perhaps, but not on
the same side.
The chickens here were protected by the dogs. As
McCauslin said, " The old one took it up first, and she
taught the pup, and now they had got it into their heads
that it would n't do to have anything of the bird kind
on the premises." A hawk hovering over was not al-
lowed to alight, but barked off by the dogs circh'ng un-
derneath ; and a pigeon, or a " yellow-hammer," as they
called the pigeon-woodpecker, on a dead limb or stump,
was instantly expelled. It was the main business of
their day, and kept them constantly coming and going.
One would rush out of the house on the least alarm
given by the other.
When it rained hardest, we returned to the house,
and took down a tract from the shelf. There was the
Wandering Jew, cheap edition, and fine print, the Crimi-
nal Calendar, and Parish's Geography, and flash novels
two or three. Under the pressure of circumstances, we
read a little in these. With such aid, the press is not
so feeble an engine, after all. This house, which was a
fair specimen of those on this river, was built of huge
logs, which peeped out everywhere, and were chinked
with clay and moss. It contained four or five rooms.
There were no sawed boards, or shingles, or clapboards,
about it ; and scarcely any tool but the axe had been
used in its construction. The partitions were made of
long clapboard-like splints, of spruce or cedar, turned
to a delicate salmon color by the smoke. The roof and
sides were covered with the same, instead of shingles
and clapboards, and some of a much thicker and larger
size were used for the floor. These were all so straight
KTAADN. 25
and smooth, that they answered the purpose admirably ;
and a careless observer would not have suspected that
they were not sawed and planed. The chimney and
hearth were of vast size, and made of stone. The
broom was a few twigs of arbor-vitae tied to a stick;
and a pole was suspended over the hearth, close to the
ceilings, to dry stockings and clothes on. I noticed that
the floor was full of small, dingy holes, as if made with
a gimlet, but which were, in fact, made by the spikes,
nearly an inch long, which the lumberers wear in their
boots to prevent their slipping on wet logs. Just above
McCauslin's, there is a rocky rapid, where logs jam in
the spring; and many "drivers" are there collected,
who frequent his house for supplies ; these were their
tracks which I saw.
At sundown McCauslin pointed away over the forest,
across the river, to signs of friir weather amid the
clouds, — some evening redness there. For even there
the points of compass held; and there was a quarter
of the heavens appropriated to sunrise and another to
sunset.
The next morning, the weather proving fair enough
for our purpose, we prepared to start, and, the Indians
having failed us, persuaded McCauslin, who was not
unwilling to revisit the scenes of his driving, to accom-
pany us in their stead, intending to engage one other
boatman on the way. A strip of cotton cloth for a
tent, a couple of blankets, which would suffice for the
whole party, fifteen pounds of hard bread, ten pounds
of " clear " pork, and a little tea, made up " TJncle
George's" pack. The last three articles were calcu-
lated to be provision enough for six men for a week,
with what we might pick up. A tea-kettle, a frying-
2
26 THE MAINE WOODS.
pan, and an axe, to be obtained at the last house, would
complete our outfit.
We were soon out of McCauslin's clearing, and in the
ever green woods again. The obscure trail made by the
two settlers above, which even the woodman is some-
times puzzled to discern, erelong crossed a narrow, open
strip in the woods overrun with weeds, called the Burnt
Land, where a fire had raged formerly, stretching north-
ward nine or ten miles, to Millinocket Lake. At the
end of three miles, we reached Shad Pond, or Nolisee-
mack, an expansion of the river. Hodge, the Assistant
State Geologist, who passed through this on the 25th
of June, 1837, says, "We pushed our boat through
an acre or more of buck-beans, which had taken root
at the bottom, and bloomed above the surface in the
greatest profusion and beauty." Thomas Fowler's house
is four miles from McCauslin's, on the shore of the pond,
at the mouth of the Millinocket River, and eight miles
from the lake of the same name, on the latter stream.
This lake affords a more direct course to Ktaadn, but
we preferred to follow the Penobscot and the Pamadum-
cook lakes. Fowler was just completing a new log-hut,
and was sawing out a window through the logs, nearly
two feet thick, when we arrived. He had begun to paper
his house with spruce-bark, turned inside out, which had
a good effect, and was in keeping with the circumstances.
Instead of water we got here a draught of beer, which,
it was allowed, would be better ; clear and thin, but
strong and stringent as the cedar-sap. It was as if we
sucked at the very teats of Nature's pine-clad bosom in
these parts, — the sap of all Millinocket botany commin-
gled,— the topmost, most fantastic, and spiciest sprays
of the primitive wood, and whatever invigorating and
KTAADN. 27
stringent gum or essence it afforded steeped and dis-
solved in it, — a lumberer's drink, which would acclimate
and naturalize a man at once, — which would make him
see green, and, if he slept, dream that he heard the wind
sough among the pines. Here was a fife, praying to be
played on, through which we breathed a few tuneful
strains, — brought hither to tame wild beasts. As we
stood upon the pile of chips by the door, fish-hawks
were sailing overhead ; and here, over Shad Pond, might
daily be witnessed the tyranny of the bald-eagle over
that bird. Tom pointed away over the lake to a bald-
eagle's nest, which was plainly visible more than a mile
off, on a pine, high above the surrounding forest, and
was frequented from year to year by the same pair, and
held sacred by him. There were these two houses only
there, his low hut and the eagles' airy cart-load of fagots.
Thomas Fowler, too, was persuaded to join us, for two
men were necessary to manage the batteau, which was
soon to be our carriage, and these men needed to be cool
and skilful for the navigation of the Penobscot. Tom's
pack was soon made, for he had not far to look for his
waterman's boots, and a red-flannel shirt. This is the
favorite color with lumbermen ; and red flannel is re-
puted to possess some mysterious virtues, to be most
healthful and convenient in respect to perspiration. In
every gang there will be a large proportion of red birds.
We took here a poor and leaky batteau, and began to
pole up the Millinocket two miles, to the elder Fowler's,
in order to avoid the Grand Falls of the Penobscot,
intending to exchange our batteau there for a better.
The Millinocket is a small, shallow, and sandy stream,
full of what I took to be lamprey-eels' or suckers' nests,
and lined with musquash cabins, but free from rapids,
THE MAINE WOODS.
according to Fowler, excepting at its outlet from the
lake. He was at this time engaged in cutting the native
grass, — rush-grass and meadow-clover, as he called it, —
on the meadows and small, low islands of this stream.
We noticed flattened places in the grass on either side,
•where, he said, a moose had laid down the night before,
adding, that there were thousands in these meadows.
Old Fowler's, on the Millinocket, six miles from Mc-
Causlin's, and twenty-four from the Point, is the last
house. Gibson's, on the Sowadnehunk, is the only clear-
ing above, but that had proved a failure, and was long
since deserted. Fowler is the oldest inhabitant of these
woods. He formerly lived a few miles from here, on
the south side of the West Branch, where he built his
house sixteen years ago, the first house built above the
Five Islands. Here our new batteau was to be carried
over the* first portage of two miles, round the Grand
Falls of the Penobscot, on a horse-sled made of sap-
lings, to jump the numerous rocks in the way ; but we
had to wait a couple of hours for them to catch the
horses, which were pastured at a distance, amid the
stumps, and had wandered still farther off. The last
of the salmon for this season had just been caught, and
were still fresh in pickle, from which enough was ex-
tracted to fill our empty kettle, and so graduate our
introduction to simpler forest fare. The week before
they had lost nine sheep here out of their first flock,
by the wolves. The surviving sheep came round the
house, and seemed frightened, which induced them to go
and look for the rest, when they found seven dead and
lacerated, and two still alive. These last they carried
to the house, and, as Mrs. Fowler said, they were merely
scratched in the throat, and had no more visible wound
KTAADN. 29
than would be produced by the prick of a pin. She
sheared off the wool from their throats, and washed
them, and put on some salve, and turned them out, but
in a few moments they were missing, and had not been
found since. In fact, they were all poisoned, and those
that were found swelled up at once, so that they saved
neither skin nor wool. This realized the old fables of
the wolves and the sheep, and convinced me that that
ancient hostility still existed. Verily, the shepherd-boy
did not need to sound a false alarm this time. There
were steel traps by the door, of various sizes, for wolves,
otter, and bears, with large claws instead of teeth, to
catch in their sinews. Wolves are frequently killed
with poisoned bait.
At length, after we had dined here on the usual back-
woods fare, the horses arrived, and we hauled our batteau
out of the water, and lashed it to its wicker carriage, and,
throwing in our packs, walked on before, leaving the
boatmen and driver, who was Tom's brother, to manage
the concern. The route, which led through the wild
pasture where the sheep were killed, was in some places
the roughest ever travelled by horses, over rocky hills,
where the sled bounced and slid along, like a vessel
pitching in a storm ; and one man was as necessary to
stand at the stern, to prevent the boat from being
wrecked, as a helmsman in the roughest sea. The
philosophy of our progress was something like this :
when the runners struck a rock three or four feet high,
the sled bounced back and upwards at the same time ;
but, as the horses never ceased pulling, it came down on
the top of the rock, and so we got over. This portage
probably followed the trail of an ancient Indian carry
round these falls. By two o'clock we, who had walked
30 THE MAINE WOODS.
on before, reached the river above the falls, not far from
the outlet of Quakish Lake, and waited for the batteau
to come up. We had been here but a short time, when
a thunder-shower was seen coming up from the west,
over the still invisible lakes, and that pleasant wilder-
ness which we were so eager to become acquainted
with ; and soon the heavy drops began to patter on the
leaves around us. I had just selected the prostrate
trunk of a huge pine, five or six feet in diameter, and
was crawling under it, when, luckily, the boat arrived.
It would have amused a sheltered man to witness the
manner in which it was unlashed, and whirled over,
while the first water-spout burst upon us. It was no
sooner in the hands of the eager company than it was
abandoned to the first revolutionary impulse, and to
gravity, to adjust it; and they might have been seen
till stooping to its shelter, and wriggling under like so
many eels, before it was fairly deposited on the ground.
•When all were under, we propped up the lee side, and
busied ourselves there whittling thole-pins for rowing,
when we should reach the lakes ; and made the woods
ring, between the claps of thunder, with such boat-songs
as we could remember. The horses stood sleek and
shining with the rain, all drooping and crestfallen, while
deluge after deluge washed over us ; but the bottom of a
boat may be relied on for a tight roof. At length, after
two hours' delay at this place, a streak of fair weather
appeared in the northwest, whither our course now lay,
promising a serene evening for our voyage ; and the
driver returned with his horses, while we made haste
to launch our boat, and commence our voyage in good
earnest.
There were six of us, including the two boatmen.
KTAADN. 31
With our packs heaped up near the bows, and ourselves
disposed as baggage to trim the boat, with instructions
not to move in case we should strike a rock, more than
so many barrels of pork, we pushed out into the first
rapid, a slight specimen of the stream we had to navi-
gate. With Uncle George in the stern, and Tom in
the bows, each using a spruce pole about twelve feet
long, pointed with iron,* and poling on the same side,
we shot up the rapids like a salmon, the water rushing
and roaring around, so that only a practised eye could
distinguish a safe course, or tell what was deep water
and what rocks, frequently grazing the latter on one or
both sides, with a hundred as narrow escapes as ever
the Argo had in passing through the Symplegades. I,
who had had some experience in boating, had never
experienced any half so exhilarating before. We were
lucky to have exchanged our Indians, whom we did not
know, for these men, who, together with Tom's brother,
were reputed the best boatmen on the river, and were at
once indispensable pilots and pleasant companions. The
canoe is smaller, more easily upset, and sooner worn
out ; and the Indian is said not to be so skilful in the
management of the batteau. He is, for the most part,
less to be relied on, and more disposed to sulks and
whims. The utmost familiarity with dead streams, or
with the ocean, would not prepare a man for this pecu-
liar navigation ; and the most skilful boatman anywhere
else would here be obliged to take out his boat and carry
round a hundred times, still with great risk, as well as
delay, where the practised batteau-man poles up with
comparative ease and safety. The hardy "voyageur"
pushes with incredible perseverance and success quite
* The Canadians call it picguer defend.
32 THE MAINE WOODS.
up to the foot of the falls, and then only carries round
some perpendicular ledge, and launches again in
" The torrent's smoothness, ere it dash below,"
to struggle with the boiling rapids above. The Indians
say that the river once ran both ways, one half up and
the other down, but that, since the white man came, it
all runs down, and now they must laboriously pole their
canoes against the stream, and carry them over numerous
portages. In the summer, all stores — the grindstone and
the plough of the pioneer, flour, pork, and utensils for the
explorer — must be conveyed up the river in batteaux ;
and many a cargo and many a boatman is lost in these
waters. In" the winter, however, which is very equable
and long, the ice is the great highway, and the loggers'
team penetrates to Chesuncook Lake, and still higher
up, even two hundred miles above Bangor. Imagine"
the solitary sled-track running far up into the snowy
and evergreen wilderness, hemmed in closely for a hun-
dred miles by the forest, and again stretching straight
across the broad surfaces of concealed lakes !
"We were soon in the smooth water of the Quakish
Lake, and took our turns at rowing and paddling across
it. It is a small, irregular, but handsome lake, shut in
on all sides by the forest, and showing no traces of man
but some low boom in a distant cove, reserved for spring
use. The spruce and cedar on its shores, hung with
gray lichens, looked at a distance like the ghosts of trees.
Ducks were sailing here and there on its surface, and a
solitary loon, like a more living wave, — a vital spot on
the lake's surface, — laughed and frolicked, and showed
its straight leg, for our amusement. Joe Merry Moun-
tain appeared in the northwest, as if it were looking
down on this lake especially ; and we had our first, but
KTAADN. 33
a partial view of Ktaadn, its summit veiled in clouds,
like a dark isthmus in that quarter, connecting the
heavens witfr the earth. After two miles of smooth
rowing across this lake, we found ourselves in the river
again, which was a continuous rapid for one mile, to
the dam, requiring all the strength and skill of our boat-
men to pole up it.
This dam is a quite important and expensive work
for this country, whither cattle and horses cannot pene-
trate in the summer, raising the whole river ten feet,
and flooding, as they said, some sixty square miles by
means of the innumerable lakes with which the river
connects. It is a lofty and solid structure, with sloping
piers some distance above, made of frames of logs filled
with stones, to break the ice.* Here every log pays toll
as it passes through the sluices.
We filed into the rude logger's camp at this place,
such as I have described, without ceremony, and the
cook, at that moment the sole occupant, at once set about
preparing tea for his visitors. His fireplace, which the
rain had converted into a mud-puddle, was soon blazing
again, and we sat down on the log benches around it
to dry us. On the well-flattened and somewhat faded
beds of arbor-vitae leaves, which stretched on either
hand under the eaves behind us, lay an odd leaf of the
Bible, some genealogical chapter out of the Old Testa-
ment ; and, half buried by the leaves, we found Emer-
son's Address on West India Emancipation, which had
been left here formerly by one of our company, and had
* Even the Jesuit missionaries, accustomed to the St. Lawrence
and other rivers of Canada, in their first expeditions to the Abena-
quinois, speak of rivers ferrees de rockers, shod with rocks. See also
No. 10 Kelations, for 1647, p. 185.
2* C
34 THE MAINE WOODS.
made two converts to the Liberty party here, as I was told ;
also, an odd number of the Westminster Review, for
1834, and a pamphlet entitled History of *the Erection
of the Monument on the grave of Myron Holly. This
was the readable, or reading matter, in a lumberer's
camp in the Maine woods, thirty miles from a road,
which would be given up to the bears in a fortnight.
These things were well thumbed and soiled. This gang
was headed by one John Morrison, a good specimen of a
Yankee ; and was necessarily composed of men not bred
to the business of dam-building, but who were Jacks-at-
all-trades, handy with the axe, and other simple imple-
ments, and well skilled in wood and water craft. "We
had hot cakes for our supper even here, white as snow-
balls, but without butter, and the never-failing sweet
cakes, with which we filled our pockets, foreseeing that
we should not soon meet with the like again. Such
delicate puff-balls seemed a singular diet for backwoods-
men. There was also tea without milk, sweetened with
molasses. ,And so, exchanging a word with John Mor-
rison and his gang when we had returned to the shore,
and also exchanging our batteau for a better still, we
made haste to improve the little daylight that remained.
This camp, exactly twenty-nine miles from Mattawam-
keag Point, by the way we had come, and about one
hundred from Bangor by the river, was the last human
habitation of any kind in this direction. Beyond, there
was no trail ; and the river and lakes, by batteaux and
canoes, was considered the only practicable route. We
were about thirty miles by the river from the summit
of Ktaadn, which was in sight, though not more than
twenty, perhaps, in a straight line.
It being about the full of the moon, and a warm and
KTAADN. 35
pleasant evening, we decided to row five miles by moon-
light to the head of the North Twin Lake, lest the wind
should rise on the morrow. After one mile of river, or
what the boatmen call "thoroughfare," — for the river
becomes at length only the connecting link between the
lakes, — and some slight rapid which had been mostly
made smooth water by the dam, we entered the North
Twin Lake just after sundown, and steered across for
the river " thoroughfare," four miles distant. This is a
noble sheet of water, where one may get the impression
which a new country and a " lake of the woods " are
fitted to create. There was the smoke of no log-hut nor
camp of any kind to greet us, still less was any lover of
nature or musing traveller watching our batteau from
the distant hills ; not even the Indian hunter was there,
for he rarely climbs them, but hugs the river like our-
selves. No face welcomed us but the fine fantastic
sprays of free and happy evergreen trees, waving one
above another in their ancient home. At first the red
clouds hung over the western shore as gorgeously as if
over a city, and the lake lay open to the light with even
a civilized aspect, as if expecting trade and commerce,
and towns and villas. We could distinguish the inlet to
the South Twin, which is said to be the larger, where
the shore was misty and blue, and it was worth the while
to look thus through a narrow opening across the entire
expanse of a concealed lake to its own yet more dim and
distant shore. The shores rose gently to ranges of low
hills covered with forests ; and though, in fact, the most
valuable white pine timber, even about this lake, had
been culled out, this would never have been suspected
by the voyager. The impression, which indeed corre-
sponded with the fact, was, as if we were upon a high
36 THE MAINE WOODS.
table-land between the States and Canada, the northern
side of which is drained by the St. John and Chaudiere,
the southern by the Penobscot and Kennebec. There
was no bold mountainous shore, as we might have ex-
pected, but only isolated hills and mountains rising here
and there from the plateau. The country is an archi-
pelago of lakes, — the lake-country of New England.
Their levels vary but a few feet, and the boatmen, by
short portages, or by none at all, pass easily from one to
another. They say that at very high water the Penob-
scot and the Kennebec flow into each other, or at any
rate, that you may lie with your face in the one and
your toes in the other. Even the Penobscot and St.
John have been connected by a canal, so that the lumber
of the Allegash, instead of going down the St. John,
comes down the Penobscot; and the Indian's tradition,
that the Penobscot once ran both ways for his conven-
ience, is, in one sense, partially realized to-day.
None of our party but McCauslin had been above this
lake, so we trusted to him to pilot us, and we could not
but confess the importance of a pilot on these waters.
While it is river, you will not easily forget which way is
up stream ; but when you enter a lake, the river is com-
pletely lost, and you scan the distant shores in vain to
find where it comes in. A stranger is, for the time at
least, lost, and must set about a voyage of discovery first
of all to find the river. To follow the windings of the
shore when the lake is ten miles, or even more, in length,
and of an irregularity which will not soon be mapped, is
a wearisome voyage, and will spend his time and his
provisions. They tell a story of a gang of experienced
woodmen sent to a ___location on this stream, who were
thus lost in the wilderness of lakes. They cut their way
KTAADN. 37
through thickets, and carried their baggage and their
boats over from lake to lake, sometimes several miles.
They carried into Millinocket Lake, which is on another
stream, and is ten miles square, and contains a hundred
islands. They explored its shores thoroughly, and then
carried into another, and another, and it was a week of
toil and anxiety before they found the Penobscot River
again, and then their provisions were exhausted, and
they were obliged to return.
While Uncle George steered for a small island near
the head of the lake, now just visible, like a speck on
the water, we rowed by turns swiftly over its surface,
singing such boat-songs as we could remember.' The
shores seemed at an indefinite distance in the moonlight.
Occasionally we paused in our singing and rested on our
oars, while we listened to hear if the wolves howled, for
this is a common serenade, and my companions affirmed
that it was the most dismal and unearthly of sounds ;
but we heard none this time. If we did not hear, how-
ever, we did listen, not without a reasonable expectation ;
that at least I have to tell, — only some utterly uncivil-
ized, big-throated owl hooted loud and dismally in the
drear and houghxw^erness> plainly not nervous about
his solitary life, nor afraid to hear the echoes of his
voice there. We remembered also that possibly moose
were silently watching us from the distant coves, or
some surly bear or timid caribou had been startled by
our singing. It was with new emphasis that we sang
there the Canadian boat-song, —
" Kow, brothers, row, the stream runs fast,
The Kapids are near and the daylight 's past ! " —
which describes precisely our own adventure, and was
inspired by the experience of a similar kind of life,—
38 THE MAINE WOODS.
for the rapids were ever near, and the daylight long
past ; the woods on shore looked dim, and many an
Utawas' tide here emptied into the lake.
" Why should we yet our sail unfurl?
There is not a breath the blue wave to curl !
But, when the wind blows off the shore,
0 sweetly we '11 rest our weary oar."
" Utawas' tide ! this trembling moon,
Shall see us float o'er thy surges soon."
At last we glided past the " green isle " which had
been our landmark, all joining in the chorus ; as if by
the watery links of rivers and of lakes we were about
to float over unmeasured zones of earth, bound on un-
imaginable adventures, — .
" Saint of this green isle ! hear our prayers,
0 grant us cool heavens and favoring airs ! "
About nine o'clock we reached the river, and ran our
boat into a natural haven between some rocks, and drew
her out on the sand. This camping-ground McCauslin
had been familiar with in his lumbering days, and he
now struck it unerringly in the moonlight, and we heard
the sound of the rill which would supply us with cool
water emptying into the lake. The first business was to
make a fire, an operation which was a little delayed by
the wetness of the fuel and the ground, owing to the
heavy showers of the afternoon. The fire is the main
comfort of the camp, whether in summer or winter, and
is about as ample at one season as at another. It is as
well for cheerfulness as for warmth and dryness. It
forms one side of the camp ; one bright side at any rate.
Some were dispersed to fetch in dead trees and boughs,
while Uncle George felled the birches and beeches which
stood convenient, and soon we had a fire some ten feet
KTAADN. 39
long by three or four high, which rapidly dried the
sand before it. This was calculated to burn all night.
We next proceeded to pitch our tent ; which operation
was performed by sticking our two spike-poles into the
ground in a slanting direction, about ten feet apart, for
rafters, and then drawing our cotton cloth over them,
and tying it down at the ends, leaving it open in front,
shed-fashion. But this evening the wind carried the
sparks on to the tent and burned it. So we hastily drew
up the batteau just within the edge of the woods before
the fire, and propping up one side three or four feet
high, spread the tent on the ground to lie on ; and with
the corner of a blanket, or what more or less we could
get to put over us, lay down with our heads and bodies
under the boat, and our feet and legs on the sand toward
the fire. At first we lay awake, talking of our course,
and finding ourselves in so convenient a posture for
studying the heavens, with the moon and stars shining
in our faces, our conversation naturally turned upon
astronomy, and we recounted by turns the most inter-
esting discoveries in that science. But at length we
composed ourselves seriously to sleep. It was inter-
esting, when awakened at midnight, to watch the gro-
tesque and fiend-like forms and motions of some one
of the party, who, not being able to sleep, had got up
silently to arouse the fire, and add fresh fuel, for a
change ; now stealthily lugging a dead tree from out
the dark, and heaving it on, now stirring up the embers
with his fork, or tiptoeing about to observe the stars,
watched, perchance, by half the prostrate party in
breathless silence ; so much the more intense because
they were awake, while each supposed his neighbor
sound asleep. Thus aroused, I too brought fresh fuel
40 THE MAINE WOODS.
to the fire, and then rambled along the sandy shore in
the moonlight, hoping to meet a moose, come down to
drink, or else a wolf. The little rill tinkled the louder,
and peopled all the wilderness for me ; and the glassy
smoothness of the sleeping lake, laving the shores of a
new world, with the dark, fantastic rocks rising here and
there from its surface, made a scene not easily described.
It has left such an impression of stern, yet gentle, wild-
ness on my memory as will not soon be effaced. Not
far from midnight we were one after another awakened
by rain falling on our extremities; and as each was
made aware of the fact by cold or wet, he drew a long
sigh and then drew up his legs, until gradually we had
all sidled round from lying at right angles with the boat,
till our bodies formed an acute angle with it, and were
wholly protected. When next we awoke, the moon and
stars were shining again, and there were signs of dawn
in the east, f I have been thus particular in order to con-
vey some 'idea of a night in the woods J
We had soon launched and loaded our boat, and,
leaving our fire blazing, were off again before breakfast.
The lumberers rarely trouble themselves to put out their
fires, such is the dampness of the primitive forest ; and
this is one cause, no doubt, of the frequent fires in
Maine, of which we hear so much on smoky days in
Massachusetts. The forests are held cheap after the
white pine has been culled out ; and the explorers and
hunters pray for rain only to clear. the atmosphere of
smoke. The woods were so wet to-day, however, that
there was no danger of our fire spreading. After poling
up half a mile of river, or thoroughfare, we rowed a mile
across the foot of Pamadumcook Lake, which is the
name given on the map to this whole chain of lakes, as
KTAADN. 41
if there was but one, though they are, in each instance,
distinctly separated by a reach of the river, with its nar-
row and rocky channel and its rapids. This lake, which
is one of the largest, stretched northwest ten miles, to
hills and mountains in the distance. McCauslin pointed
to some distant, and as yet inaccessible, forests of white
pine, on the sides of a mountain in that direction. The
Joe Merry Lakes, which lay between us and Moose-
head, on the west, were recently, if they are not still,
" surrounded by some of the best timbered land in the
State." By another thoroughfare we passed into Deep
Cove, a part of the same lake, which makes up two
miles, toward the northeast, and rowing two miles across
this, by another short thoroughfare, entered Ambejijis
Lake.
At the entrance to a lake we sometimes observed
what is technically called " fencing stuff," or the unhewn
timbers of which booms are formed, either secured to-
gether in the water, or laid up on the rocks and lashed
to trees, for spring use. But it was always startling to
discover so plain a trail of civilized man there. I re-
member that I was strangely affected, when we were
returning, by the sight of a ring-bolt well drilled into a
rock, and fastened with lead, at the head of this solitary
Ambejijis Lake.
It was easy to see that driving logs must be an ex-
citing as well as arduous and dangerous business. All
winter long the logger goes on piling up the trees which
he has trimmed and hauled in some dry ravine at the
head of a stream, and then in the spring he stands on
the bank and whistles for Rain and Thaw, ready toi
wring the perspiration out of his shirt to swell the tide, (
till suddenly, with a whoop and halloo from him, shut-
42 THE MAINE WOODS.
ting his eyes, as if to bid farewell to the existing state of
things, a fair proportion of his winter's work goes scram-
bling down the country, followed by his faithful dogs,
Thaw and Rain and Freshet and Wind, the whole pack
in full cry, toward the Orono Mills. Every log is
marked with the owner's name, cut in the sapwood with
an axe or bored with an auger, so deep as not to be
worn off in the driving, and yet not so as to injure the
timber ; and it requires considerable ingenuity to invent
new and simple marks where there are so many owners.
They have quite an alphabet of their own, which only
the practised can read. One of my companions read off
from his memorandum-book some marks of his own logs,
among which there were crosses, belts, crow's feet, gir-
dles, &c., as, " Y — girdle — crow-foot," and various
other devices. When the logs have run the gauntlet of
innumerable rapids and falls, each on its own account,
with more or less jamming and bruising, those bearing
various owners' marks being~mixed up together, — since
all must take advantage of the same freshet, — they are col-
lected together at the heads of the lakes, and surrounded
by a boom fence of floating logs, to prevent their being
dispersed by the wind, and are thus towed altogether,
like a flock of sheep, across the lake, where there is no
current, by a windlass, or boom-head, such as we some-
times saw standing on an island or head-land, and, if
circumstances permit, with the aid of sails and oars.
Sometimes, notwithstanding, the logs are dispersed over
many miles of lake surface in a few hours by winds and
freshets, and thrown up on distant shores, where the
driver can pick up only one or two at a time, and re-
turn with them to the thoroughfare ; and before he gets
his flock well through Ambejijis or Pamadumcook, he
KTAADN. 43
makes many a wet and uncomfortable camp on the
shore. He must be able to navigate a log as if it were
a canoe, and be as indifferent to cold and wet as a musk-
rat. He uses a few efficient tools, — a lever commonly
of rock-maple, six or seven feet long, with a stout spike
in it, strongly feruled on, and a long spike-pole, with
a screw at the end of the spike to make it hold. The
boys along shore learn to walk on floating logs as city
boys on sidewalks. Sometimes the logs are thrown up
on rocks in such positions as to be irrecoverable but
by another freshet as higji, or they jam together at
rapids and falls, and accumulate in vast piles, which the
driver must start at the risk of his life. Such is the
lumber business, which depends on many accidents, as
the early freezing of the rivers, that the teams may get
up in season, a sufficient freshet in the spring, to fetch
the logs down, and many others.* I quote MicHaux on
Lumbering on the Kennebec, then the source of the
best white-pine lumber carried to England. " The per-
sons engaged in this branch of industry are generally emi-
grants from New Hampshire In the summer they
unite in small companies, and traverse these vast soli-
tudes in every direction, to ascertain the places in which
the pines abound. After cutting the grass and converting
it into hay for the nourishment of the cattle to be em-
ployed in their labor, they return home. In the begin-
ning of the winter they enter the forests again, establish
* " A steady current or pitch of water is preferable to one either
rising or diminishing ; as, when rising rapidly, the water at the mid-
dle of the river is considerably higher than at the shores, — so much
so as to be distinctly perceived by the eye of a spectator on the
banks, presenting an appearance like a turnpike road. The lumber,
therefore, is always sure to incline from the centre of the channel
toward either shore." — Springer.
44 THE MAINE WOODS.
themselves in huts covered with the bark of the canoe-
birch, or the arbor-vitae ; and, though the cold is so
intense that the mercury sometimes remains for several
weeks from 40° to 50° [Fahr.] below the point of con-
gelation, they persevere, with unabated courage, in their
work." According to Springer, the company consists of
choppers, swampers, — who make roads, — barker and
loader, teamster, and cook. " When the trees are felled,
they cut them into logs from fourteen to eighteen feet long,
and, by means of their cattle, which they employ with
great dexterity, drag them to the river, and after stamp-
ing on them a mark of property, roll them on its frozen
bosom. At the breaking of the ice, in the spring, they
float down with the current The logs that are not
drawn the first year," adds Michaux, " are attacked by
large worms, which form holes about two lines in diam-
eter, in every direction ; but, if stripped of their bark,
they will remain uninjured for thirty years."
Ambejijis, this quiet Sunday morning, struck me as
the most beautiful lake we had seen. It is said to be
one of the deepest. We had the fairest view of Joe
Merry, Double Top, and Ktaadn, from its surface. The
summit of the latter had a singularly flat, table-land ap-
pearance, like a short highway, where a demigod might
be let down to take a turn or two in an afternoon, to
settle his dinner. We rowed a mile and a half to near
the head of the lake, and, pushing through a field of lily-
pads, landed, to cook our breakfast, by the side of a large
rock, known to McCauslin. Our breakfast consisted of
tea, with hard bread and pork, and fried salmon, which
we ate with forks neatly whittled from alder-twigs, which
grew there, off strips of birch-bark for plates. The tea
was black tea, without milk to color or sugar to sweeten
KTAADN. 45
it, and two tin dippers were our tea-cups. This bever-
age is as indispensable to the loggers as to any gossiping
old women in the land, and they, no doubt, derive great
comfort from it. Here was the site of an old logger's
camp, remembered by McCauslin, now overgrown with
weeds and bushes. In the midst of a dense underwood
we noticed a whole brick, on a rock, in a small run,
clean and red and square as in a brick-yard, which had
been brought thus far formerly for tamping. Some of
us afterward regretted that we had not carried this on
with us to the top of the mountain, to be left there for our
mark. It would certainly have been a simple evidence of
civilized man. McCauslin said, that large wooden crosses,
made of oak, still sound, were sometimes found standing
in this wilderness, which were set up by the first Catholic
missionaries who came through to the Kennebec.
In the next nine miles, which were the extent of our
voyage, and which it took us the rest of the day to get
over, we rowed across several small lakes, poled up nu-
merous rapids and thoroughfares, and carried over four
portages. I will give the names and distances, for the
benefit of future tourists. First, after leaving Ambejijis
Lake, we had a quarter of a mile of rapids to the port-
age, or carry of ninety rods around Ambejijis Falls ;
then a mile and a half through Passamagamet Lake,
which is narrow and river-like, to the falls of the same
name, — Ambejijis stream coming in on the right ; then
two miles through Katepskonegan Lake to the portage
of ninety rods around Katepskonegan Falls, which name
signifies " carrying-place," — Passamagamet stream com-
ing in on the left ; then three miles through Pockwocko-
mus Lake, a slight expansion of the river, to the port-
age of forty rods around the falls of the same name, —
46 THE MAINE WOODS.
Katepskonegan stream coming in on the left ; then three
quarters of a mile through Aboljacarmegus Lake, simi-
lar to the last, to the portage of forty rods around the
falls of the same name ; then half a mile of rapid water
to the Sowadnehunk dead-water, and the Aboljacknagesic
stream.
This is generally the order of names as you ascend the
river: First, the lake, or, if there is no expansion, the
dead-water; then the falls; then the stream emptying
into the lake, or river above, all of the same name. First
we came to Passamagamet Lake, then to Passamagamet
Falls, then to Passamagamet stream, emptying in. This
order and identity of names, it will be perceived, is quite
philosophical, since the dead-water or lake is always at
least partially produced by the stream emptying in above ;
and the first fall below, which is the outlet of that lake,
and where that tributary water makes its first plunge,
also naturally bears the same name.
At the portage around Ambejijis Falls I observed a
pork-barrel on the shore, with a hole eight or nine inches
square cut in one side, which was set against an upright
rock; but the bears, without turning or upsetting the
barrel, had gnawed a hole in the opposite side, which
looked exactly like an enormous rat hole, big enough to
put their heads in; and at the bottom of the barrel were
still left a few mangled and slabbered slices of pork. It
is usual for the lumberers to leave such supplies as they
cannot conveniently carry along with them at carries or
camps, to which the next comers do not scruple to help
themselves, they being the property, commonly, not of
an individual, but a company, who can afford to deal
liberally.
I will describe particularly how we got over some of
KTAADN. 47
these portages and rapids, in order that the reader may
get an idea of the boatman's life. At Ambejijis Falls,
for instance, there was the roughest path imaginable cut
through the woods ; at first up hill, at an angle of nearly
forty-five degrees, over rocks and logs without end. This
was the manner of the portage. We first carried over
our baggage, and deposited it on the shore at the other
end; then returning to the batteau, we dragged it up the
hill by the painter, and onward, with frequent pauses,
over half the portage. But this was a bungling way,
and would soon have worn out the boat. Commonly,
three men walk over with a batteau weighing from three
to five or six hundred pounds on their heads and shoul-
ders, the tallest standing under the middle of the boat,
which is turned over, and one at each end, or else there
are two at the bows. More cannot well take hold at
once. But this requires some practice, as well as strength,
and is in any case extremely laborious, and wearing to
the constitution, to follow. We were, on the whole,
rather an invalid party, and could render our boatmen
but little assistance. Our two men at length took the
batteau upon their shoulders, and, while two of us steadied
it, to prevent it from rocking and wearing into their
shoulders, on which they placed their hats folded, walked
bravely over the remaining distance, with two or three
pauses. In the same manner they accomplished the
other portages. With this crushing weight they must
climb and stumble along over fallen trees and slippery
rocks of all sizes, where those who walked by the sides
were continually brushed off, such was the narrowness
of the path. But we were fortunate not to have to cut
our path in the first place. Before we launched our
boat, we scraped the bottom smooth again, with our
48 THE MAINE WOODS.
knives, where it had rubbed on the rocks, to save fric-
tion.
To avoid the difficulties of the portage, our men deter-
mined to " warp up " the Passamagamet Falls ; so while
the rest walked over the portage with the baggage, I re-
mained in the batteau, to assist in warping up. We
were soon in the midst of the rapids, which were more
swift and tumultuous than any we had poled up, and had
turned to the side of the stream for the purpose of warp-
ing, when the boatmen, who felt some pride in their skill,
and were ambitious to do something more than usual, for
my benefit, as I surmised, took one more view of the
rapids, or rather the- falls ; and, in answer to our ques-
tion, whether we couldn't get up there, the other an-
swered that he guessed he 'd try it. So we pushed again
into the midst of the stream, and began to struggle with
the current. I' sat in the middle of the boat to trim it,
moving slightly to the right or left as it grazed a rock.
With an uncertain and wavering motion we wound and
bolted our way up, until the bow was actually raised two
feet above the stern at the steepest pitch ; and then, when
everything depended upon his exertions, the bowman's
pole snapped in two ; but before he had time to take the
spare one, which I reached him, he had saved himself
with the fragment upon a rock ; and so we got up by a
hair's breadth ; and Uncle George exclaimed that that
was never done before, and he had not tried it if he had
not known whom he had got in the bow, nor he in the
bow, if he had not known him in the stern. At this
place there was a regular portage cut through the woods,
and our boatmen had never known a batteau to ascend
the falls. As near as I can remember, there was a per-
pendicular fall here, at the worst place of the whole
KTAADN. 49
Penobscot River, two or three feet at least. I could not
sufficiently admire the skill and coolness with which they
performed this feat, never speaking to each other. The
bowman, not looking behind, but knowing exactly what
the other is about, works as if he worked alone. Now
sounding in vain for a bottom in fifteen feet of water,
while the boat falls back several rods, held straight only
with the greatest skill and exertion ; or, while the stern-
man obstinately holds his ground, like a turtle, the bow-
man springs from side to side with wonderful suppleness
and dexterity, scanning the rapids and the rocks with a
thousand eyes ; and now, having got a bite at last, with
a lusty shove, which makes his pole bend and quiver, and
the whole boat tremble, he gains a few feet upon the
river. To add to the danger, the poles are liable at any
time to be caught between the rocks, and wrenched out
of their hands, leaving them at the mercy of the rapids,
— the rocks, as it were, lying in wait, like so many alli-
gators, to catch them in their teeth, and jerk them from
your hands, before you have stolen an effectual shove
against their palates. The pole is set close to the boat,
and the prow is made to overshoot^ and just turn the
corners of the rocks, in the very teeth of the rapids.
Nothing but the length and lightness, and the slight
draught of the batteau, enables them to make any head-
way. The bowman must quickly choose his course;
there is no time to deliberate. Frequently the boat is
shoved between rocks where both sides touch, and the
waters on either hand are a perfect maelstrom.
Half a mile above this, two of us tried our hands at
poling up a slight rapid ; and we were just surmounting
the last difficulty when an unlucky rock confounded our
calculations ; and while the batteau was sweeping round
3 D
50 THE MAINE WOODS.
irrecoverably amid the whirlpool, we were obliged to
resign the poles to more skilful hands.
Katepskonegan is one of the shallowest and weediest
of the lakes, and looked as if it might abound in pick-
erel. The falls of the same name, where we stopped to
dine, are considerable and quite picturesque. Here Un-
cle George had seen trout caught by the barrelful; but
they would not rise to our bait at this hour. Half-way
over this carry, thus far in the Maine wilderness on its
way. to the Provinces, we noticed a large, flaming, Oak
Hall hand-bill, about two feet long, wrapped round the
trunk of a pine, from which the bark had been stript,
and to which it was fast glued by the pitch. This should
be recorded among the advantages of this mode of ad-
vertising, that so, possibly, even the bears and wolves,
moose, deer, otter, and beaver, not to mention the Indian,
may learn where they can fit themselves according to the
latest fashion, or, at least, recover some of their own lost
garments. We christened this, the Oak Hall carry.
The forenoon was as serene and placid on this wild
stream in the woods, as we are apt to imagine that Sun-
day in summer usually is in Massachusetts. We were
occasionally startled by the scream of a bald-eagle, sail-
ing over the stream in front of our batteau ; or of the
fish-hawks, on whom he levies his contributions. There
were, at intervals, small meadows of a few acres on the
sides of the stream, waving with uncut grass, which at-
tracted the attention of our boatmen, who regretted that
they were not nearer to their clearings, and calculated
how many stacks they might cut. Two or three men
sometimes spend the summer by themselves, cutting the
grass in these meadows, to sell to the loggers in the win-
ter, since it will fetch a higher price on the spot than in
KTAADN. 51
any market in the State. On a small isle, covered with
this kind of rush, or cut grass, on which we landed, to con-
sult about our further course, we noticed the recent track
of a moose, a large, roundish hole, in the soft wet ground,
evincing the great size and weight of the animal that
made it. They are fond of the water, and visit all these
island-meadows, swimming as easily from island to island
as they make their way through the thickets on land.
Now and then we passed what McCauslin called a poke-
logan, an Indian term for what the drivers might have
reason to call a poke-logs-in, an inlet that leads nowhere.
If you get in, you have got to get out again the same
way. These, and the frequent " run-rounds " which come
into the river again, would embarrass an inexperienced
voyager not a little.
The carry around Pockwockomus Falls was exceed-
ingly rough and rocky, the batteau having to be lifted
directly from the water up four or five feet on to a rock,
and launched again down a similar bank. The rocks on
this portage were covered with the dents made by the
spikes in the lumberers' boots while staggering over
under the weight of their batteaux ; and you could see
where the surface of some large rocks on which they
had rested their batteaux was worn quite smooth with
use. As it was, we had carried over but half the usual
portage at this place for this stage of the water, and
launched our boat in the smooth wave just curving to
the fall, prepared to struggle with the most violent rapid
we had to encounter. The rest of the party walked over
the remainder of the portage, while I remained with the
boatmen to assist in warping up. One had to hold the
boat while the others got in to prevent it from going
over the falls. When we had pushed up the rapids as
52 THE MAINE WOODS.
far as possible, keeping close to the shore, Tom seized
the painter and leaped out upon a rock just visible in
the water, but he lost his footing, notwithstanding his
spiked boots, and was instantly amid the rapids ; but
recovering himself by good luck, and reaching another
rock, he passed the painter to me, who had followed
him, and took his place again in the bows. Leaping
from rock to rock in the shoal water, close to the shore,
and now and then getting a bite with the rope round an
upright one, I held the boat while one reset his pole,
and then all three forced it upward against any rapid.
This was "warping up." When a part of us walked
round at such a place, we generally took the precaution
to take out the most valuable part of the baggage, for
fear of being swamped.
As we poled up a swift rapid for half a mile above
Aboljacarmegus Falls, some of the party read their own
marks on the huge logs which lay piled up high and dry
on the rocks on either hand, the relics probably of a jam
which hadv taken place here in the Great Freshet in the
spring. Many of these would have to wait for another
great freshet, perchance, if they lasted so long, before
they could be got off. It was singular enough to meet
with property of theirs which they had never seen, and
where they had never been before, thus detained by
freshets and rocks when on its way to them. Metliinks
that must be where all my property lies, cast up on the
rocks on some distant and unexplored stream, and wait-
ing for an unheard-of freshet to fetch it down. O make
haste, ye gods, with your winds and rains, and start the
jam before it rots !
The last half-mile carried us to the Sowadnehunk
dead-water, so called from the stream of the same name,
KTAADN. 53
•
signifying "running between mountains," an important
tributary which comes in a mile above. Here we de-
cided to camp, about twenty miles from the Dam, at the
mouth of Murch Brook and the Aboljacknagesic, moun-
tain streams, broad off from Ktaadn, and about a dozen
miles from its summit ; having made fifteen miles this
day.
We had been told by McCauslin that we should here
find trout enough : so, while some prepared the camp,
the rest fell to fishing. Seizing the birch-poles which
some party of Indians, or white hunters, had left on the
shore, and baiting our hooks with pork, and with trout,
as soon as they were caught, we cast our lines into the
mouth of the Aboljacknagesic, a clear, swift, shallow
stream, which came in from Ktaadn. Instantly a shoal
of white chivin (Leucisci pulchelli), silvery roaches,
cousin-trout, or what not, large and small, prowling
thereabouts, fell upon our bait, and one after another
were landed amidst the bushes. Anon their cousins,
the true trout, took their turn, and alternately the
speckled trout, and the silvery roaches, swallowed the
bait as fast as we could throw in ; and the finest speci-
mens of both that I have ever seen, the largest one
weighing three pounds, were heaved upon the shore,
though at first in vain, to wriggle down into the water
again, for we stood in the boat ; but soon we learned to
remedy this evil : for one, who had lost his hook, stood
on shore to catch them as they fell in a perfect shower
around him, — sometimes, wet and slippery, full in his
face and bosom, as his arms were outstretched to receive
them. While yet alive, before their tints had faded,
they glistened like the fairest flowers, the product of
primitive rivers ; and he could hardly trust his senses,
54 THE MAINE WOODS.
•
as he stood over them, that these jewels should have
swam away in that Aboljacknagesic water for so long,
so many dark ages ; — these bright fluviatile flowers,
seen of Indians only, made beautiful, the Lord only
knows why, to swim there ! I could understand better,
for this, the truth of mythology, the fables of Proteus,
and all those beautiful sea-monsters, — how all history,
indeed, put to a terrestrial use, is mere history; but
put to a celestial, is mythology always.
But there is the rough voice of Uncle George, who
commands at the frying-pan, to send over what you 've
got, and then you may stay till morning. The pork
sizzles, and cries for fish. Luckily for the foolish race,
and this particularly foolish generation of trout, the
night shut down at last, not a little deepened by the
dark side of Ktaadn, which, like a permanent shadow,
reared itself from the eastern bank. Lescarbot, writing
in 1609, tells us that the Sieur Champdore, who, with
one of the people of the Sieur de Monts, ascended some
fifty leagues up the St. John in 1608, found the fish so
plenty, " qu'en mettant la chaudiere sur le feu ils en avoi-
ent pris suffisamment pour eux disner avant que 1'eau fust
chaude." Their descendants here are no less numerous.
So we accompanied Tom into the woods to cut cedar-
twigs for our bed. While he went ahead with the axe,
and lopt off the smallest twigs of the flat-leaved cedar,
the arbor-vitae of the gardens, we gathered them up,
and returned with them to the boat, until it was loaded.
Our bed was made with as much care and skill as a
roof is shingled ; beginning at the foot, and laying the
twig end of the cedar upward, we advanced to the
head, a course at a time, thus successively covering the
stub-ends, and producing a soft and level bed. For us
KTAADN. 55
six it was about ten feet long by six in breadth. This
time we lay under our tent, having pitched it more pru-
dently with reference to the wind and the flame, and the
• usual huge fire blazed in front. Supper was eaten off
a large log, which some freshet had thrown up. This
night we had a dish of arbor-vitas, or cedar-tea, which the
lumberer sometimes uses when other herbs fail, —
" A quart of arbor-vitae,
To make him strong and mighty,"
but I had no wish to repeat the experiment. It had
too medicinal a taste for my palate. There was the
skeleton of a moose here, whose bones some Indian
j hunters had picked on this very spot.
In the night I dreamed of trout-fishing ; and, when at
length I awoke, it seemed a fable that this painted fish
swam there so near my couch, and rose to our hooks the
last evening, and I doubted if I had not dreamed it all.
So I arose before dawn to test its truth, while my com-
panions were still sleeping. There stood Ktaadn with
distinct and cloudless outline in the moonlight ; and the
rippling of the rapids was the only sound to break the
stillness. Standing on the shore, I once more cast my
line into the stream, and found the dream to be real and
the fable true. The speckled trout and silvery roach,
like flying-fish, sped swiftly through the moonlight air,
describing bright arcs on the dark side of Ktaadn, until
moonlight, now fading into daylight, brought satiety to
my mind, and the minds of my companions, who had
joined me.
By six o'clock, having mounted our packs and a good
blanketful of trout, ready dressed, and swung up such
baggage and provision as we wished to leave behind, upon
the tops of saplings, to be out of the reach of bears, we
56 THE MAINE WOODS.
started for the summit of the mountain, distant, as Uncle
George said the boatmen called it, about four miles, but
as I judged, and as it proved, nearer fourteen. He had
never been any nearer the mountain than this, and there
was not the slightest trace of man to guide us farther in
this direction. At first, pushing a few rods up the Abol-
jacknagesic, or "open-land stream," we fastened our
batteau to a tree, and travelled up the north side, through
burnt lands, now partially overgrown with young aspens,
and other shrubbery ; but soon, recrossing this stream,
where it was about fifty or sixty feet wide, upon a jam
of logs and rocks, — and you could cross it by this means
almost anywhere, — we struck at once for the highest
peak, over a mile or more of comparatively open land, still
very gradually ascending the while. Here it fell to my
lot, as the oldest mountain-climber, to take the lead. So,
scanning the woody side of the mountain, which lay still
at an indefinite distance, stretched out some seven or
eight miles in length before us, we determined to steer
directly for the base of the highest peak, leaving a large
slide, by which, as I have since learned, some of our
predecessors ascended, on our left. This course would
lead us parallel to a dark seam in the forest, which
marked the bed of a torrent, and over a slight spur,
which extended southward from the main mountain, from
whose bare summit we could get an outlook over the
country, and climb directly up the peak, which would
then be close at hand. Seen from this point, a bare
ridge at the extremity of the open land, Ktaadn present-
ed a different aspect from any mountain I have seen,
there being a greater proportion of naked rock rising
abruptly from the forest ; and we looked up at this blue
barrier as if it were some fragment of a wall which
KTAADN. 57
anciently bounded the earth in that direction. Setting
the compass for a northeast course, which was the bear-
ing of the southern base of the highest peak, we were
soon buried in the woods.
We soon began to meet with traces of bears and
moose, and those of rabbits were everywhere visible.
The tracks of moose, more or less recent, to speak liter-
ally, covered every square rod on the sides of the moun-
tain ; and these animals are probably more numerous
there now than ever before, being driven into this wilder-
ness, from all sides, by the settlements. The track of a
full-grown moose is like that of a cow, or larger, and of
the young, like that of a calf. Sometimes we found our-
selves travelling in faint paths, which they had made,
like cow-paths in the woods, only far more indistinct,
being rather openings, affording imperfect vistas through
the dense underwood, than trodden paths; and every-
where the twigs had been browsed by them, dipt as
smoothly as if by a knife. The bark of trees was stript
up by them to the height of eight or nine feet, in long,
narrow strips, an inch wide, still showing the distinct
marks of their teeth. We expected nothing less than to
meet a herd of them every moment, and our Nimrod
held his shooting-iron in readiness ; but we did not go
out of our way to look for them, and, though numerous,
they are so wary that the unskilful hunter might range
the forest a long time before he could get sight of one.
They are sometimes dangerous to encounter, and will
not turn out for the hunter, but furiously rush upon him
and trample him to death, unless he is lucky enough to
avoid them by dodging round a tree. The largest are
nearly as large as a horse, and weigh sometimes one thou-
sand pounds ; and it is said that they can step over a five-
3*
58 THE MAINE WOODS.
feet gate in their ordinary walk. They are described as
exceedingly awkward-looking animals, with their long legs
and short bodies, making a ludicrous figure when in full
run, but making great headway nevertheless. It seemed
a mystery to us how they could thread these woods,
which it required all eur suppleness to accomplish, —
climbing, stooping, and winding, alternately. They are
said to drop their long and branching horns, which
usually spread five or six feet, on their backs, and make
their way easily by the weight of their bodies. Our
boatmen said, but I know not with how much truth, that
their horns are apt to be gnawed away by vermin while
they sleep. Their flesh,, which is more like beef than
venison, is common in Bangor market.
We had proceeded on thus seven or eight miles, till
about noon, with frequent pauses to refresh the weary
ones, crossing a considerable mountain stream, which we
conjectured to be Murch Brook, at whose mouth we had
camped, all the time in woods, without having once seen
the summit, and rising very gradually, when the boat-
men, beginning to despair a little, and fearing that we
were leaving the mountain on one side of us, for they
had not entire faith in the compass, McCauslin climbed a
tree, from the top of which he could see the peak, when
it appeared that we had not swerved from a right line,
the compass down below still ranging with his arm, which
pointed to the summit. By the side of a cool mountain
rill, amid the woods, where the water began to partake
of the purity and transparency of the air, we stopped to
cook some of our fishes, which we had brought thus far
in order to save our hard bread and pork, in the use of
which we had put ourselves on short allowance. "We
soon had a fire blazing, and stood around it, under the
KTAADN. 59
damp and sombre forest of firs and birches, each with a
sharpened stick, three or four feet in length, upon which
he had spitted his trout, or roach, previously well gashed
and salted, our sticks radiating like the spokes of a wheel
from one centre, and each crowding his particular fish
into the most desirable exposure, not with the truest re-
gard always to his neighbor's rights. Thus we regaled
ourselves, drinking meanwhile at the spring, till one
man's pack, at least, was considerably lightened, when
we again took up our line of march.
At length we reached an elevation sufficiently bare to
afford a view of the summit, still distant and blue, almost
as if retreating from us. A torrent, which proved to be
the same we had crossed, was seen_ tumbling down in
front, literally from out of ilia-slpuds. But this glimpse
at our whereabouts was soon lost, and we were buried in
the woods again. The wood was chiefly yellow birch,
spruce, fir, mountain-ash, or round-wood, as the Maine
people call it, and moose-wood. It was the worst kind
of travelling ; sometimes like the densest scrub-oak
patches with us. The cornel, or bunch-berries, were
very abundant, as well as Solomon's seal and moose-
berries. Blueberries were distributed along our whole
route ; and in one place the bushes were drooping with
the weight of the fruit, still as fresh as ever. It was
the 7th of September. Such patches afforded a grate-
ful repast, and served to bait the tired party forward.
When any lagged behind, the cry of " blueberries " was
most effectual to bring them up. Even at this elevation
we passed through a moose-yard, formed by a large flat
rock, four or five rods square, where they tread down
the snow in winter. At length, fearing that if we held
the direct course to the summit, we should not fiud any
60 THE MAINE WOODS.
water near our camping-ground,. we gradually swerved
to the west, till, at four o'clock, we struck again the tor-
rent which I have mentioned, and here, in view of the
summit, the weary party decided to camp that night.
While my companions were seeking a suitable spot
for this purpose, I improved the little daylight that was
left, in climbing the mountain alone. We were in a deep
and narrow ravine, sloping up to the clouds, at an angle
of nearly forty-five degrees, and hemmed in by walls of
rock, which were at first covered with low trees, then
with impenetrable thickets of scraggy birches and spruce-
trees, and with moss, but at last bare of all vegetation
but lichens, and almost continually draped in clouds.
Following up the course of the torrent which occupied
this, — and I mean to lay some emphasis on this word
up, — pulling myself up by the side of perpendicular
falls of twenty or thirty feet, by the roots of firs and
birches, and then, perhaps, walking a level rod or two in
the thin stream, for it took up the whole road, ascerrding
by huge steps, as it were, a giant's stairway, down which
a river flowed, I had soon cleared the trees, and paused
on the successive shelves, to look back over the country.
The torrent was from fifteen to thirty feet wide, without
a tributary, and seemingly not diminishing in breadth as
I advanced ; but still it came rushing and roaring down,
with a copious tide, over and amidst masses of bare rock,
from the very clouds, as though a waterspout had just
burst over the mountain. Leaving this at last, I began
to work my way, scarcely less arduous than Satan's an-
ciently through Chaos, up the nearest, though not the
highest peak. At first scrambling on all fours over the
tops of ancient black spruce-trees (Abies nigra), old as
the flood, from two to ten or twelve feet in height, their
KTAADN. 61
tops flat and spreading, and their foliage blue, and nipt
with cold, as if for centuries they had ceased growing
upward against the bleak sky, the solid cold. I walked
some good rods erect upon the tops of these trees, which
were overgrown with moss and mountain-cranberries.
It seemed that in the course of time they had filled up
the intervals between the huge rocks, and the cold wind
had uniformly levelled all over. Here the principle of
vegetation was hard put to it. There was apparently
a belt of this kind running quite round the mountain,
though, perhaps, nowhere so remarkable as here. Once,
slumping through, I looked down ten feet, into a dark
and cavernous region, and saw the stem of a spruce, on
whose top I stood, as on a mass of coarse basket-work,
fully nine inches in diameter, at the ground. These
holes were bears' dens, and the bears were even then
at home. This was the sort of garden I made my way
over, for an eighth of a mile, at the risk, it is true, of
treading on some of the plants, not seeing any path
through it, — certainly the most treacherous and porous
country I ever travelled.
" Nigh foundered on he fares,
Treading the crude consistence, half on foot,
Half flying."
But nothing could exceed the toughness of the twigs, —
not one snapped under my weight, for they had slowly
grown. Having slumped, scrambled, rolled, bounced,
and walked, by turns, over this scraggy country, I ar>»
rived upon a side-hill, or rather side-mountain, where
rocks, gray, silent rocks, were the flocks and herds that
pastured, chewing a rocky cud at sunset. They looked
at me with hard gray eyes, without a bleat or a low.
This brought me to the skirt of a cloud, and bounded
62 THE MAINE WOODS.
my walk that night. But I had already seen that Maine
country when I turned about, waving, flowing, rippling,
down below.
When I returned to my companions, they had select-
ed a camping-ground on the torrent's edge, and were
resting on the ground ; one was on the sick list, rolled
in a blanket, on a damp shelf of rock. It was a savage
and dreary scenery enough ; so wildly rough, that they
looked long to find a level and open space for the tent.
We could not well camp higher, for want of fuel ; and
the trees here seemed so evergreen and sappy, that we
almost doubted if they would acknowledge the influence
of fire ; but fire prevailed at last, and blazed here, too,
like a good citizen of the world. Even at this height
we met with frequent traces of moose, as well as of
bears. As here was no cedar, we made our bed of
coarser feathered spruce ; but at any rate the feathers
were plucked from the live tree. It was, perhaps, even
a more grand and desolate place for a night's lodging
than the summit would have been, being in the neigh-
borhood of those wild trees, and of the torrent. Some
more aerial and finer-spirited winds rushed and roared
through the ravine all night, from time to time arousing
our fire, and dispersing the embers about. It was as if
we lay in the very nest of a young whirlwind. At mid-
night, one of my bedfellows, being startled in his dreams
by the sudden blazing up to its top of a fir-tree, whose
green boughs were dried by the heat, sprang up, with a
cry, from his bed, thinking the world on fire, and drew
the whole camp after him.
In the morning, after whetting our appetite on some
raw pork, a wafer of hard bread, and a dipper of con-
densed cloud or waterspout, we all together began to
KTAADN. 63
make our way up the falls, which I have described ; this
time choosing the right hand, or highest peak, which was
not the one I had approached before. But soon my
companions were lost to my sight behind the mountain
ridge in my rear, which still seemed ever retreating be-
fore me, and I climbed alone over huge rocks, loosely
poised, a mile or more, still edging toward the clouds ;
for though the day was clear elsewhere, the summit was
concealed by mist. The mountain seemed a vast aggre-
gation of loose rocks, as. if some time it had rained rocks,
and they lay as they fell on the mountain sides, nowhere
fairly at rest, but leaning on each other, all rocking-
stones, with cavities between, but scarcely any soil or
smoother shelf. They were the raw materials of a
planet dropped from an unseen quarry, which the vast
chemistry of nature would anon work up, or work down,
into the smiling and verdant plains and valleys of earth.
This was an undone extremity of the globe ; as in lignite,
we see coal in the process of formation.
At length I entered within the skirts of the cloud
which seemed forever drifting over the summit, and yet
would never be gone, but was generated out of that
pure air as fast as it flowed away ; and when, a quarter
of a mile farther, I reached the summit of the ridge,
which those who have seen in clearer weather say is
about five miles long, and contains a thousand acres of
table-land, I was deep within the hostile ranks of clouds,
and all objects were obscured by them. Now the wind
would blow me out a yard of clear sunlight, wherein I
stood ; then a gray, dawning light was all it could ac-
complish, the cloud-line ever rising and falling with the
wind's intensity. Sometimes it seemed as if the summit
would be cleared in a few moments, and smile in sun-
64 THE MAINE WOODS.
shine : but what was gained on one side was lost on
another. It was like sitting in a chimney and waiting
for the smoke to blow away./ It was, in fact, a cloud-
factory, — these were the cloud-works, and the wind
turned them off done from the cool, bare rocks. Occa-
sionally, when the windy columns broke in to me, I
caught sight of a dark, damp crag to the right or left ;
the mist driving ceaselessly between it and me. It re-
minded me of the creations of the old epic and dramatic
poets, of Atlas, Vulcan, the Cyclops, and Prometheus.
Such was Caucasus and the rock where Prometheus was
bound. -ZEschylus had no doubt visited such scenery as
this. It was vast, Titanic, and such as man never in-
habits. Some part of the beholder, even some vital
part, seems to escape through the loose grating of his
ribs as he ascends. He is more lone than you can
imagine. There is less of substantial thought and fair
understanding in him, than in the plains where men
inhabit. His reason is dispersed and shadowy, more
thin and subtile, like the air. Vast, Titanic, inhuman
Nature has got him at disadvantage, caught him alone,
and pilfers him of some of his divine faculty. She
does not smile on him as in the plains. She seems to
say sternly, why came ye here before your time ? This
ground is not prepared for you. Is it not enough that I
smile in the valleys ? I have never made this soil for
thy feet, this air for thy breathing, these rocks for thy •
neighbors. I cannot pity nor fondle thee here, but for-
ever relentlessly drive thee hence to where I am kind.
Why seek me where I have not called thee, and then
complain because you find me but a stepmother ?
Shouldst thou freeze or starve, or shudder thy life
away, here is no shrine, nor altar, nor any access to
my ear.
KTAADN. f>5
" Chaos and ancient Night, I come no spy
With purpose to explore or to disturb
The secrets of your realm, but . . .
as my way
Lies through your spacious empire up to light."
The tops of mountains are among the unfinished parts
of the globe, whither it is a slight insult to the gods to
climb and pry into their secrets, and try their effect on
our humanity. Only daring and insolent men, per-
chance, go there. Simple races, as savages, do not
climb mountains, — their tops are sacred and mysterious
tracts never visited by them. Pomola is always angry
.with those who climb to the summit of Ktaadn.
According to Jackson, who, in his capacity of geologi-
cal surveyor of the State, has accurately measured it, —
the altitude of Ktaadn is 5,300 feet, or a little more
than one mile above the level of the sea, — and he adds,
" It is then evidently the highest point in the State of
Maine, and is the most abrupt granite mountain in New
England." The peculiarities of that spacious table-land
on which I was standing, as well as the remarkable
semi-circular precipice or basin on the eastern side,
were all concealed by the mist. I had brought my
whole pack to the top, not knowing but I should have
to make my descent to the river, and possibly to the
settled portion of the State alone, and by some other
route, and wishing to have a complete outfit with me.
But at length, fearing that my companions would be
anxious to reach the river before night, and knowing
that the clouds might rest on the mountain for days, I
was compelled to descend. Occasionally, as I came
down, the wind would blow me a vista open, through
which I could see the country eastward, boundless for-
66 THE MAINE WOODS.
ests, and lakes, and streams, gleaming in the sun, some
of them emptying into the East Branch. There were
also new mountains in sight in that direction. Now and
then some small bird of the sparrow family would flit
away before me, unable to command its course, like a
fragment of the gray rock blown off by the wind.
I found my companions where I had left them, on the
side of the peak, gathering the mountain cranberries,
which filled every crevice between the rocks, together
with blueberries, which had a spicier flavor the higher
up they grew, but were not the less agreeable to .our
palates. When the country is settled, and roads are
made, these cranberries will perhaps become an article
of commerce. From this elevation, just on the skirts of
the clouds, we could overlook the country, west and
south, for a hundred miles. There it was, the State of
Maine, which we had seen on the map, but not much
like that, — immeasurable forest for the sun to shine on,
that eastern stuff we hear of in Massachusetts. No
clearing, no house. It did not look as if a solitary trav-
eller had cut so much as a walking-stick there. Count-
less lakes, — Moosehead in the southwest, forty miles
long by ten wide, like a gleaming silver platter at the
end of the table ; Chesuncook, eighteen long by three
wide, without an island ; Millinocket, on the south, with
its hundred islands ; and a hundred others without a
name ; and mountains also, whose names, for the most
part, are known only to the Indians. The forest looked
like a firm grass sward, and the effect of these lakes in
its midst has been well compared, by one who has since
visited this same spot, to that of a " mirjror_^okenjnlo a
thousand-raiments, and wildly scattered over the grass,
^ the sun." It was a large
KTAADN. 67
farm for somebody, when cleared. According to the
Gazetteer, which was printed before the boundary ques-
tion was settled, this single Penobscot county, in which
we were, was larger than the whole State of Vermont,
with its fourteen counties ; and this was only a part of
the wild lands of Maine. We are concerned now, how-
ever, about natural, not political limits. We were about
eighty miles, as the bird flies, from Bangor, or one hun-
dred and fifteen, as we had rode, and walked, and pad-
dled. We had to console ourselves with the reflection
that this view was probably as good as that from the
peak, as far as it went ; and what were a mountain with-
out its attendant clouds and mists ? Like ourselves,
neither Bailey nor Jackson had obtained a clear view
from the summit.
Setting out on our return to the river, still at an early
hour in the day, we decided to follow the course of the
torrent, which we supposed to be Murch Brook, as long
as it would not lead us too far out of our way. We thus
travelled about four miles in the very torrent itself, con-
tinually crossing and recrossing it, leaping from rock to
rock, and jumping with the stream down falls of seven
or eight feet, or sometimes sliding down on our backs in
a thin sheet of water. This ravine had been the scene
of an extraordinary freshet in the spring, apparently ac-
companied by a slide from the mountain. It must have
been filled with a stream of stones and water, at least
twenty feet above the present level of the torrent. For
a rod or two, on either side of its channel, the trees were
barked and splintered up to their tops, the birches bent
over, twisted, and sometimes finely split, like a stable-
broom ; some, a foot in diameter, snapped off, and whole
clumps of trees bent over with the weight of rocks piled
68 THE MAINE WOODS.
on them. In one place we noticed a rock, two or three
feet in diameter, lodged nearly twenty feet high in the
crotch of a tree. For the whole four miles, we saw but
one rill emptying in, and the volume of water did not
seem to be increased from the first. We travelled thus
very rapidly with a downward impetus, and grew re-
markably expert at leaping from rock to rock, for leap
we must, and leap we did, whether there was any rock
at the right distance or not. It was a pleasant picture
when the foremost turned about and looked up the wind-
ing ravine, walled in with rocks and the green forest, to
see, at intervals of a rod or two, a red-shirted or green-
jacketed mountaineer against the white torrent, leaping
down the channel with his pack on his back, or pausing
upon a convenient rock in the midst of the torrent to
mend a rent in his clothes, or unstrap the dipper at his
belt to take a draught of the water. At one place we
were startled by seeing, on a little sandy shelf by the
side of the stream, the fresh print of a man's foot, and
for a moment realized how Robinson Crusoe felt in a
similar case ; but at last we remembered that we had
struck this stream on our way up, though we could not
have told where, and one had descended into the ravine
for a drink. The cool air above, and the continual
bathing of -our bodies in mountain water, alternate foot,
sitz, douche, and plunge baths, made this walk exceed-
ingly refreshing, and we had travelled' only a mile or
two, after leaving the torrent, before every thread of our
clothes was as dry as usual, owing perhaps to a peculiar
quality in the atmosphere.
After leaving the torrent, being in doubt about our
course, Tom threw down his pack at the foot of the lof-
tiest spruce tree at hand, and shinned up the bare trunk,
KTAADN. 69
some twenty feet, and then climbed through the green
tower, lost to our sight, until he held the topmost spray
in his hand.* McCauslin, in his younger days, had
marched through the wilderness with a body of troops,
under General Somebody, and with one other man did all
the scouting and spying service. The General's word
was, " Throw down the top of that tree," and there was no
tree in the Maine woods so high that it did not lose its
top in such a case. I have heard a story of two men
being lost once in these woods, nearer to the settlements
than this, who climbed the loftiest pine they could find,
some six feet in diameter at the ground, from whose
top they discovered a solitary clearing and its smoke.
When at this height, some two hundred feet from the
ground, one of them became dizzy, and fainted in his
companion's arms, and the latter had to accomplish the
descent with him, alternately fainting and reviving, as
best he could. To Tom we cried, Where away does the
summit bear ? where the burnt lands ? The last he
could only conjecture ; he descried, however, a little
meadow and pond, lying probably in our course, which
we concluded to steer for. On reaching this secluded
meadow, we found fresh tracks of moose on the shore of
the pond, and the water was still unsettled as if they had
fled before us. A little farther, in a dense thicket, we
* " The spruce-tree," says Springer in '51, " is generally selected,
principally for the superior facilities which its numerous limbs af-
ford the climber. To gain the first limbs of this tree, which are from
twenty to forty feet from the ground, a smaller tree is undercut and
lodged against it, clambering up which the top of the spruce is
reached. In some cases, when a very elevated position is desired,
the spruce-tree is lodged against the trunk of some lofty pine, up
which we ascend to a height twice that of the surrounding forest."
To indicate the direction of pines, he throws down a branch, and
a man at the ground takes the bearing.
70 THE MAINE WOODS.
seemed to be still on their trail. It was a small meadow,
of a few acres, on the mountain side, concealed by the
forest, and perhaps never seen by a white man before,
where one would think that the moose might browse and
bathe, and rest in peace. Pursuing this course, we soon
reached the open land, which went sloping down some
miles toward the Penobscot.
Perhaps I most fully realized that this was primeval,
untamed, and forever untameable Nature, or whatever
else men call it, while coming down this part of the
mountain. We were passing over " Burnt Lands,"
burnt by lightning, perchance, though they showed no
recent marks of fire, hardly so much as a charred stump,
but looked rather like a natural pasture for the moose
and deer, exceedingly wild and desolate, with occasional
strips of timber crossing them, and low poplars springing
up, and patches of blueberries here and there. I found
myself traversing them familiarly, like some pasture run
to waste, or partially reclaimed by man ; but when I
reflected what man, what brother or sister or kinsman of
our race made it and claimed it, I expected the propri-
etor to rise up and dispute my passage. It is difficult to
conceive of a region uninhabited by man. We habitu-
ally presume his presence and influence everywhere.
And yet we have not seen pure Nature, unless we have
seen her thus vast and drear and inhuman, though in
the midst of cities. Nature was here something savage
and awful, though beautiful. I looked with awe at the
ground I trod on, to see what the Powers had made
there, the form and fashion and material of their work.
This was that Earth of which we have heard, made out
of Chaos and Old Night. Here was no man's garden,
but the unharidselled globe. It was not lawn, nor pas-
KTAADN. . 71
ture, nor mead, nor woodland, nor lea, nor arable, nor
waste-land. It was the fresh and natural surface of the
planet Earth, as it was made for ever and ever, — to be
the dwelling of man, we say, — so Nature made it, and
man may use it if he can. Man was not to be associ-
ated with it. It was Matter, vast, terrific, — not his
Mother Earth that we have heard of, not for him to
tread on, or be buried in, — no, it were being too famil-
iar even to let his bones lie there, — the home, this, of
Necessity and Fate. There was there felt the presence
of a force not bound to be kind to man. It was a place
for heathenism and superstitious rites, — to be inhabited
by men nearer of kin to the rocks and to wild animals
than we. We walked over it with a certain awe, stop-
ping, from time to time, to pick the blueberries which
grew there, and had a smart and spicy taste. Perchance
where our wild pines stand, and leaves lie on their forest
floor, in Concord, there were once reapers, and husband-
men planted grain ; but here not even the surface had
been scarred by man, but it was a specimen of what
God saw fit to make this world. What is it to be ad-
mitted to a museum, to see a myriad of particular things,
compared with being shown some star's surface, some
hard matter in its home ! I stand in awe of my body,
this matter to which I am bound has become so strange
to me. I fear not spirits, ghosts, of which I am one, —
that my body might, — but I fear bodies, I tremble to
meet them. What is this Titan that has possession of
me ? Talk of mysteries ! — Think of our life in nature,
— daily to be shown matter, to come in contact with it,
— rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks ! the solid earth !
the actual world ! the common sense ! Contact ! Con-
tact ! Who are we ? where are we ?
72 THE MAINE WOODS.
Erelong we recognized some rocks and other features
in the landscape which we had purposely impressed on
our memories, and, quickening our pace, by two o'clock
we reached the batteau.* Here we had expected to
dine on trout, but in this glaring sunlight they were slow
to take the bait, so we were compelled to make the most
of the crumbs of our hard bread and our pork, which
were both nearly exhausted. Meanwhile we deliberated
whether we should go up the river a mile farther, to
Gibson's clearing, on the Sowadnehunk, where there was
a deserted log-hut, in order to get a half-inch auger, to
mend one of our spike-poles with. There were young
spruce-trees enough around us, and we had a spare
spike, but nothing to make a hole with. But as it was
uncertain whether we should find any tools left there,
we patched up the broken pole, as well as we could, for
the downward voyage, in which there would be but little
use for it. Moreover, we were unwilling to lose any
time in this expedition, lest the wind should rise before
we reached the larger lakes, and detain us ; for a moder-
ate wind produces quite a sea on these waters, in which
a batteau will not live for a moment ; and on one occa-
sion McCauslin had been delayed a week at the head of
the North Twin, which is only four miles across. We
were nearly out of provisions, and ill prepared in this
respect for what might possibly prove a week's journey
round by the shore, fording innumerable streams, and
threading a trackless forest, should any accident happen
to our boat.
It was with regret that we turned our backs on Che-
* The bears had not touched things on our possessions. They
sometimes tear a batteau to pieces for the sake of the tar with which
it is besmeared.
KTAADN. 73
suncook, which McCauslin had formerly logged on, and
the Allegash lakes. There were still longer rapids and
portages above ; among the last the Rippogenus Port-
age, which he described as the most difficult on the
river, and three miles long. The whole length of the
Penobscot is two hundred and seventy-five miles, and
we are still nearly one hundred miles from its source.
Hodge, the assistant State Geologist, passed up this
river in 1837, and by a portage of only one mile and
three-quarters crossed over into the Allegash, and so
went down that into the St. John, and up the Mada-
waska to the Grand Portage across to the St. Lawrence.
His is the only account that I know, of an expedition
through to Canada in this direction. He thus describes
his first sight of the latter river, which, to compare small
things with great, is like Balboa's first sight of the
Pacific from the mountains of the Isthmus of Darien.
" When we first came in sight of the St. Lawrence," he
says, "from the top of a high hill, the view was most
striking, and much more interesting to me from having
been shut up in the woods for the two previous months.
Directly before us lay the broad river, extending across
nine or ten miles, its surface broken by a few islands
and reefs, and two ships riding at anchor near the shore.
Beyond, extended ranges of uncultivated hills, parallel
with the river. The sun was just going down behind
them, and gilding the whole scene with its parting rays."
About four o'clock, the same afternoon, we commenced
our return voyage, which would require but little if any
poling. In shooting rapids the boatmen use large and
broad paddles, instead of poles, to guide the boat with.
Though we glided so swiftly, and often smoothly, down,
where it had cost us no slight effort to get up, our pres-
4
74 THE MAINE WOODS.
ent voyage was attended with far more danger : for if we
once fairly struck one of the thousand rocks by which
we were surrounded the boat would be swamped in an
instant. When a boat is swamped under these circum-
stances, the boatmen commonly find no difficulty in
keeping afloat at first, for the current keeps both them
and their cargo up for a long way down the stream ; and
if they can swim, they have only to work their way
gradually to the shore. The greatest danger is of being
caught in an eddy behind some larger rock, where the
water rushes up stream faster than elsewhere it does
down, and being carried round and round under the sur-
face till they are drowned. McCauslin pointed out
some rocks which had been the scene of a fatal accident
of this kind. Sometimes the body is not thrown out for
several hours. He himself had performed such a cir-
cuit once, only his legs being visible to his companions ;
but he was fortunately thrown out in season to recover
his breath.* In shooting the rapids, the boatman has
this problem to solve : to choose a circuitous and safe
course amid a thousand sunken rocks, scattered over a
quarter or half a mile, at the same time that he is mov-
ing steadily on at the rate of fifteen miles an hour.
Stop he cannot ; the only question is, where will he go ?
The bow-man chooses the course with all his eyes about
him, striking broad off with his paddle, and drawing the
boat by main force into her course. The stern-man
faithfully follows the bow.
We were soon at the Aboljacarmegiis Falls. Anx-
* I cut this from a newspaper. " On the llth (instant ?) [May, '49],
on Rappogenes Falls, Mr. John Delantee, of Orono, Me., was drowned
while running logs. He was a citizen of Orono, and was twenty-six
years of age. His companions found his body, enclosed it in bark,
and buried it in the solemn woods."
KTAADN. 75
ious to avoid the delay, as well as the labor, of the port-
age here, our boatmen went forward first 'to reconnoitre,
and concluded to let the batteau down the falls, carrying
the baggage only over the portage. , Jumping from rock
to rock until nearly in the middle of the stream, we
were ready to receive the boat and let her down over
the first fall, some six or seven feet perpendicular. The
boatmen stand upon the edge of a shelf of rock, where
the fall is perhaps nine or ten feet perpendicular, in
from one to two feet of rapid water, one on each side of
the boat, and let it slide gently over, till the bow is run
out ten or twelve feet in the air ; then, letting it drop
squarely, while one holds the painter, the other leaps
in, and his companion following, they are whirled down
the rapids to a new fall, or to smooth water. In a very
few minutes they had accomplished a passage in safety,
which would be as foolhardy for the unskilful to at-
tempt as the descent of Niagara itself. It seemed as if
it needed only a little familiarity, and a little more skill,
to navigate down such falls as Niagara itself with safety.
At any rate, I should not despair of such men in the
rapids above table-rock, until I saw them actually go
over the falls, so cool, so collected, so fertile in resources
are they. One might have thought that these were
falls, and that falls were not to be waded through with
impunity, like a mud-puddle. There was really danger
of their losing their sublimity in losing their power to
harm us. Familiarity breeds contempt. The boatman
pauses, perchance, on some shelf beneath a table-rock
under the fall, standing in some cove of back-water two
feet deep, and you hear his rough voice come up through
the spray, coolly giving directions how to launch the boat
this time.
76 THE MAINE WOODS.
Having carried round Pockwockomus Falls, our oars
soon brought us to the Katepskonegan, or Oak Hall
carry, where we decided to camp half way over, leaving
our batteau to be carried over in the morning on fresh
shoulders. One shoulder of each of the boatmen showed
a red spot as large as one's hand, worn by the batteau
on this expedition ; and this shoulder, as it did all the
work, was perceptibly lower than its fellow, from long
service. Such toil soon wears out the strongest consti-
tution. The drivers are accustomed to work in the cold
water in the spring, rarely ever dry ; and if one falls in
all over he rarely changes his clothes till night, if then,
even. One who takes this precaution is called by a par-
ticular nickname, or is turned off. None can lead this
life who are not almost amphibious. McCauslin said
soberly, what is at any rate a good story to tell, that he
had seen where six men were wholly under water at
once, at a jam, with their shoulders to handspikes. If
the log did not start, then they had to put out their
heads to breathe. The driver works as long as he can
see, from dark to dark, and at night has not time to eat
his Supper and dry his clothes fairly, before he is asleep
on his cedar bed. We lay that night on the very bed
made by such a party, stretching our tent over the poles
which were still standing, but reshingling the damp and
faded bed with fresh leaves.
In the morning we carried our boat over and
launched it, making haste lest the wind should rise.
The boatmen ran down Passamagamet, and, soon after.
Ambejijis Falls, while we walked round with the bag-
gage. We made a hasty breakfast at the head of Am-
bejijis Lake, on the remainder of our pork, and were soon
rowing across its smooth surface again, under a pleasant
KTAADN. 77
sky, the mountain being now clear of clouds, in the
northeast. Taking turns at the oars, we shot rapidly
across Deep Cove, the foot of Pamadumcook, and the
North Twin, at the rate of six miles an hour, the wind not
being high enough to disturb us, and reached the Dam
at noon. The boatmen went through one of the log
sluices in the batteau, where the fall was ten feet at the
bottom, and took us in below. Here was the longest
rapid in our voyage, and perhaps the running this was
as dangerous and arduous a task as any. Shooting
down sometimes at the rate, as we judged, of fifteen
miles an hour, if we struck a rock we were split from
end to end in an instant. Now, like a bait bobbing for
some river monster, amid the eddies, now darting to this
side of the stream, now to that, gliding swift and smooth
near to our destruction, or striking broad off with the
paddle and drawing the boat to right or left with all our
might, in order to avoid a rock. I suppose that it was
like running the rapids of the Saute de St. Marie, at
the outlet of Lake Superior, and our boatmen probably
displayed no less dexterity than the Indians there do.
We soon ran through this mile, and floated in Quakish
Lake.
After such a voyage, the troubled and angry waters,
which once had seemed terrible and not to be trifled
with, appeared tamed and subdued ; they had been
bearded and worried in their channels, pricked and
whipped into submission with the spike-pole and paddle,
gone through and through with impunity, and all their
spirit and their danger taken out of them, and the most
swollen and impetuous rivers seemed but playthings
henceforth. I began, at length, to understand the boat-
man's familiarity with, and contempt for, the rapids.
78 THE MAINE WOODS.
" Those Fowler boys," said Mrs. McCauslin, " are per-
fect ducks for the water." They had run down to Lin-
coln, according to her, thirty or forty miles, in a batteau,
in the night, for a doctor, when it was so dark that they
could not see a rod before them, and the river was swol-
len so as to be almost a continuous rapid, so that the
doctor cried, when they brought him up by daylight,
" Why, Tom, how did you see to steer ? " " We did n't
steer much, — only kept her straight." And yet they
met with no accident. It is true, the more difficult
rapids are higher up than this.
When we reached the Millinocket opposite to Tom's
house, and were waiting for his folks to set us over, for
we had left our batteau above the Grand Falls, we dis-
covered two canoes, with two men in each, turning up
this stream from Shad Pond, one keeping the opposite
side of a small island before us, while the other ap- /
preached the side where we were standing, examining
the banks carefully for muskrats as they came along.
The last proved to be Louis Neptune and his companion,
now, at last, on their way up to Chesuncook after moose ;
but they were so disguised that we hardly knew them.
At a little distance they might have been taken for
Quakers, with their broad-brimmed hats, and overcoats
with broad capes, the spoils of Bangor, seeking a settle-
ment in this Sylvania, — or, nearer at hand, for fashion-
able gentlemen the morning after a spree. Met face to
face, these Indians in their native woods looked like the
sinister and slouching fellows whom you meet picking
up strings and paper in the streets of a city. There is,
in fact, a remarkable and unexpected resemblance be-
tween the degraded savage and the lowest classes in a
great city. The one is no more a child of nature than
KTAADN. 79
the other. In the progress of degradation the distinction
of races is soon lost. Neptune at first was only anxious
to know what we " kill," seeing some partridges in the
hands of one of the party, but we had assumed too
much anger to permit of a reply. We thought Indiana
had some honor before. But — "Me been sick. O,
me unwell now. You make bargain, then me go."
They had in fact been delayed so long by a drunken
frolic at the Five Islands, and they had not yet recov-
ered from its effects. They had some young musquash
in their canoes, which they dug out of the banks with
a hoe, for food, not for their skins, for musquash are their
principal food on these expeditions. So they went on
up the Millinocket, and we kept down the bank of the
Penobscot, after recruiting ourselves with a draught of
Tom's beer, leaving Tom at his home.
Thus a man shall lead his life away here on the edge
of the wilderness, on Indian Millinocket stream, in a
new world, far in the dark of a continent, and have a
flute to play at evening here, while his strains echo to
the stars, amid the howling of wolves ; shall live, as it
were, in the primitive age of the world, a primitive
man. Yet he shall spend a sunny day, and in this cen-
tury be my contemporary; perchance shall read some
scattered leaves of literature, and sometimes talk with
me. Why read history, then, if the ages and the gen-
erations are now ? He lives three thousand years deep
into time, an age not yet described by poets. Can you
well go further back in history than this ? Ay ! ay ! —
for there turns up but now into the mouth of Millinocket
stream a still more ancient and primitive man, whose
history is not brought down even to the former. In a
bark vessel sewn with the roots of the spruce, with
80 THE MAINE WOODS.
hornbeam paddles, he dips his way along. He is but
dim and misty to me, obscured by the aeons, that lie be-
tween the bark-canoe and the batteau. He builds no
house of logs, but a wigwam of skins. He eats no hot
bread and sweet cake, but musquash and moose-meat
and the fat of bears. He glides up the Millinocket and
is lost to my sight, as a more distant and misty cloud is
seen flitting by behind a nearer, and is lost in space.
So he goes about his destiny, the red face of man.
After having passed the night, and buttered our boots
for the last time, at Uncle George's, whose dogs almost
devoured him for joy at his return, we kept on down the
river the next day, about eight miles on foot, and then
took a batteau, with a man to pole it, to Mattawamkeag,
ten more. At the middle of that very night, to make
a swift conclusion to a long story, we dropped our
buggy over the half-finished bridge at Oldtown, where
we heard the confused din and clink of a hundred
saws, which never rest, and at six o'clock the next
morning one of the party was steaming his way to Mas-
sachusetts.
"What is most striking in the Maine wilderness is the
continuousness of the forest, with fewer open intervals
or glades than you had imagined. Except the few
burnt-lands, the narrow intervals on the rivers, the bare
tops of the high mountains, and the lakes and streams,
the forest is uninterrupted. It is even more grim and
wild than you had anticipated, a damp and intricate
wilderness, in the spring everywhere wet and miry.
The aspect of the country, indeed, is universally stern
and savage, excepting the distant views of the forest
from hills, and the lake prospects, which are mild and
KTAADN. 81
civilizing in a degree. The lakes are something which
you are unprepared for; they lie up so high, exposed
to the light, and the forest is diminished to a fine fringe
on their edges, with here and there a blue mountain,
like amethyst jewels set around some jewel of the first
water, — so anterior, so superior, to all the changes that
are to take place on their shores, even now civil and
refined, and fair as they can ever be. These are not
the artificial forests of an English king, — a royal pre-
serve merely. Here prevail no forest laws but those
of nature. The aborigines have never been dispos-
sessed, nor nature disforested.
It is a country full of evergreen trees, of mossy silver
birches and watery maples, the ground dotted with in-
sipid, small, red berries, and strewn with damp and
moss-grown rocks, — a country diversified with innu-
merable lakes and rapid streams, peopled with trout and
various species of Ie3j>ci§ci, with salmon, shad, and pick-
erel, and other fisKes ; the forest resounding at rare in-
tervals with the note of the chicadee, the blue-jay, and
the woodpecker, the scream of the fish-hawk and the
eagle, the laugh of the loon, and the whistle of ducks
along the solitary streams ; at night, with the hooting
of owls and howling of wolves ; in summer, swarming
with myriads of black flies and mosquitoes, more formi-
dable than wolves to the white man. Such is the home
of the moose, the bear, the caribou, the wolf, the beaver,
and the Indian. Who shall describe the inexpressible
tenderness and immortal life of the grim forest, where
Nature, though it be mid-winter, is ever in her spring,
where the moss-grown and decaying trees are not old,
but seem to enjoy a perpetual youth ; and blissful, inno-
cent Nature, like a serene infant, is too happy to make
4* ,
82 THE MAINE WOODS.
a noise, except by a few tinkling, lisping birds and
trickling rills?
What a place to live, what a place to die and be
buried in! There certainly men would live forever,
and laugh at death and the grave. There they could
have no such thoughts as are associated with the village
graveyard, — that make a grave out of one of those
moist evergreen hummocks !
Die and be buried who will,
I mean to live here still;
My nature grows ever more young
The primitive pines among.
I am reminded by my journey how exceedingly new
this country still is. You have only to travel for a few
days into the interior and back parts even of many of
the old States, to come to that very America which the
Northmen, and Cabot, and Gosnold, and Smith, and Ra-
leigh visited. If Columbus was the first to discover the
islands, Americus Vespucius and Cabot, and the Puri-
tans, and we their descendants, have discovered only the
shores of America. While the republic has already
acquired a history world-wide, America is still unsettled
and unexplored. Like the English in New Holland,
we live only on the shores of a continent even yet, and
hardly know where the rivers come from which float
our navy. The very timber and boards and shingles of
which our houses are made, grew but yesterday in a
wilderness where the Indian still hunts and the moose
runs wild. New York has her wilderness within her
own borders ; and though the sailors of Europe are
familiar with the soundings of her Hudson, and Fulton
long since invented the steamboat on its waters, an In-
KTAADN. 83
dian is still necessary to guide her scientific men to its
head-waters in the Adirondac country.
Have we even so much as discovered and settled the
shores ? Let a man travel on foot along the coast, from
the Passamaquoddy to the Sabine, or to the Rio Bravo,
or to wherever the end is now, if he is swift enough to
overtake it, faithfully following the windings of every
inlet and of every cape, and stepping to the music of
the surf, — with a desolate fishing-town once a week,
and a city's port once a month to cheer him, and putting
up at the light-houses, when there are any, — and tell
me if it looks like a discovered and settled country, and
not rather, for the most part, like a desolate island, and
No-man's Land.
We have advanced by leaps to the Pacific, and left
many a lesser Oregon and California unexplored behind
us. Though the railroad and the telegraph have been
established on the shores of Maine, the Indian still
looks out from her interior mountains over all these to
the sea. There stands the city of Bangor, fifty miles
up the Penobscot, at the head of navigation for vessels
of the largest class, the principal lumber depot on this
'continent, with a population of twelve thousand, like a
star on the edge of night, still hewing at the forests of
which it is built, already overflowing with the luxuries
and refinement of Europe, and sending its vessels to
Spain, to England, and to the West Indies for its gro-
ceries, — and yet only a few axe-men have gone " up
river," into the howling wilderness which feeds it. The
bear and deer are still found within its limits ; and the
moose, as he swims the Penobscot, is entangled amid
its shipping, and taken by foreign sailors in its harbor.
Twelve miles in the rear, twelve miles of railroad, are
84 THE MAINE WOODS.
Orono and the Indian Island, the home of the Penob-
scot tribe, and then commence the batteau and the
canoe, and the military road; and sixty miles above,
the country is virtually unmapped and unexplored, and
there still waves the virgin forest of the New World.
CHESUNCOOK
AT 5 P. M., September 13th, 1853, 1 left Boston, in
the steamer, for Bangor, by the outside course. It was a
warm and still night, — warmer, probably, on the water
than on the land, — and the* sea was as smooth as a
small lake in summer, merely rippled. The passengers
went singing on the deck, as in a parlor, till ten o'clock.
We passed a vessel on her beam-ends on a rock just
outside the islands, and some of us thought that she was
the " rapt ship " which ran
" on her side so low
That she drank water, and her keel ploughed air,"
not considering that there was no wind, and that she was
under bare poles. Now we have left the islands behind
and are off Nahant. We behold those features which
the discoverers saw, apparently unchanged. Now we
see the Cape Ann lights, and now. pass near a small
village-like fleet of mackerel-fishers at anchor, probably
off Gloucester. They salute us with a shout from their
low decks ; but I understand their " Good evening " to
mean, " Don't run against me, Sir." From the wonders
of the deep we go below to yet deeper sleep. And
then the absurdity of being waked up in the night by
a man who wants the job of blacking your boots ! It is
more inevitable than sea-sickness, and may have some-
86 THE MAINE WOODS.
thing to do with it. It is like the ducking you get on
crossing the line the first time. I trusted that these old
customs were abolished. They might with the same
propriety insist on blacking your face. I heard of one
man who complained that somebody had stolen his boots
in the night ; and when he found them, he wanted to
know what they had done to them, — they had spoiled
them, — he never put that stuff on them ; and the boot-
black narrowly escaped paying damages.
Anxious to get out of the whale's belly, I rose early,
and joined some old salts, who were smoking by a dim
light on a sheltered part of the deck. We were just
getting into the river. They knew all about it, of
course. I was proud to find that I had stood the voy-
age so well, and was not in the least digested. "VVe
brushed up and watched the first signs of dawn through
an open port ; but the day seemed to hang fire. We
inquired the time ; none of my .companions had a chro-
nometer. At length an African prince rushed by, ob-
serving, " Twelve o'clock, gentlemen ! " and blew out the
light. It was moon-rise. So I slunk down into the
monster's bowels again.
The first land we make is Manhegan Island, before
dawn, and next St. George's Islands, seeing two or three
lights. Whitehead, with its bare rocks and funereal
bell, is interesting. Next I remember that the Camden
Hills attracted my eyes, and afterward the hills about
Frankfort. We reached Bangor about noon.
When I arrived, my companion that was to be had
gone up river, and engaged an Indian, Joe Aitteon, a
son of the Governor, to go with us to Chesuncook Lake.
Joe had conducted two white men a-moose-hunting in
the same direction the year before. He arrived by cars
CHESUNCOOK. 87
at Bangor that evening, with his canoe and a compan-
ion, Sabattis Solomon, who was going to leave Bangor
the following Monday with Joe's father, by way of the
Penobscot, and join Joe in moose-hunting at Chesun-
cook, when we had done with him. They took supper
at my friend's house and lodged in his barn, saying that
they should fare worse than that in the woods. They
only made Watch bark a little, when they came to the
door in the night for water, for he does not like In-
dians.
The next morning Joe and his canoe were put on
board the stage for Moosehead Lake, sixty and odd
miles distant, an hour before we started in an open
wagon. We carried hard bread, pork, smoked beef, tea,
sugar, etc., seemingly enough for a regiment ; the sight
of which brought together reminded me by what ignoble
means we had maintained our ground hitherto. We
went by the Avenue Road, which is quite straight and
very good, north-westward toward Moosehead Lake,
through more than a dozen flourishing towns, with al-
most every one its academy, — not one of which, how-
ever, is on my General Atlas, published, alas ! in 1824 ;
so much are they before the age, or I behind it ! The
earth must have been considerably lighter to the shoul-
ders of General Atlas then.
It rained all this day and till the middle of the next
forenoon, concealing the landscape almost entirely ; but
we had hardly got out of the streets of Bangor before I
began to be exhilarated by the sight of the wild fir and
spruce-tops, and those of other primitive evergreens,
peering through the mist in the horizon. It was like
the sight and odor of cake to a schoolboy. He who
rides and keeps the beaten track studies the fences
88 THE MAINE WOODS.
chiefly. Near Bangor, the fence-posts, on account of
the frost's heaving them in the clayey soil, were not
planted in the ground, but were mortised into a trans-
verse horizontal beam lying on the surface. After-
wards, the prevailing fences were log ones, with some-
times a Virginia fence, or else rails slanted over crossed
stakes, — and these zigzagged or played leap-frog all
the way to the lake, keeping just ahead of us. After
getting out of the Penobscot Valley, the country was
unexpectedly level, or consisted of very even and equal
swells, for twenty or thirty miles, never rising above the
general level, but affording, it is said, a very good pros-
pect in clear weather, with frequent views of Ktaadn, —
straight roads and long hills. The houses were far
apart, commonly small and of one story, but framed.
There was very little land under cultivation, yet the forest
did not often border the road. The stumps were fre-
quently as high as one's head, showing the depth of
the snows. The white hay-caps, drawn over small
stacks of beans or corn in the fields, on account of the
rain, were a novel sight to me. We saw large flocks of
pigeons, and several times came within a rod or two of
partridges in the road. My companion said, that, in
one journey out of Bangor, he and his son had shot sixty
partridges from his buggy. The mountain-ash was now
very handsome, as also the wayfarer's-tree or hobble-
bush, with its ripe purple berries mixed with red. The
Canada thistle, an introduced plant, was the prevailing
weed all the way to the lake, — the road-side in many
places, and fields not long cleared, being densely filled
with it as with a crop, to the exclusion of everything
else. There were also whole fields full of ferns, now
rusty and withering, which in older countries are com-
CHESUNCOOK. 89
monly confined to wet ground. There were very few
flowers, even allowing for the lateness of the season. It
chanced that I saw no asters in bloom along the road for
fifty miles, though they were so abundant then in Massa-
chusetts, — except in one place one or two of the Aster
acuminatus, — and no golden-rods till within twenty
miles of Monson, where I saw a three-ribbed one.
There were many late buttercups, however, and the
two fire-weeds, Erechthites and Epilobium, commonly
where there had been a burning, and at last the pearly
everlasting. I noticed occasionally very long troughs
which supplied the road with water, and my companion
said that three dollars annually were granted by the
State to one man in each school-district, who provided
and maintained a suitable water-trough by the road-side,
for the use of travellers, — a piece of intelligence as
refreshing to me as the water itself. That legislature
did not sit in vain. It was an Oriental act, which made
me wish that I was still farther down East, — another
Maine law, which I hope we may get in Massachusetts.
That State is banishing bar-rooms from its highways,
and conducting the mountain-springs thither.
The country was first decidedly mountainous in--Oar-
land, Sangerville, and onwards, twenty-five or thirty
miles from Bangor. At Sangerville, where we stopped
at mid-afternoon to warm and dry ourselves, the land-
lord told us that he had found a wilderness where we
found him. At a fork in the road between Abbot and
Monson, about twenty miles from Moosehead Lake, I
saw a guide-post surmounted by a pair of Moose-horns,
spreading four or five feet, with the word " Monson "
painted on one blade, and the name of some other town
on the other. They are sometimes used for ornamental
90 THE MAINE WOODS.
hat-trees, together with deers' horns, in front entries ;
but, after the experience which I shall relate, I trust
that I shall have a better excuse for killing a moose
than that I may hang my hat on his horns. We reached
Monson, fifty miles from Bangor, and thirteen from the
lake, after dark.
At four o'clock the next morning, in the dark, and
still in the rain, we pursued our journey. Close to the
academy in this town they have erected a sort of gal-
lows for the pupils to practice on. I thought that they
might as well hang at once all who need to go through
such exercises in so new a country, where there is noth-
ing to hinder their living an out-door life. Better omit
Blair, and take the air. The country about the south
end of the lake is quite mountainous, and the road began
to feel the effects of it. There is one hill which, it is
calculated, it takes twenty-five minutes to ascend. In
many places the road was in that condition called re-
paired, having just been whittledjnto the required semi-
cylindrical form with the shovel and scraper, with all
the softest inequalities in the middle, like a hog's back
with the bristles up, and Jehu was expected to keep
astride of the spine. As you looked off each side of the
bare sphere into the horizon, the ditches were awful to
behold, — a vast hollowness, like that between Saturn
and his ring. At a tavern hereabouts the hostler
greeted our horse as an old acquaintance, though he did
not remember the driver. He said that he had taken
care of that little mare for a short time, a year or two
before, at the Mount Kineo House, and thought she was
not in as good condition as then. Every man to his
trade. I am not acquainted with a single horse in the
world, not even the one that kicked me.
CHESUNCOOK. 91
Already we had thought that we saw Moosehead
Lake from a hill-top^ where an extensive fog filled the
distant lowlands, but we were mistaken. It was not
till we were within a mile or two of its south end that
we got -our first view of it, — a suitably wild-looking
sheet of water, sprinkled with small, low islands, which
were covered with shaggy spruce and other wild wood,
— seen over the infant port of Greenville, with moun-
tains on each side and far in the north, and a* steamer's
smoke-pipe rising above a roof. A pair of moose-horns
ornamented a corner of the public-house where we left
our horse, and a few rods distant lay the small steamer
Moosehead, Captain King. There was no village, and
no summer road any farther in this direction, — but a
winter road, that is, one passable only when deep
snow covers its inequalities, from Greenville up the
east side of the lake to Lily Bay, about twelve miles.
I was here first introduced to Joe. He had ridden
all the way on the outside of the stage, the day before,
in the rain, giving way to ladies, and was well wetted.
As it still rained, he asked if we were going to " put
it through." He was a good-looking Indian, twenty-
four years old, apparently of unmixed blood, short and
stout, with a broad face and reddish complexion, and
eyes, methinks, narrower and more turned-up at the
outer corners than ours, answering to the description
of his race. Beside his under-clothing, he wore a red-
flannel shirt, woollen pants, and a black Kossuth hat,
the ordinary dress of the lumberman, and, to a consid-
erable extent, of the Penobscot Indian. When, after-
ward, he had occasion to take off his shoes and stock-
ings, I was struck with the smallness of his feet. He
had worked a good deal as a lumberman, and appeared
92 THE MAINE WOODS.
to identify himself with that class. He was the only
one of the party who possessed an India-rubber jacket.
The top strip or edge of his canoe was worn nearly
through by friction on the stage.
At eight o'clock the steamer, with her bell and whistle,
scaring the moose, summoned us on board. She was a
well-appointed little boat, commanded by a gentlemanly
captain, with patent life-seats and metallic life-boat, and
dinner on board, if you wish. She is chiefly used by
lumberers for the transportation of themselves, their
boats, and supplies, but also by hunters and tourists.
There was another steamer, named Amphitrite, laid up
close by ; but, apparently, her name was not more trite
than her hull. There were also two or three large sail-
boats in port. These beginnings of commerce on a
lake in the wilderness are very interesting, — these
larger white birds that come to keep company with the
gulls. There were but few passengers, and not one
female among them : a St. Francis Indian, with his
canoe and moose-hides, two explorers for lumber, three
men who landed at Sandbar Island, and a gentleman
who lives on Deer Island, eleven miles up the lake,
and owns also Sugar Island, between which and the
former the steamer runs; these, I think, were all be-
side ourselves. In the saloon was some kind of musical
instrument, cherubim, or seraphim, to soothe the angry
waves; and there, very properly, was tacked up the
map of the public lands of Maine and Massachusetts,
a copy of which I had in my pocket.
The heavy rain confining us to the saloon" awhile, I
discoursed with the proprietor of Sugar Island on the
condition of the world in Old Testament times. But
at length, leaving this subject as fresh as we found it,
CHESUNCOOK. 93
he told me that he had lived about this lake twenty or
thirty years, and yet had not been to the head of it for
twenty-one years. He faces the other way. The ex-
plorers had a fine new birch on board, larger than ours,
in which they had come up the Piscataquis from How-
land, and they had had several messes of trout already.
They were going to the neighborhood of Eagle and
Chamberlain Lakes, or the head-waters of the St. John,
and offered to keep us company as far as we went.
The lake to-day was rougher than I found the ocean,
either going or returning, and Joe remarked that it
would swamp his birch. Off Lily Bay it is a dozen
miles wide, but it is much broken by islands. The
scenery is not merely wild, but varied and interesting ;
mountains were seen, farther or nearer, on all sides but
the northwest, their summits now lost in the clouds;
but Mount Kineo is the principal feature of the lake,
and more exclusively belongs to it. After leaving
Greenville, at the foot, which is the nucleus of a town
some eight or ten years old, you see but three or four
houses for the whole length of the lake, or about forty
miles, three of them the public houses at which the
steamer is advertised to stop, and the shore is an un-
broken wilderness. The prevailing wood seemed to be
spruce, fir, birch, and rock-maple. You could easily
distinguish the hard wood from the soft, or "black
growth," as it is called, at a great distance, — the for-
mer being smooth, round -topped, and light green, with a
bowery and cultivated look.
Mount Kineo, at which the boat touched, is a penin-
sula with a narrow neck, about midway tlie lake on the
east side. The celebrated precipice is on the east or
land side of this, and is so high and perpendicular that
94 THE MAINE WOODS.
you can jump from the top, many hundred feet, into the
water, which makes up behind the point. A man on
board told us that an anchor had been sunk ninety fath-
oms at its base before reaching bottom ! Probably it
will be discovered erelong that some Indian maiden
jumped off it for love once, for true love never could
have found a path more to its mind. We passed quite
close to the rock here, since it is a very bold shore, and
I observed marks of a rise of four or five feet on it.
The St. Francis Indian expected to take in his boy here,
but he was not at the landing. The father's sharp eyes,
however, detected a canoe with his boy in it far away
under the mountain, though no one else could see it.
" Where is the canoe ? " asked the captain, " I don't see
it" ; but he held on, nevertheless, and by and by it hove
in sight.
We reached the head of the lake about noon. The
weather had, in the meanwhile, cleared up, though the
mountains were still capped with clouds. Seen from this
point, Mount Kineo, and two other allied mountains rang-
ing with it northeasterly, presented a very strong family
likeness, as if all cast in one mould. The steamer here
approached a long pier projecting from the northern
wilderness, and built of some of its logs, — and whistled,
where not a cabin nor a mortal was to be seen. The
shore was quite low, with flat rocks on it, overhung with
black ash, arbor-vita?, etc., which at first looked as if
they did not care a whistle for us. There was not a
single cabman to cry " Coach ! " or inveigle us to the
United States Hotel. At length a Mr. Hinckley, who
has a camp at the other . end of the " carry," appeared
with a truck drawn by an ox and a horse over a rude
log-railway through the woods. The next thing was to
CHESUNCOOK. 95
get our canoe and effects over the carry from this lake,
one of the heads of the Kennebec, into the Penobscot
River. This railway from the lake to the river occu-
pied the middle of a clearing two or three rods wide
and perfectly straight through the forest. We walked
across while our baggage was drawn behind. My com-
panion went ahead to be ready for partridges, while I
followed, looking at the plants.
This was an interesting botanical locality for one com-
ing from the South to commence with ; for many plants
which are rather rare, and one or two which are not
found at all, in the eastern part of Massachusetts, grew
abundantly between the rails, — as Labrador tea, Kalmia
glauca, Canada blueberry (which was still in fruit, and
a second time in bloom), Clintonia and Linnaea borealis,
which last a lumberer called moxon, creeping snowberry,
painted trillium, large-flowered bellwort, etc. I fancied
that the Aster sradula, Diplopappus umbellatus, Solidagb
lanceolatus, red trumpet-weed, and many others which
were conspicuously in bloom on the shore of the lake
and on the carry, had a peculiarly wild and primitive
look there. The spruce and fir trees crowded to the
track on each side to welcome us, the arbor-vitas, with
its changing leaves, prompted us to make haste, and the
sight of the canoe-birch gave us spirits to do so. Some-
times an evergreen just fallen lay across the track with
its rich burden of cones, looking, still, fuller of life than
our trees in the most favorable positions. You did not
expect to find such spruce trees in the wild woods, but
they evidently attend to their toilets each morning even
there. Through such a front-yard did we enter that
wilderness.
There was a very slight rise above the lake, — the
96 THE MAINE WOODS.
country appearing like, and perhaps being, partly a
swamp, — and at length a gradual descent to the Penob-
scot, which I was surprised to find here a large stream,
from twelve to fifteen rods wide, flowing from west to
east, or at right angles with the lake, and not more than
two and a half miles from it. The distance is nearly
twice too great on the Map of the Public Lands, and on
Colton's Map of Maine, and Russell Stream is placed
too far down. Jackson makes Moosehead Lake to be
nine hundred and sixty feet above high water in Port-
land harbor. It is higher than Chesuncook, for the lum-
berers consider the Penobscot, where we struck it,
twenty -five feet lower than Moosehead, — though eight
miles above it is said to be the highest, so that the water
can be made to flow either way, and the river falls a
good deal between here and Chesuncook. The carry-
man called this about one hundred and forty miles
above Bangor by the river, or two hundred from the
ocean, and fifty-five miles below Hilton's, on the Canada
road, the first clearing above, which is four and a half
miles from the source of the Penobscot.
At the north end of the carry, in the midst of a clear-
ing of sixty acres or more, there was a log camp of the
usual construction, with something more like a house
adjoining, for the accommodation of the carryman's fam-
ily and passing lumberers. The bed of withered fir-
twigs smelled very sweet, though really very dirty.
There was also a store-house on the bank of the river,
containing pork, flour, iron, batteaux, and birches, locked
up.
We now proceeded to get our dinner, which always
turned out to be tea, and to pitch canoes, for which pur-
pose a large iron pot lay permanently on the bank.
CHESUNCOOK. 97
This we did in company with the explorers. Both In-
dians and whites use a mixture of rosin and grease for
this purpose, — that is, for the pitching, not the dinner.
Joe took a small brand from the fire and blew the heat
and flame against the pitch on his birch, and so melted
and spread it. Sometimes he put his mouth over the
suspected spot and sucked, to see if it admitted air ; and
at one place, where we stopped, he set his canoe high on
crossed stakes, and poured water into it. I narrowly
watched his motions, and listened attentively to Ms
observations, for we had employed an Indian mainly
that I might have an opportunity to study his ways. I
heard him swear once, mildly, during this operation,
about his knife being as dull as a hoe, — an accomplish-
ment which he owed to his intercourse with the whites ;
and he remarked, " We ought to have some tea before
we start; we shall be hungry before we kill that
moose."
At mid-afternoon we embarked on the Penobscot.
Our birch was nineteen and a half feet long by two and
a half at the widest part, and fourteen inches deep with-
in, both ends alike, and painted green, which Joe thought
affected the pitch and made it leak. This, I think, was
a middling-sized one. That of the explorers was much
larger, though probably not much longer. This carried
us three with our baggage, weighing in all between five
hundred and fifty and six hundred pounds. "We had
two heavy, though slender, rock-maple paddles, one of
them of bird's-eye maple. Joe placed birch-bark on
the bottom for us to sit on, and slanted cedar splints
against the cross-bars to protect our backs, while he him-
self sat upon a cross-bar in the stern. The baggage
•occupied the middle or widest part of the canoe. We
98 THE MAINE WOODS.
also paddled by turns in the bows, now sitting with our
legs extended, now sitting upon our legs, and now rising
upon our knees ; but I found none of these positions en-
durable, and was reminded of the complaints of the old
Jesuit missionaries of the torture they endured from
long confinement in constrained positions in canoes, in
their long voyages from Quebec to the Huron country ;
but afterwards I sat on the cross-bars, or stood up, and
experienced no inconvenience.
It was dead water for a couple of miles. The river
had been raised about two feet by the rain, and lumber-
ers were hoping for a flood sufficient to bring down the
logs that were left in the spring. Its banks were seven
or eight feet high, and densely covered with white and
black spruce, — which, I think, must be the commonest
trees thereabouts, — fir, arbor-vitae, canoe, yellow, and
black birch, rock, mountain, and a few red maples,
beech, black and mountain ash, the large-toothed aspen,
many civil looking elms, now imbrowned, along the
stream, and at first a few hemlocks also. We had not
gone far before I was startled by seeing what I thought
was an Indian encampment, covered with a red flag, on
the bank, and exclaimed, " Camp ! " to my comrades. I
was slow to discover that it was a red maple changed
by the frost. The immediate shores were also densely
covered with the speckled alder, red osier, shrubby-
willows or sallows, and the like. There were a few
yellow-lily-pads still left, half-drowned, along the sides,
and sometimes a white one. Many fresh tracks of
moose were visible where the water was shallow, and
on the shore, and the lily-stems were freshly bitten off
by them.
After paddling about two miles, we parted company
CHESUNCOOK. 99
i
with the explorers, and turned up Lobster Stream,
which comes in on the right, from the southeast. This
was six or eight rods wide, and appeared to run nearly
parallel with the Penobscot. Joe said that it was so
called from small fresh-water lobsters found in it. It is
the Matahumkeag of the maps. My companion wished
to look for moose signs, and intended, if it proved worth
the while, to camp up that way, since the Indian ad-
vised it. On account of the rise of the Penobscot the
water ran up this stream quite to the pond of the same
name, one or two miles. The Spencer Mountains, east
of the north end of Moosehead Lake, were now in plain
sight in front of us. The kingfisher flew before us, the
pigeon woodpecker was seen and heard, and nuthatches
and chicadees close at hand. Joe said that they called
the chicadee kecunnilessu in his language. I will not
vouch for the spelling of what possibly was never spelt
before, but I pronounced after him till he said it would
do. We passed close to a woodcock, which stood per-
fectly still on the shore, with feathers puffed up, as if
sick. This Joe said they called nipsquecohossus. The
kingfisher was skuscumonsuck ; bear was wassus ; In-
dian Devil, lunxus ; the mountain-ash, upahsis. This
was very abundant and beautiful. Moose-tracks were
not so fresh along this stream, except in a small creek
about a mile up it, where a large log had lodged in the
spring, marked " W-cross-girdle-crow-foot." .We saw
a pair of moose-horns on the shore, and I asked Joe
if a moose had shed them ; but he said there was a
head attached to them, and I knew that they did not
shed their heads more than once in their lives. .
After ascending about a mile and a half, to within
a short distance of Lobster Lake, we returned to the
100 THE MAINE WOODS.
«
Penobscot. Just below the mouth of the Lobster we
found quick water, and the river expanded to twenty or
thirty rods in width. The moose-tracks were quite nu-
merous and fresh here. We noticed in a great many
places narrow and well-trodden paths by which they had
come down to the river, and where they had slid on the
steep and clayey bank. Their tracks were either close
to the edge of the stream, those of the calves distinguish-
able from the others, or in shallow water; the holes
made by their feet in the soft bottom being visible for
a long time. They were particularly numerous where
there was a small bay, or pokelogan, as it is called,
bordered by a strip of meadow, or separated from the
river by a low peninsula covered with coarse grass,
wool-grass, etc., wherein they had waded back and forth
and eaten the pads. We detected the remains of one
in such a spot. At one place, where we landed to pick
up a summer duck, which my companion had shot, Joe
peeled a canoe-birch for bark for his hunting-horn. He
then asked if we were not going to get the other duck,
for his sharp eyes had seen another fall in the bushes
a little farther along, and my companion obtained it.
I now began to notice the bright red berries of the tree-
cranberry, which grows eight or ten feet high, mingled
with the alders and cornel along the shore. There was
less hard wood than at first.
After proceeding a mile and three quarters below the
mouth of the Lobster, we reached, about sundown, a
small island at the head of what Joe called the Moose-
horn Dead-water, (the Moosehorn, in which he was go-
ing to hunt that night,, coming in about three miles
below,) and on the upper end of this we decided to
camp. On a point at the lower end lay the carcass of
CHESUNCOOK. 101
a moose killed a month or more before. We concluded
merely to prepare our camp, and leave our baggage
here, that all might be ready when we returned from
moose-hunting. Though I had not come a-hunting, and
felt some compunctions about accompanying the hunters,
I wished to see a moose near at hand, and was not sorry
to learn how the Indian managed to kill one. I went
as reporter or chaplain to the hunters, — and the chap-
lain has been known to carry a gun himself. After
clearing a small space amid the dense spruce and fir
trees, we covered the damp ground with a shingling of
fir-twigs, and, while Joe was preparing his birch-horn
and pitching his canoe, — for this had to be done when-
ever we stopped long enough to build a fire, and was
the principal labor which he took upon himself at such
times, — we collected fuel for the night, large wet and
rotting logs, which had lodged at the head of the island,
for our hatchet was too small for effective chopping ; but
we did not kindle a fire, lest the moose should smell it.
Joe set up a couple of forked stakes, and prepared half
a dozen poles, ready to cast one of our blankets over
in case it rained in the night, which precaution, how-
ever, was omitted the next night. We also plucked the
ducks which had been killed for breakfast.
While we were thus engaged in the twilight, we
heard faintly, from far down the stream, what sounded
like two strokes of a woodchopper's axe, echoing dully
through the grim solitude. We are wont to liken many
sounds, heard at a distance in the forest, to the stroke
of an axe, because they resemble each other under those
circumstances, and that is the one we commonly hear
there. When we told Joe of this, he exclaimed, " By
George, I '11 bet that was a moose ! They make a noise
102 THE MAINE WOODS.
like that." These sounds affected us strangely, and by
their very resemblance to a familiar one, where they
probably had so different an origin, enhanced the im-
pression of solitude and wildness.
At starlight we dropped down the stream, which was
a dead-water for three miles, or as far as the Moose-
horn ; Joe telling us that we must be very silent, and
he himself making no noise with his paddle, while he
urged the canoe along with effective impulses. It was
a still night, and suitable for this purpose, — for if there
is wind, the moose will smell you, — and Joe was very
confident that he should get some. The harvest moon
had just risen, and its level rays began to light up the
forest on our right, while we glided downward in the
shade on the same side, against the little breeze that
was stirring. The lofty, spiring tops of the spruce and
fir were very black against the sky, and more distinct
than by day, close bordering this broad avenue on each
side; and the beauty of the scene, as the moon rose
above the forest, it would not be easy to describe. A
bat flew over our heads, and we heard a few faint notes
of birds from time to time, perhaps the myrtle-bird for
one, or the sudden plunge of a musquash, or saw one
crossing the stream before us, or heard the sound of a
rill emptying in, swollen by the recent rain. About a
mile below the island, when the solitude seemed to be
growing more complete every moment, we suddenly saw
the light and heard the crackling of a fire on the bank,
and discoverd the camp of the two explorers ; they stand-
ing before it in their red shirts, and talking aloud of the
adventures and profits of the day. They were just
then speaking of a bargain, in which, as I understood,
somebody had cleared twenty-five dollars. We glided
CHESUNCOOK. 103
by without speaking, close under the bank, within a
couple of rods of them ; and Joe, taking his horn, imi-
tated the call of the moose, till we suggested that they
might fire on us. This was the last we saw of them,
and we never knew whether they detected or suspected
us.
I have often wished since that I was with them.
They search for timber over a given section, climbing
hills and often high trees to look off, — explore the
streams by which it is to be driven, and the like, —
spend five or six weeks in the woods, they two alone, a
hundred miles or more from any town, — roaming about,
and sleeping on the ground where night overtakes them,
— depending chiefly on the provisions they carry with
them, though they do not decline what game they come
across, — and then in the fall they return and make
report to their employers, determining the number of
teams that will be required the following winter. Ex-
perienced men get three or four dollars a day for this
work. It is a solitary and adventurous life, and comes
nearest to that of the trapper of the West, perhaps.
They work ever with a gun as well as an axe, let their
beards grow, and live without neighbors, not on an open
plain, but far within a wilderness.
This discovery accounted for the sounds which we
had heard, and destroyed the prospect of seeing moose
yet awhile. At length, when we had left the explorers
far behind, Joe laid down his paddle, drew forth his
birch horn, — a straight one, about fifteen inches long
and three or four wide at the mouth, tied round with
strips of the same bark, — and standing up, imitated the
call of the moose, — ugh-ugh-ugh, or 00-00-00-00, and then
a prolonged 00-0-0-0-0-0-0-0, and listened attentively
104 THE MAINE WOODS.
for several -minutes. We asked him what kind of
noise he expected to hear. He said, that, if a moose
heard it, he guessed we should find out ; we should
hear him coming half a mile off; he would come close
to, perhaps into, the water, and my companion must
wait till he got fair sight, and then aim just behind the
shoulder.
The moose venture out to the river-side to feed and
drink at night. Earlier in the season the hunters do
not use a horn to call them out, but steal upon them as
they are feeding along the sides of the stream, and often
the first notice they have of one is the sound of the
water dropping from its muzzle. An Indian whom I
heard imitate the voice of the moose, and also that of
the caribou and the deer, using a much longer horn than
Joe's, told me that the first could be heard eight or ten
miles, sometimes ; it was a loud sort of bellowing sound,
clearer and more sonorous than the lowing of cattle, —
the caribou's a sort of snort, — and the small deer's like
that of a lamb.
At length we turned up the Moosehorn, where the
Indians at the carry had told us that they killed a moose
the night before. This is a very meandering stream,
only a rod or two in width, but comparatively deep,
coming in on the right, fitly enough named Moosehorn,
whether from its windings or its inhabitants. It was
bordered here and there by narrow meadows between
the stream and the endless forest, affording favorable
places for the moose to feed, and to call them out on.
We 'proceeded hah0 a mile up this, as through a narrow,
winding canal, where the tall, dark spruce and firs and
arbor-vitae towered on both sides in the moonlight, form-
ing a perpendicular forest-edge of great height, like the
CHESUNCOOK. 105
spires of a Venice in the forest. In two places stood a
small stack of hay on the bank, ready for the lumberer's
use in the winter, looking strange enough there. "We
thought of the day when this might be a brook winding
through smooth-shaven meadows on some gentleman's
grounds; and seen by moonlight then, excepting the
forest that now hems it in, how little changed it would
appear !
Again and again Joe called the moose, placing the
canoe close by some favorable point of meadow for them
to come out on, but listened in vain to hear one come
rushing through the woods, and concluded that they had
been hunted too much thereabouts. We saw, many
times, what to our imaginations looked like a gigantic
moose, with his horns peering from out the forest-edge ;
but we saw the forest only, and not its inhabitants, that
night. So at last we turned about. There was now a
little fog on the water, though it was a fine, clear night
above. There were very few sounds to break the still-
ness of the forest. Several times we heard the hooting
of a great horned-owl, as at home, and told Joe that he
would call out the moose for him, for he made a sound
considerably like the horn, — but Joe answered, that the
moose had heard that sound a thousand times, and knew
better ; and oftener still we were startled by the plunge
of a musquash. Once, when Joe had called again, and
we were listening for moose, we heard, come faintly
echoing, or creeping from far, through the moss-clad
aisles, a dull, dry, rushing sound, with a solid core to it,
yet as if half smothered under the grasp of the luxuri-
ant and fungus-like forest, like the shutting of a door in
some distant entry of the damp and shaggy wilderness.
If we had not been there, no mortal had heard it.
5*
106 THE MAINE WOODS.
When we asked Joe in a whisper what it was, he an-
swered,— "Tree fall." There is something singularly
grand and impressive in the sound of a tree falling in a
perfectly calm night like this, as if the agencies which
overthrow it did not need to be excited, but worked with
a subtle, deliberate, and conscious force, like a boa-con-
strictor, and more effectively then than even in a windy
day. If there is any such difference, perhaps it is be-
cause trees with the dews of the night on them are
heavier than by day.
Having reached the camp, about ten o'clock, we kin-
dled our fire and went to bed. Each of us had a
blanket, in which he lay on the fir-twigs, with his ex-
tremities toward the fire, but nothing over his head. It
was worth the while to lie down in a country where you
could afford such great fires ; that was one whole side,
and the bright side, of our world. We had first rolled
up a large log some eighteen inches through and ten feet
long, for a back-log, to last all night, and then piled on
the trees to the height of three or four feet, no matter
how green or damp. In fact, we burned as much wood
that night as would, with economy and an air-tight stove,
last a poor family in one of our cities all winter. It was
very agreeable, as well as independent, thus lying in the
open air, and the fire kept our uncovered extremities
warm enough. The Jesuit missionaries used to say,
that, in their journeys with the Indians in Canada, they
lay on a bed which had never been shaken up since the
creation, unless by earthquakes. It is surprising with
what impunity and comfort one who has always lain in
a warm bed in a close apartment, and studiously avoided
drafts of air, can lie down, on the ground without a shel-
ter, roll himself in a blanket, and sleep before a fire, in
CHESUNCOOK. 107
a frosty, autumn night, just after a long rain-storm, and
even come soon to enjoy and value the fresh air.
I lay awake awhile, watching the ascent of the sparks
through the firs, and sometimes their descent in half-
extinguished cinders on my blanket. They were as
interesting as fireworks, going up in endless, successive
crowds, each after an explosion, in an eager, serpentine
course, some to five or six rods above the tree-tops be-
fore they went out. We do not suspect how much our
chimneys have concealed ; and now air-tight stoves have
come to conceal all the rest. In the course of the night,
I got up once or twice and put fresh logs on the fire,
making my companions curl up their legs.
When we awoke in the morning, (Saturday, Septem-
ber 17,) there was considerable frost whitening the
leaves. We heard the sound of the chicadee, and a
few faintly lisping birds, and also of ducks in the water
about the island. I took a botanical account of stock of
our domains before the dew was off, and found that the
ground-hemlock, or American yew, was the prevailing
under-shrub. We breakfasted on tea, hard bread, and
ducks.
Before the fog had fairly cleared away, we paddled
down the stream again, and were soon past the mouth of
the Moosehorn. These twenty miles of the Penobscot,
between Moosehead and Chesuncook Lakes, are com-
paratively smooth, and a great part dead-water; but
from time to time it is shallow and rapid, with rocks or
gravel-beds, where you can wade across. There is no
expanse of water, and no break in the forest, and the
meadow is a mere edging here and there. There are
110 hills near the river nor within sight, except one or
two distant mountains seen in a few places. The banks
108 THE MAINE WOODS.
are from six to ten feet high, but once or twice rise
gently to higher ground. In many places the forest on
the bank was but a thin strip, letting the light through
from some alder-swamp or meadow behind. The con-
spicuous berry-bearing bushes and trees along the shore
were the red osier, with its whitish fruit, hobble-bush,
mountain-ash, tree-cranberry, choke-cherry, now ripe,
alternate cornel, and naked viburnum. Following Joe's
example, I ate the fruit of the last, and also of the hob-
ble-bush, but found them rather insipid and seedy. I
looked very narrowly at the vegetation, as we glided
along close to the shore, and frequently made Joe turn
aside for me to pluck a plant, that I might see by com-
parison what was primitive about my native river.
Horehound, horsemint, and the sensitive fern grew close
to the edge, under the willows and alders, and wool-
grass on the islands, as along the Assabet River in Con-
cord. It was too late for flowers, except a few asters,
golden-rods, etc. In several places we noticed the slight
frame of a camp, such as we had prepared to set up,
amid the forest by the river-side, where some lumberers
or hunters had passed a night, — and sometimes steps
cut in the muddy or clayey bank in front of it.
We stopped to fish for trout at the mouth of a small
stream called Ragmuff, which came in from the west,
about two miles below the Moosehorn. Here were the
ruins of an old lumbering-camp, and a small space,
which had formerly been cleared and burned over, was
now densely overgrown with the red cherry and rasp-
berries. While we were trying for trout, Joe, Indian-
like, wandered off up the Ragmuff on his own errands,
and when we were ready to start was far beyond call.
So we were compelled to make a fire and get our din-
CHESUNCOOK. 109
ner here, not to lose time. Some dark reddish birds,
with grayer females, (perhaps purple finches,) and myr-
tle-birds in their summer dress, hopped within six or
eight feet of us and our smoke. Perhaps they smelled
the frying pork. The latter bird, or both, made the
lisping notes which I had heard in the forest. They
suggested that the few small birds found in the wilder-
ness are on more familiar terms with the lumberman
and hunter than those of the orchard and clearing with
the farmer. I have since found the Canada jay, and
partridges, both the black and the common, equally
tame there, as if they had not yet learned to mistrust
man entirely. The chicadee, which is at home alike in
the primitive woods and in our wood-lots, still retains its
confidence in the towns to a remarkable degree.
Joe at length returned, after an hour and a half, and
said that he had been two miles up the stream exploring,
and had seen a moose, but, not having the gun, he did
not get him. We made no complaint, but concluded to
look out for Joe the next time. However, this may
have been a mere mistake, for we had no reason to com-
plain of him afterwards. As we continued down the
stream, I was surprised to hear him whistling " O Su-
sanna," and several other such airs, while his paddle
urged us along. Once he said, "Yes, Sir-ee." His
common word was " Sartain." He paddled, as usual, on
one side only, giving the birch an impulse by using the
side as a fulcrum. I asked him how the ribs were fas-
tened to the side rails. He answered, " I don't know, I
never noticed." Talking with him about subsisting
wholly on what the woods yielded, game, fish, berries,
etc., I suggested that his ancestors did so; but he an-
swered, that he had been brought up in such a way that
110 THE MAINE WOODS.
he could not do it. " Yes," said he, " that 's the way
they got a living, like wild fellows, wild as bears. By
George ! I shan't go into the woods without provision,
— hard bread, pork, etc." He had brought on a barrel
of hard bread and stored it at the carry for his hunting.
However, though he was a Governor's son, he had not
learned to read.
At one place below this, on the east side, where the
bank was higher and drier than usual, rising gently from
the shore to a slight elevation, some one had felled the
trees over twenty or thirty acres, and left them drying
in order to burn. This was the only preparation for a
house between the Moosehead carry and Chesuncook,
but there was no hut nor inhabitants there yet. The
pioneer thus selects a site for his house, which will, per-
haps, prove the germ of a town.
My eyes were all the while on the trees, distinguish-
ing between the black and white spruce and the fir.
You paddle along in a narrow canal through an endless
forest, and the vision I have in my mind's eye, still, is
of the small, dark, and sharp tops of tall fir and spruce
trees, and pagoda-like arbor-vitass, crowded together on
each side, with various hard woods, intermixed. Some
of the arbor-vitaes were at least sixty feet high. The
hard woods, occasionally occurring exclusively, were less
wild to my eye. I fancied them ornamental grounds,
with farm-houses in the rear. The canoe and yellow
birch, beech, maple, and elm are Saxon and Norman ;
but the spruce and fir, and pines generally, are Indian.
The soft engravings which adorn the annuals give Jio
idea of a stream in such a wilderness as this. The
rough sketches in Jackson's Reports on the Geology of
Maine answer much better. At one place we saw a
CHESUNCOOK. Ill
small grove of slender sapling white-pines, the only col-
lection of pines that I saw on this voyage. Here and
there, however, was a full-grown, tall, and slender, but
defective one, what lumbermen call a konchus tree,
which they ascertain with their axes, or by the knots.
I did not learn whether this word was Indian or Eng-
lish. It reminded me of the Greek Koyxn, a conch or
shell, and I amused myself with fancying that it might
signify the dead sound which the trees yield when
struck. All the rest of the pines had been driven off.
How far men go for the material of their houses !
The inhabitants of the most civilized cities, in all ages,
send into far, primitive forests, beyond the bounds of
their civilization, where the moose and bear and savage
dwell, for their pine-boards for ordinary use. And; on
the other hand, the savage soon receives from cities, iron
arrow-points, hatchets, and guns, to point his savageness
with.
The solid and well-defined fir-tops, like sharp and
regular spear-heads, black against the sky, gave a pecu-
liar, dark, and sombre look to the forest. The spruce-
tops have a similar, but more ragged outline, — their
shafts also merely feathered below. The firs were
somewhat oftener regular and dense pyramids. I was
struck by this universal spiring upward of the forest
evergreens. The tendency is to slender, spiring tops,
while they are narrower below. Not only the spruce
and fir, but even the arbor-vitas and white-pine, unlike
the soft, spreading second-growth, of which I saw none,
all spire upwards, lifting a dense spear-head of cones to
the light and air, at any rate, while their branches strag-
gle after as they may ; as Indians lift the ball over the
heads of the crowd in their desperate game. In this
112 THE MAINE WOODS.
they resemble grasses, as also palms somewhat. The
hemlock is commonly a tent-like pyramid from the
ground to its summit.
After passing through some long rips, and by a large
island, we reached an interesting part of the river called
the Pine-Stream Dead- Water, about six miles below
Ragmuff, where the river expanded to thirty rods in
width and had many islands in it, with elms and canoe-
birches, now yellowing, along the shore, and we got our
first sight of Ktaadn.
Here, about two o'clock, we turned up a small branch
three or four rods wide, which comes in on the right
from the south, called Pine-Stream, to look for moose
signs. We had gone but a few rods before we saw very
recent signs along the water's edge, the mud lifted up by
their feet being quite fresh, and Joe declared that they
had gone along there but a short time before. We soon
reached a small meadow on the east side, at an angle in
the stream, which was, for the most part, densely cov-
ered with alders. As we were advancing along the edge
of this, rather more quietly than usual, perhaps, on
account of the freshness of the signs, — the design be-
ing to camp up this stream, if it promised well, — I
heard a slight crackling of twigs deep in the alders, and
turned Joe's attention to it ; whereupon he began to push
the canoe back rapidly ; and we had receded thus half a
dozen rods, when we suddenly spied two moose standing
just on the edge of the open part of the meadow which
we had passed, not more than six or seven rods distant,
looking round the alders at us. They made me think
of great frightened rabbits, with their long ears and half-
inquisitive, half-frightened looks; the true denizens of
the forest, (I saw at once,) filling a vacuum which now
CHESUNCOOK. 113
first I discovered had not been filled for me, — moose-
men, wood-eaters, the word is said to mean, — clad in a
sort of Vermont gray, or homespun. Our Nimrod, ow-
ing to the retrograde movement, was now the farthest
from the game ; but being warned of its neighborhood,
he hastily stood up, and, while we ducked, fired over our
heads one barrel at the foremost, which alone he saw,
though he did not know what kind of creature it was ;
whereupon this one dashed across the meadow and up a
high bank on the northeast, so rapidly as to leave but an
indistinct impression of its outlines on my mind. At the
same instant, the other, a young one, but as tall as a
horse, leaped out into the stream, in full sight, and there
stood cowering for a moment, or rather its disproportion-
ate lowness behind gave it that appearance, and uttering
two or three trumpeting squeaks. I have an indistinct
recollection of seeing the old one pause an instant on the
top of the bank in the woods, look toward its shivering
young, and then dash away again. The second barrel
was levelled at the calf, and when we expected to see it
drop in the water, after a little hesitation, it, too, got out
of the water, and dashed up the hill, though in a some-
what different direction. All this was the work of a few
seconds, and our hunter, having never seen a moose be-
fore, did not know but they were deer, for they stood
partly in the water, nor whether he had fired at the same
one twice or not. From the style in which they went
off, and the fact that he was not used to standing up and
firing from a canoe, I judged that we should not see
anything more of them. The Indian said that they
were a cow and her calf, — a yearling, or perhaps two
years old, for they accompany their dams so long ; but,
for my part, I had not noticed much difference in their
114 THE MAINE WOODS.
size. It was but two or three rods across the meadow
to the foot of the bank, which, like all the world there-
abouts, was densely wooded ; but I was surprised to
notice, that, as soon as the moose had passed behind the
veil of the woods, there was no sound of footsteps to be
heard from the soft, damp moss which carpets that for-
est, and long before we landed, perfect silence reigned.
Joe said, " If you wound 'em moose, me sure get 'em."
We all landed at once. My companion reloaded ; the
Indian fastened his birch, threw off his hat, adjusted his
waistband, seized the hatchet, and set out. He told me
afterward, casually, that before we landed he had seen a
drop of blood on the bank, when it was two or three
rods off. He proceeded rapidly up the bank and through
the woods, with a peculiar, elastic, noiseless, and stealthy
tread, looking to right and left on the ground, and step-
ping in the faint tracks of the wounded moose, now
and then pointing in silence to a single drop of blood on
the handsome, shining leaves of the Clintonia Borealis,
which, on every side, covered the ground, or to a dry
fern-stem freshly broken, all the while chewing some
leaf or else the spruce gum. I followed, watching his
motions more than the trail of the moose. After follow-
ing the trail about forty rods in a pretty direct course,
stepping over fallen trees and winding between standing
ones, he at length lost it, for there were many other
moose-tracks there, and, returning once more to the last
blood-stain, traced it a little way and lost it again, and,
too soon, I thought, for a good hunter, gave it up en-
tirely. He traced a few steps, also, the tracks of the
calf; but, seeing no blood, soon relinquished the search.
I observed, while he was tracking the moose, a cer-
tain reticence or moderation in him. He^did not com-
CHESUNCOOK. 115
municate several observations of interest which he
made, as a white man would have done, though they
may have leaked out afterward. At another time, when
we heard a slight crackling of twigs and he landed to
reconnoitre, he stepped lightly and gracefully, stealing
through the bushes with the least possible noise, in a
way in which no white man does, — as it were, finding
a place for his foot each time.
About half an hour after seeing the moose, we pur-
sued our voyage up Pine-Stream, and soon, coming to a
part which was very shoal and also rapid, we took out
the baggage, and proceeded to carry it round, while Joe
got up with the canoe alone. We were just completing
our portage and I was absorbed in the plants, admiring
the leaves of the aster macrophyllus, ten inches wide,
and plucking the seeds of the great round-leaved orchis,
when Joe exclaimed from the stream that he had killed
a moose. He had found the cow-moose lying dead, but
quite warm, in the middle of the stream, which was so
shallow that it rested on the bottom, with hardly a third
of its body above water. It was about an hour after it
was shot, and it was swollen with water. It had run
about a hundred rods and sought the stream again, cut-
ting off a slight bend. No doubt, a better hunter would
have tracked it to this spot at once. I was surprised at
its great size, horse-like, but Joe said it was not a large
cow-moose. My companion went in search of the calf
again. I took hold of the ears of the moose, while Joe
pushed his canoe down stream toward a favorable shore,
and so we made out, though with some difficulty, its long
nose frequently sticking in the bottom, to drag it into
still shallower water. It was a brownish black, or per-
haps a dark iron-gray, on the back and sides, but lighter
116 THE MAINE WOODS.
beneath and in front. I took the cord which served for
the canoe's painter, and with Joe's assistance measured
it carefully, the greatest distances first, making a knot
each time. The painter being wanted, I reduced these
measures that night with equal care to lengths and frac-
tions of my umbrella, beginning with the smallest meas-
ures, and untying the knots as I proceeded ; and when
we arrived at Chesuncook the next day, finding a two-
foot rule there, I reduced the last to feet and inches;
and, moreover, I made myself a two-foot rule of a thin
and narrow strip of black ash which would fold up
conveniently to six inches. All this pains I took be-
cause I did not wish to be obliged to say merely that
the moose was very large. Of the various dimensions
which I obtained I will mention only two. The dis-
tance from the tips of the hoofs of the fore-feet, stretched
out, to the top of the back between the shoulders, was
seven feet and five inches. I can hardly believe my
own measure, for this is about two feet greater than the
height of a tall horse. [Indeed, I am now satisfied that
this measurement was incorrect, but the other measures
given here I can warrant to be correct, having proved
them in a more recent visit to those woods.] The ex-
treme length was eight feet and two inches. Another
cow-moose, which I have since measured in those woods
with a tape, was just six feet from the tip of 'the hoof
to the shoulders, and eight feet long as she lay.
When afterward I asked an Indian at the carry how
much taller the male was, he answered, " Eighteen
inches," and made me observe the height of a cross-stake
over the fire, more than four feet from the ground, to
give me some idea of the depth of his chest. Another
Indian, at Oldtown, told me that they were nine feet
CHESUNCOOK. 117
high to the top of the back, and that one which he
tried weighed eight hundred pounds. The length of
the spinal projections between the shoulders is very
great. A white hunter, who was the best authority
among hunters that I could have, told me that the
male was not eighteen inches taller than the female ;
yet he agreed that he was sometimes nine feet high to
the top of the back, and weighed a thousand pounds.
Only the male has horns, and they rise two feet or
more above the shoulders, — spreading three or four,
and sometimes six feet, — which would make him in
all, sometimes, eleven feet high ! According to this cal-
culation, the moose is as tall, though it may not be as
large, as the great Irish elk, Megaceros Hibernicus, of
a former period, of which Mantell says that it " very
far exceeded in magnitude any living species, the skele-
ton " being " upward of ten feet high from the ground
to the highest point of the antlers." Joe said, that,
though the moose shed the whole horn annually, each
new horn has an additional prong ; but I have noticed
that they sometimes have more prongs on one side
than on the other. I was struck with the delicacy and
tenderness of the hoofs, which divide very far up, and
the one half could be pressed very much behind the
other, thus probably making the animal surer-footed on
the uneven ground and slippery moss-covered logs of
the primitive forest. They were very unlike the stiff
and battered feet of our horses and oxen. The bare,
horny part of the fore-foot was just six inches long,
and the two portions could be separated four inches at
the extremities.
The moose is singularly grotesque and awkward to
look at. Why should it stand so high at the shoulders ?
118 THE MAINE WOODS.
Why have so long a head ? Why have no tail to speak
of? for in my examination I overlooked it entirely.
Naturalists say it is an inch and a half long. It re-
minded me at once of the camelopard, high before and
low behind, — and no wonder, for, like it, it is fitted to
browse on trees. The upper lip projected two inches
beyond the lower for this purpose. This was the kind
of man that was at home there ; for, as near as I can
learn, that has never been the residence, but rather
the hunting-ground of the Indian. The moose will
perhaps, one day become extinct ; but how naturally
then, when it exists only as a fossil relic, and unseen
as that, may the poet or sculptor invent a fabulous
animal with similar branching and leafy horns, — a sort
of fucus or lichen in bone, — to be the inhabitant of
such a forest as this !
Here, just at the head of the murmuring rapids, Joe
now proceeded to skin the moose with a pocket-knife,
"while I looked on; and a tragical business it was, — to
see that still warm and palpitating body pierced with
a knife, to see the warm milk stream from the rent
udder, and the ghastly naked red carcass appearing
from within its seemly robe, which was made to hide
it. The ball had passed through the shoulder-blade
diagonally and lodged under the skin on the opposite
side, and was partially flattened. My companion keeps
it to show to his grandchildren. He has the shanks of
another moose which he has since shot, skinned and
stuffed, ready to be made into boots by putting in a thick
leather sole. Joe said, if a moose stood fronting you,
you must not fire, but advance toward him, for he will
turn slowly and give you a fair shot. In the bed of
this narrow, wild, and rocky stream, between two lofty
CHESUNCOOK. 119
walls of spruce and firs, a mere cleft in the forest which
the stream had made, this work went on. At length
Joe had stripped off the hide and dragged it trailing to
the shore, declaring that it weighed a hundred pounds,
though probably fifty would have been nearer the truth.
He cut off a large mass of the meat to carry along, and
another, together with the tongue and nose, he put with
the hide on the shore to lie there all night, or till we
returned. I was surprised that he thought of leaving
this meat thus exposed by the side of the carcass, as
the simplest course, not fearing that any creature would
touch it; but nothing did. This could hardly have
happened on the bank of one of our rivers in the east-
ern part of Massachusetts; but I suspect that fewer
small wild animals are prowling there than with us.
Twice, however, in this excursion I had a glimpse of a
species of large mouse.
This stream was so withdrawn, and the moose-tracks
were so fresh, that my companions, still bent on hunt-
ing, concluded to go farther up it and camp, and then
hunt up or down at night. Half a mile above this, at
a place where I saw the aster puniceus and the beaked
hazel, as we paddled along, Joe, hearing a slight rustling
amid the alders, and seeing something black about two
rods off, jumped up and whispered, " Bear ! " but before
the hunter had discharged his piece, he corrected him-
self to " Beaver ! " — « Hedgehog ! " The bullet killed
a large hedgehog more than two feet and eight inches
long. The quills were rayed out and flattened on the
hinder part of its back, even as if it had lain on that
part, but were erect and long between this and the tail.
Their points, closely examined, were seen to be finely
bearded or barbed, and shaped like an awl, that is, a
120 THE MAINE WOODS.
little concave, to give the barbs effect. After about a
mile of still water, we prepared our camp on the right
side, just at the foot of a considerable fall. Little chop-
ping was done that night, for fear of scaring the moose.
We had moose-meat fried for supper. It tasted like
tender beef, with perhaps more flavor, — sometimes like
veal.
After supper, the moon having risen, we proceeded to
hunt a mile up this stream, first " carrying " about the
falls. We made a picturesque sight, wending single-file
along the shore, climbing over rocks and logs, — Joe,
who brought up the rear, twirling his canoe in his hands
as if it were a feather, in places where it was difficult
to get along without a burden. We launched the canoe
again from the ledge over which the stream fell, but
after half a mile of still water, suitable for hunting, it
became rapid again, and we were compelled to make
our way along the shore, while Joe endeavored to get
up in the birch alone, though it was still very difficult
for him to pick his way amid the rocks in the night.
We on the shore found the worst of walking, a perfect
chaos of fallen and drifted trees, and of bushes project-
ing far over the water, and now and then we made our
way across the mouth of a small tributary on a kind
of net-work of alders. So we went tumbling on in
the dark, being on the shady side, effectually scaring
all the moose and bears that might be thereabouts.
At length we came to a standstill, and Joe went forward
to reconnoitre ; but he reported that it was still a con-
tinuous rapid as far as he went, or half a mile, with
no prospect of improvement, as if it were coming down
from a mountain. So we turned about, hunting back
to the camp through the still water. It was a splendid
CHESUNCOOK. 121
moonlight night, and I, getting sleepy as it grew late, —
for I had nothing to do, — found it difficult to realize
where I was. This stream was much more unfre-
quented than the main one, lumbering operations being
no longer carried on in this quarter. It was only three
or four rods wide, but the firs and spruce through which
it trickled seemed yet taller by contrast. Being in this
dreamy state, which the moonlight enhanced, I did not
clearly discern the shore, but seemed, most of the time,
to be floating through ornamental grounds, — for I as-
sociated the fir-tops with such scenes ; — very high up
some Broadway, and beneath or between their tops,
I thought I saw an endless succession of porticos and
columns, cornices and fayades, verandas and churches.
I did not merely fancy this, but in my drowsy state
such was the illusion. I fairly lost myself in sleep
several times, still dreaming of that architecture and
the nobility that dwelt behind and might issue from it ;
but all at once I would be aroused and brought back
to a sense of my actual position by the sound of Joe's
birch horn in the midst of all this silence calling the
moose, ugh, ugh, oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo, and I prepared to
hear a furious moose come rushing and crashing through
the forest, and see him burst out on to the little strip of
meadow by our side.
But, on more accounts than one, I had had enough
of moose-hunting. I had not come to the woods for
this purpose, nor had I foreseen it, though I had been
willing to learn how the Indian manceuvred; but one
moose killed was as good, if not as bad, as a dozen.
The afternoon's tragedy, and my share in it, as it af-
fected the innocence, destroyed the pleasure of my ad-
venture. It is true, I came as near as is possible to
or THE
122 THE MAINE WOODS.
come to being a hunter and miss it, myself; and as it
is, I think that I could spend a year in the woods, fish-
ing and hunting, just enough to sustain myself, with
satisfaction. This would be next to living like a phi-
losopher on the fruits of the earth which you had raised,
which also attracts me. But this hunting of the moose
merely for the satisfaction of killing him, — not even
for the sake of his hide, — without making any extraor-
dinary exertion or running any risk yourself, is too
much like going out by night to some wood-side pasture
and shooting your neighbor's horses. These are God's
own horses, poor, timid creatures, that will run fast
enough as soon as they smell you, though they are nine
feet high. Joe told us of some hunters who a year or
two before had shot down several oxen by night, some-
where in the Maine woods, mistaking them for moose.
And so might any of the hunters ; and what is the dif-
ference in the sport, but the name ? In the former case,
having killed one of God's and your own oxen, you strip
off its hide, — because that is the common trophy, and,
moreover, you have heard that it may be sold for moc-
casins, — cut a steak from its haunches, and leave the
huge carcass to smell to heaven for you. It is no better,
at least, than to assist at a slaughter-house.
This afternoon's experience suggested to me how base
or coarse are the motives which commonly carry men
into the wilderness. The explorers and lumberers gen-
erally are all hirelings, paid so much a day for their
labor, and as such they have no more love for wild
nature than wood-sawyers have for forests. Other white
men and Indians who come Jjere are for the most part
hunters, whose object is to slay as many moose and
other wild animals as possible. But, pray, could not
CHESUNCOOK. 123
one spend some weeks or years in the solitude of this
vast wilderness with other employments than these, —
employments perfectly sweet and innocent and enno-
bling ? For one that comes with a pencil to sketch or
sing, a thousand come with an axe or rifle. What a
coarse and imperfect use Indians and hunters make of
Nature ! No wonder that their race is so soon exter-
minated. I already, and for weeks afterward, felt my
nature the coarser for this part of my woodland ex-
perience, and was reminded that our life should be
lived as tenderly and daintily as one would pluck a
flower.
With these thoughts, when we reached our camping-
ground, I decided to leave my companions to continue
moose-hunting down the stream, while I prepared $he
camp, though they requested me not to chop much nor
make a large fire, for fear I should scare their game.
In the midst of the damp fir-wood, high on the mossy
bank, about nine o'clock of this bright moonlight night,
I kindled a fire, when they were gone, and, sitting on
the fir-twigs, within sound of the falls, examined by its
light the botanical specimens which I had collected that
afternoon, and wrote down some of the reflections which
I have here expanded ; or I walked along the shore and
gazed up the stream, where the whole space above the
falls was filled with mellow light. As I sat before the
fire on my fir-twig seat, without walls above or around
me, I remembered how far on every hand that wilder-
ness stretched, before you came to cleared or cultivated
fields, and wondered if any bear or moose was watching
the light of my fire ; for Nature looked sternly upon me
on account of the murder of the moose.
Strange that so few ever come to the woods to see
124 THE MAINE WOODS.
how the pine lives and grows and spires, lifting its ever-
green arms to the light, — to see its perfect success ; but
most are content to behold it in the shape of many
broad boards brought to market, and deem that its true
success ! But the pine is no more lumber than man is,
and to be made into boards and houses is no more its
true and highest use than the truest use of a man is to
be cut down and made into manure. There is a higher
law affecting our relation to pines as well as to men. A
pine cut down, a dead pine, is no more a pine than a
dead human carcass is a man. Can he who has discov-
ered only some of the values of whalebone and whale
oil be said to have discovered the true use of the whale ?
Can he who slays the elephant for his ivory be said to
have "seen the elephant"? These are petty and acci-
dental uses ; just as if a stronger race were to kill us in
order to make buttons and flageolets of our bones ; for
everything may serve a lower as well as a higher use.
Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose
and pine-trees, and he who understands it aright will
rather preserve its life than destroy it.
Is it the lumberman, then, who is the friend and lover
of the pine, stands nearest to it, and understands its
nature best ? Is it the tanner who has barked it, or he
who has boxed it for turpentine, whom posterity will
fable to have been changed into a pine at last ? No !
no ! it is the poet; he it is who makes the truest use of ,
the pine, — who does not fondle it with an axe, nor
tickle it with a saw, nor stroke it with a plane, — who
knows whether its heart is false without cutting into it,
— who has not bought the stumpage of the township on
which it stands. All the pines shudder and heave a sigh
when that man steps on the forest floor. No, it is the
CHESUNCOOK. 125
poet, who loves them as his own shadow in the air, and
lets them stand. I have been into the lumber-yard, and
the carpenter's shop, and the tannery, and the lampblack-
factory, and the turpentine clearing ; but when at length
I saw the tops of the pines waving and reflecting the
light at a distance high over all the rest of the forest, I
realized that the former were not the highest use of the
pine. It is not their bones or hide or tallow that I love
most. It is the living spirit of the tree, not its spirit of
turpentine, with which I sympathize, and which heals
my cuts. It is as immortal as I am, and perchance will
go to as high a heaven, there to tower above me still.
Erelong, the hunters returned, not having seen a
moose, but, in consequence of my suggestions, bringing
a quarter of the dead one, which, with ourselves, made
quite a load for the canoe.
After breakfasting on moose-meat, we returned down
Pine Stream on our way to Chesuncook Lake, which
was about five miles distant. We could see the red car-
cass of the moose lying in Pine Stream when nearly
half a mile off. Just below the mouth of this stream
were the most considerable rapids between the two
lakes, called Pine-Stream Falls, where were large flat
rocks washed smooth, and at this time you could easily
wade across above them. Joe ran down alone while we
walked over the portage, my companion collecting spruce
gum for his friends at home, and I looking for flowers.
Near the lake, which we were approaching with as much
expectation as if it had been a university, — for it is not
often that the stream of our life opens into such expan-
sions,— were islands, and a low and meadowy shore
with scattered trees, birches, white and yellow, slanted
over the water, and maples, — many of the white birches
126 THE MAINE WOODS.
killed, apparently by inundations. There was consider-
able native grass ; and even a few cattle — whose move-
ments we heard, though we did not see them, mistaking
them at first for moose — were pastured there.
On entering the lake, where the stream runs south-
easterly, and for some time before, we had a view of the
mountains about Ktaadn, (Katahdinauquoh one says
they are called,) like a cluster of blue fungi of rank
growth, apparently twenty-five or thirty miles distant, in
a southeast direction, their summits concealed by clouds.
Joe called some of them the Souadneunk mountains.
This is the name of a stream there, which another In-
dian told us meant "Running between mountains."
Though some lower summits were afterward uncovered,
we got no more complete view of Ktaadn while we were
in the woods. The clearing to which we were bound
was on the right of the mouth of the river, and was
reached by going round a low point, where the water
was shallow to a great distance from the shore. Che-
suncook Lake extends northwest and southeast, and is
called eighteen miles long and three wide, without an
island. "We had entered the northwest corner of it, and
when near the shore could see only part way down it.
The principal mountains visible from the land here were
those already mentioned, between southeast and east,
and a few summits a little west of north, but generally
the north and northwest horizon about the St. John and
the British boundary was comparatively level.
Ansell Smith's, the oldest and principal clearing about
this lake, appeared to be quite a harbor for bateaux and
canoes ; seven or eight of the former were lying about,
and there was a small scow for hay, and a capstan on a
platform, now high and dry, ready to be floated and an-
CHESUNCOOK. 127
chored to tow rafts with. It was a very primitive kind
of harbor, where boats were drawn up amid the stumps,
— such a one, methought, as the Argo might have been
launched in. There were five other huts with small
clearings on the opposite side of the lake, all at this end
and visible from this point. One of the Smiths told me
that it was so far cleared that they came here to live
and built the present house four years before, though
the family had been here but a few months.
I was interested to see how a pioneer lived on this
side of the country. His life is in some respects more
adventurous than that of his brother in the West; for
he contends with winter as well as the wilderness, and
there is a greater interval of time at least between him
and the army which is to follow. Here immigration is a
tide which may ebb when it has swept away the pines ;
there it is not a tide, but an inundation, and roads and
other improvements come steadily rushing after.
As we approached the log-house, a dozen rods from
the lake, and considerably elevated above it, the project-
ing ends of the logs lapping over each other irregularly
several feet at the corners gave it a very rich and pictu-
resque look, far removed from the meanness of weather-
boards. It was a very spacious, low building, about
eighty feet long, with many large apartments. The walls
were well clayed between the logs, which were large and
round, except on the upper and under sides, and as vis-
ible inside as out, successive bulging cheeks gradually
lessening upwards and tuned to each other with the axe,
like Pandean pipes. Probably the musical forest-gods had
not yet cast them aside ; they never do till they are split
or the bark is gone. It was a style of architecture not
described by Vitruvius, I suspect, though possibly hinted
128 THE MAINE WOODS.
at in the biography of Orpheus ; none of your frilled
or fluted columns, which have cut such a false swell,
and support nothing but a gable end and their builder's
pretensions, — that is, with the multitude; and as for
"ornamentation," one of those words with a dead tail
which architects very properly use to describe their flour-
ishes, there were the lichens and mosses and fringes of
bark, which nobody troubled himself about. We cer-
tainly leave the handsomest paint and clapboards be-
hind in the woods, when we strip off the bark and poison
ourselves with white-lead in the towns. We get but
half the spoils of the forest. For beauty, give me trees
with the fur on. This house was designed and con-
structed with the freedom of stroke of a forester's axe,
without other compass and square than Nature uses.
Wherever the logs were cut off by a window or door,
that is,, were not kept in place by alternate overlapping,
they were held one upon another by very large pins,
driven in diagonally on each side, where branches might
have been, and then cut off so close up and down as not
to project beyond the bulge of the log, as if the logs
clasped each other in their arms. These logs were posts,
studs, boards, clapboards, laths, plaster, and nails, all in
one. Where the citizen uses a mere sliver or board, the
pioneer uses the whole trunk of a tree. The house had
large stone chimneys, and was roofed with spruce-bark.
The windows were imported, all but the casings. One
end was a regular logger's camp, for the boarders, with
the usual fir floor and log benches. Thus this house was
but a slight departure from the hollow tree, which the
bear still inhabits, — being a hollow made with trees
piled up, with a coating of bark like its original.
The cellar was a separate building, like an ice-house,
CHESUNCOOK. 129
and it answered for a refrigerator at this season, our
moose-meat being kept there. It was a potato-hole with
a permanent roof. Each structure and institution here
was so primitive that you could at once refer it to its
source ; but our buildings commonly suggest neither their
origin nor their purpose. There was a large, and what
farmers would call handsome, barn, part of whose boards
had been sawed by a whip-saw ; and the saw-pit, with its
great pile of dust, remained before the house. The long
split shingles on a portion of the barn were laid a foot
to the weather, suggesting what kind of weather they
have there. Grant's barn at Caribou Lake was said to
be still larger, the biggest ox-nest in the woods, fifty feet
by a hundred. Think of a monster barn in that primi-
tive forest lifting its gray back above the tree-tops !
Man makes very much such a nest for his domestic ani-
mals, of withered grass and fodder, as the squirrels and
many other wild creatures do for themselves.
There was also a blacksmith's shop, where plainly a
good deal of work was done. The oxen and horses used
in lumbering operations were shod, and all the iron-work
of sleds, etc., was repaired or made here. I saw them
load a bateau at the Moosehead carry, the next Tuesday,
with about thirteen hundred weight of bar iron for this
shop. This reminded me how primitive and honorable
a trade was Vulcan's. I do not hear that there was any
carpenter or tailor among the gods. The smith seems to
have preceded these and every other mechanic at Che-
suncook as well as on Olympus, and his family is the
most widely dispersed, whether he be christened John or
Ansell.
Smith owned two miles down the lake by half a mile
in width. There were about one hundred acres cleared
6* I
130 THE MAINE WOODS.
here. He cut seventy tons of English hay this year on
this ground, and twenty more on another clearing, and
he uses it all himself in lumbering operations. The barn
was crowded with pressed hay and a machine to press it.
There was a large garden full of roots, turnips, beets, car-
rots, potatoes, etc., all of great size. They said that they
were worth as much here as in New York. I suggested
some currants for sauce, especially as they had no apple-
trees set out, and showed how easily they could be ob-
tained.
There was the usual long-handled axe of the primitive
woods by the door, three and a half feet long, — for my
new black-ash rule was in constant use, — and a large,
shaggy dog, whose nose, report said, was full of porcu-
pine quills. I can testify that he looked very sober.
This is the usual fortune of pioneer dogs, for they have
to face the brunt of the battle for their race, and act the
part of Arnold Winkelried without intending it. If he
should invite one of his town friends up this way, sug-
gesting moose-meat and unlimited freedom, the latter
might pertinently inquire, " What is that sticking in your
nose ? " When a generation or two have used up all the
enemies' darts, their successors lead a comparatively easy
life. We owe to our fathers analogous blessings. Many
old people receive pensions for no other reason, it seems
to me, but as a compensation for having lived a long
time ago. No doubt our town dogs still talk, in a snuf-
fling way, about the days that tried dogs' noses. How
they got a cfct up there I do not know, for they are as
shy as my aunt about entering a canoe. I wondered
that she did not run up a tree on the way ;, but perhaps
she was bewildered by the very crowd of opportunities.
Twenty or thirty lumberers, Yankee and Canadian,
CHESUNCOOK. _ 131
were coming and going, — Aleck among the rest, — and
from time to time an Indian touched here. In the win-
ter there are sometimes a hundred men lodged here at
once. The most interesting piece of news that circulated
among them . appeared to be, that four horses belonging
to Smith, worth seven hundred dollars, had passed by
farther into the woods a week before.
The white-pine-tree was at the bottom or farther end
of all this. It is a war against the pines, the only real
Aroostook or Penobscot war. I have no doubt that they
lived pretty much the same sort of life in the Homeric
age, for men have always thought more of eating than
of fighting ; then, as now, their minds ran chiefly on the
" hot bread and sweet cakes " ; and the fur and lumber
trade is an old story to Asia and Europe. I doubt if
men ever made a trade of heroism. In the days of
Achilles, even, they delighted in big barns, and perchance
in pressed hay, and he who possessed the most valuable
team was the best fellow.
We had designed to go on at evening up the Caucom-
gomoc, whose mouth was a mile or two distant, to the
lake of the same name, about ten miles off; but some
Indians of Joe's acquaintance, who were making canoes
on the Caucomgomoc, came over from that side, and gave
so poor an account of the moose-hunting, so many had
been killed there lately, that my companions concluded
not to go there. Joe spent this Sunday and the night
with his acquaintances. The lumberers told me that
there were many moose hereabouts, but no caribou or
deer. A man from Oldtown had killed ten or twelve
moose, within a year, so near the house that they heard
all his guns. His name may have been Hercules, for
aught I know, though I should rather have expected to
132 THE MAINE WOODS.
hear the rattling of his club ; but, no doubt, he keeps
pace with the improvements of the age, and uses a
Sharpe's rifle now ; probably he gets all his armor made
and repaired at Smith's shop. One moose had been
killed and another shot at within sight of the house
within two years. I do not know whether Smith has yet
got a poet to look after the cattle, which, on account of
the early breaking up of the ice, are compelled to sum-
mer in the woods, but I would suggest this office to such
of my acquaintances as love to write verses and go a-
gunning.
After a dinner, at which apple-sauce was the greatest
luxury to me, but our moose-meat was oftenest called for
by the lumberers, I walked across the clearing into the
forest, southward, returning along the shore. For my
dessert, I helped myself to a large slice of the Chesun-
cook woods, and took a hearty draught of its waters with
all my senses. The woods were as fresh and full of
vegetable life as a lichen in wet weather, and contained
many interesting plants ; but unless they are of white
pine, they are treated with as little respect here as a
mildew, and in the other case they are only the more
quickly cut down. The shore was of coarse, flat, slate
rocks, often in slabs, with the surf beating on it. The
rocks and bleached drift-logs, extending some way into
the shaggy woods, showed a rise and fall of six or eight
feet, caused partly by the dam at the outlet. They said
that in winter the snow was three feet deep on a level
here, and sometimes four or five, — that the ice on the
lake was two feet thick, clear, and four feet including
the snow-ice. Ice had already formed in vessels.
We lodged here this Sunday night in a comfortable
bedroom, apparently the best one ; and all that I noticed
CHESUNCOOK. 133
unusual in the night — for I still kept taking notes, like
a spy in the camp — was the creaking of the thin split
boards, when any of our neighbors stirred.
Such were the first rude beginnings of a town. They
spoke of the practicability of a winter-road to the Moose-
head carry, which would not cost much, and would con-
nect them with steam and staging and all the busy world.
I almost doubted if the lake would be there, — the self-
same lake, — preserve its form and identity, when the
shores should be cleared and settled ; as if these lakes
and streams which explorers report never awaited the
advent of the citizen.
The sight of one of these frontier-houses, built of these
great logs, whose inhabitants have unflinchingly main-
tained their ground many summers and winters in the
wilderness, reminds me of famous forts, like Ticonderoga
or Crown Point, which have sustained memorable sieges.
They are especially winter-quarters, and at this season*
this one had a partially deserted look, as if the siege were
raised a little, the snow-banks being melted from before
it, and its garrison accordingly reduced. I think of their
daily food as rations, — it is called " supplies " ; a Bible
and a great-coat are munitions of war, and a single man
seen about the premises is a sentinel on duty. You
expect that he will require the countersign, and will per-
chance take you for Ethan Allen, come to demand the
surrender of his fort in the name of the Continental Con-
gress. It is a sort of ranger service. Arnold's expedi-
tion is a daily experience with these settlers. They can
prove that they were out at almost any time ; and I think
that all the first generation of them deserve a pension
more than any that went to the Mexican war.
Early the next morning we started on our return up
134 THE MAINE WOODS.
the Penobscot, my companion wishing to go about twen-
ty-five miles above the Moosehead carry to a camp near
the junction of the two forks, and look for moose there.
Our host allowed us something for the quarter of the
moose which we had brought, and which he was glad
to get. Two explorers from Chamberlain Lake started
at the same time that we did. Red-flannel shirts should
be worn in the woods, if only for the fine contrast which
this color makes with the evergreens and the water.
Thus I thought when I saw the forms of the explorers
in their birch, poling up the rapids before us, far off
against the forest. It is the surveyor's color also, most
distinctly seen under all circumstances. We stopped
to dine at Ragmuff, as before. My companion it was
who wandered up the stream to look for moose this
time, while Joe went to sleep on the bank, so that we
felt sure of him; and I improved the opportunity to
botanize and bathe. Soon after starting again, while
Joe was gone back in .the canoe for the frying-pan,
which had been left, we picked a couple of quarts of
tree-cranberries for a sauce.
I was surprised by Joe's asking me how far it was
to the Moosehorn. He was pretty well acquainted with
this stream, but he had noticed that I was curious about
distances, and had several maps. He, and Indians
generally, with whom I have talked, are not able to
describe dimensions or distances in our measures with
any accuracy. He could tell perhaps, at what time we
should arrive, but not how far it was. We saw a few
wood-ducks, sheldrakes, and black ducks, but they were
not so numerous there at that season as on our river
at home. We scared the same family of wood-ducks
before us, going and returning. We also heard the
CHESUNCOOK. 135
note of one fish-hawk, somewhat like that of a pigeon-
woodpecker, and soon after saw him perched near the
top of a dead white-pine against the island where we
had first camped, while a company of peetweets were
twittering and teetering about over the carcass of a
moose on a low sandy spit just beneath. We drove the
fish-hawk from perch to perch, each time eliciting a
scream or whistle, for many miles before us. Our
course being up-stream, we were obliged to work much
harder than before, and had frequent use for a pole.
Sometimes all three of us paddled together, standing
up, small and heavily laden as the canoe was. About
six miles from Moosehead^ we began to see the moun-
tains east of the north end of the lake, and at four
o'clock we reached the carry.
The Indians were still encamped here. There were
three, including the St. Francis Indian who had come
in the steamer with us. One of the others was called
Sabattis. Joe and the St. Francis Indian were plainly
clear Indian, the other two apparently mixed Indian and
white ; but the difference was confined to their features
and complexions, for all that I could see. We here
cooked the tongue of the moose for supper, — having
left the nose, which is esteemed the choicest part, at
Chesuncook, boiling, it being a good deal of trouble to
prepare it. We also stewed our tree-cranberries, ( Vi-
burnum opulus,) sweetening them with sugar. The
lumberers sometimes cook them with molasses. They
were used in Arnold's expedition. This sauce was very
grateful to us who had been confined to hard bread,
pork, and moose-meat, and, notwithstanding their seeds,
we all three pronounced them equal to the common
cranberry; but perhaps some allowance is to be made
136 THE MAINE WOODS.
for our forest appetites. It would be worth the while
to cultivate them, both for beauty and for food. I
afterward saw them in a garden in Bangor. Joe said
that they were called ebeemenar.
While we were getting supper, Joe commenced curing
the moose-hide, on which I had sat a good part of the
voyage, he having already cut most of the hair off with
his knife at the Caucomgomoc. He set up two stout
forked poles on the bank, seven or eight feet high, and
as much asunder east and west, and having cut slits
eight or ten inches long, and the same distance apart,
close to the edge, on the sides of the hide, he threaded
poles through them, and then, placing one of the poles
on the forked stakes, tied the other down tightly at the
bottom. The two ends also were tied with cedar-bark,
their usual string, to the upright poles, through small
holes at short intervals. The hide, thus stretched, and
slanted a little to the north, to expose its flesh side to
the sun, measured, in the extreme, eight feet long by
six high. Where any flesh still adhered, Joe boldly
scored it with his l^nife to lay it open to the sun. It
now appeared somewhat spotted and injured by the duck
shot. You may see the old frames on which hides have
been stretched at many camping-places in these woods.
For some reason or other, the going to the forks of
the Penobscot was given up, and we decided to stop
here, my companion intending to hunt down the stream
at night. The Indians invited us to lodge with them,
but my companion inclined to go to the log-camp on
the carry. This camp was close and dirty, and had an
ill smell, and I preferred to accept the Indians' offer,
if we did not make a camp for ourselves ; for, though
they were dirty, too, they were more in the open air,
CHESUNCOOK. 137
and were much more agreeable, and even refined com-
pany, than the lumberers. The most interesting ques-
tion entertained at the lumberers' camp was, which man
could "handle" any other on the carry; and, for the
most part, they possessed no qualities which you could
not lay hands on. So we went to the Indians' camp or
wigwam.
It was rather windy, and therefore Joe concluded to
hunt after midnight, if the wind went down, which the
other Indians thought it would not do, because it was
from the south. The two mixed-bloods, however, went
off up the river for moose at dark, before we arrived
at their camp. This Indian camp was a slight, patched-
up affair, which had stood there several weeks, built
shed-fashion, open to the fire on the west. If the wind
changed, they could turn it round. It was formed by
two forked stakes and a cross-bar, with rafters slanted
from this to the ground. The covering was partly an
old sail, partly birch-bark, quite imperfect, but securely
tied on, and coming down to the ground on the sides.
A large log was rolled up at the back side for a head-
board, and two or three moose-hides were spread on
the ground with the hair up. Various articles of their
wardrobe were tucked around the sides and corners, or
under the roof. They were smoking moose-meat on just
such a crate as is represented by With, in De Bry's
" Collectio Peregrinationum," published in 1588, and
which the natives of Brazil called boucan, (whence buc-
caneer,) on which were frequently shown pieces of
human flesh drying along with the rest. It was erected
in front of the camp over the usual large fire, in the
form of an oblong square. Two stout forked stakes,
four or five feet apart and five feet high, were driven
138 THE MAINE WOODS.
into the ground at each end, and then two poles ten feet
long were stretched across over the 'fire, and smaller
ones laid transversely on these a foot apart. On the
last hung large, thin slices of moose-meat smoking and
drying, a space being left open over the centre of the
fire. There was the whole heart, black as a thirty-two
pound ball, hanging at one corner. They said, that it
took three or four days to cure this meat, and it would
keep a year or more. Refuse pieces lay about on the
ground in different stages of decay, and some pieces
also in the fire, half buried and sizzling in the ashes,
as black and dirty as an old shoe. These last I at first
thought were thrown away, but afterwards found that
they were being cooked. Also a tremendous rib-piece
was roasting before the fire, being impaled on an upright
stake forced in and out between the ribs. There was a
moose-hide stretched and curing on poles like ours, and
quite a pile of cured skins close by. They had killed
twenty-two moose within two months, but, as they could
use but very little of the meat, they left the carcasses
on the ground. Altogether it was about as savage a
sight as was ever witnessed, and I was carried back at
once three hundred years. There were many torches
of birch-bark, shaped like straight tin horns, lying ready
for use on a stump outside.
For fear of dirt, we spread our blankets over their
hides, so as not to touch them anywhere. The St. Fran-
cis Indian and Joe alone were there at first, and we lay
on our backs talking with them till midnight. They
were very sociable, and, when they did not talk with us,
kept up a steady chatting in their own language. We
heard a small bird just after dark, which, Joe said, sang
at a certain hour in the night, — at ten o'clock, he
CHESUNCOOK. 139
believed. We also heard the hylodes and tree-toads,
and the lumberers singing in their camp a quarter of a
mile off. I told them that I had seen pictured in old
books pieces of human flesh drying on these crates;
whereupon they repeated some tradition about the Mo-
hawks eating human flesh, what parts they preferred,
etc., and also of a battle with the Mohawks near Moose-
head, in which many of the latter were killed ; but I
found that they knew but little of the history of their
race, and could be entertained by stories about their
ancestors as readily as any way. At first I was nearly
roasted out, for I lay against one side of the camp, and
felt the heat reflected not only from the birch-bark above,
but from the side ; and again I remembered the suffer-
ings of the Jesuit missionaries, and what extremes of
heat and cold the Indians were said to endure. I strug-
gled long between my desire to remain and talk with
them, and my impulse to rush out and stretch myself on
the cool grass ; and when I was about to take the last
step, Joe, hearing my murmurs, or else being uncomfort-
able himself, got up and partially dispersed the fire. I
suppose that that is Indian manners, — to defend your-
self.
While lying there listening to the Indians, I amused
myself with trying to guess at their subject by their
gestures, or some proper name introduced. There can
be no more startling evidence of their being a distinct
and comparatively aboriginal race, than to hear this unal-
tered Indian language, which the white man cannot speak
nor understand. We may suspect change and deteriora-
tion in almost every other particular, but the language
which is so wholly unintelligible to us. It took me by
surprise, though I had found so many arrow-heads, and
140 THE MAINE WOODS.
convinced me that the Indian was not the invention of
historians and poets. It was a purely wild and primitive
American sound, as much as the barking of a chickaree,
and I could not understand a syllable of it ; but Paugus,
had he been there, would have understood it. These
Abenakis gossiped, laughed, and jested, in the language
in which Eliot's Indian Bible is written, the language
which has been spoken in New England who shall say
how long ? These were the sounds that issued from the
wigwams of this country before Columbus was born ;
they have not yet died away ; and, with remarkably few
exceptions, the language of their forefathers is still copi-
ous enough for them. I felt that I stood, or rather lay,
as near to the primitive man of America, that night, as
any of its discoverers ever did.
In the midst of their conversation, Joe suddenly ap-
pealed to me to know how long Moosehead Lake was.
Meanwhile, as we lay there, Joe was making and try-
ing his horn, to be ready for hunting after midnight.
The St. Francis Indian also amused himself with sound-
ing it, or rather calling through it ; for the sound is made
with the voice, and not by blowing through the horn.
The latter appeared to be a speculator in moose-hides.
He bought my companion's for two dollars and a quarter,
green. Joe said that it was worth two and a half at Old-
town. Its chief use is for moccasins. One or two of
these Indians wore them. I was told, that, by a recent
law of Maine, foreigners are not allowed to kill moose
there at any season ; white Americans can kill them only
at a particular season, but the Indians of Maine at all
seasons. The St. Francis Indian accordingly asked my
companion for a wighiggin, or bill, to show, since he was
a foreigner. He lived near Sorel. I found that he could
CHESUNCOOK. 141
write his name very well, Tahmunt Swasen. One Ellis,
an old white man of Guilford, a town through which we
passed, not far from the south end of Moosehead, was the
most celebrated moose-hunter of those parts. Indians
and whites spoke with equal respect of him. Tahmunt
said, that there were more moose here than in the Adi-
rondack country in New York, where he had hunted ;
that three years before there were a great many about,
and there were a great many now in the woods, but they
did not come out to the water. It was of no use to hunt
them at midnight, — they would not come out then. I
asked Sabattis, after he came home, if the moose never
attacked him. He answered, that you must not fire many
times so as to mad him. " I fire once and hit him in the
right place, and in the morning I find him. He won't
go far. But if you keep firing, you mad him. I fired
once, five bullets, every one through the heart, and he
did not mind 'em at all ; it only made him more mad."
I asked him if they did not hunt them with dogs. He
said, that th^y did so in winter, but never in the summer,
for then it was of no use; they would run right off
straight and swiftly a hundred miles.
Another Indian said, that the moose, once scared, would
run all day. A dog will hang to their lips, and be car-
ried along till he is swung against a tree and drops off.
They cannot run on a " glaze," though they can run hi
snow four feet deep ; but the caribou can run on ice.
They commonly find two or three moose together. They
cover themselves with water, all but their noses, to escape
flies. He had the horns of what he called " the black
moose that goes in low lands." These spread three or
four feet. The "red moose" was another kind, "run-
ning on mountains," and had horns which spread six feet.
142 THE MAINE WOODS.
Such were his distinctions. Both can move their horns.
The broad flat blades are covered with hair, and are so
soft, when the animal is alive, that you can run a knife
through them. They regard it as a good or bad sign, if
the horns turn this way or that. ' His caribou horns had
been gnawed by mice in his wigwam, but he thought that
the horns neither of the moose nor of the caribou were
ever gnawed while the creature was alive, as some have
asserted. An Indian, whom I met after this at Oldtown,
who had carried about a bear and other animals of Maine
to exhibit, told me that thirty years ago there were not
so many moose in Maine as now ; also, that the moose
were very easily tamed, and would come back when once
fed, and so would deer, but not caribou. The Indians of
this neighborhood are about as familiar with the moose
as we are with the ox, having associated with them for
so many generations. Father Rasles, in his Dictionary
of the Abenaki Language, gives not only a word for the
male moose, (aianbe,) and another for the female, (herar,)
but for the bone which is in the middle of the heart of
the moose (!), and for his left hind-leg.
There were none of the small deer up there ; they are
more common about the settlements. One ran into the
city of Bangor two years before, and jumped through a
window of costly plate glass, and then into a mirror,
where it thought it recognized one of its kind, and out
again, and so on, leaping over the heads of the crowd,
until it was captured. This the inhabitants speak of as
the deer lhat went a-shopping. The last-mentioned In-
dian spoke of the lunxus or Indian devil, (which I take to
be the cougar, and not the Gulo luscus,) as the only animal
in Maine which man need fear ; it would follow a man,
and did not mind a fire. He also said, that beavers
CHESUNCOOK. 143
were getting to be pretty numerous again, where we went,
but their skins brought so little now that it was not prof-
itable to hunt them.
I had put the ears of our moose, which were ten inches
long, to dry along with the moose-meat over the fire,
wishing to preserve them ; but Sabattis told me that I
must skin and cure them, else the hair would all come
off. He observed, that they made tobacco-pouches of the
skins of their ears, putting the two together inside to in-
side. I asked him how he got fire ; and he produced a
little cylindrical box of friction-matches. He also had
flints and steel, and some punk, which was not dry ; I
think it was from the yellow birch. " But suppose you
upset, and all these and your powder get wet." " Then,"
said he, " we wait till we get to where there is some fire."
I produced from my pocket a little vial, containing
matches, stoppled water-tight, and told him, that, though
we were upset, we should still have some dry matches ;
at which he stared without saying a word.
We lay awake thus a long while talking, and they gave
us the meaning of many Indian names of lakes and
streams in the vicinity, — especially Tahmunt. I asked
the Indian name of Moosehead Lake. Joe answered,
Sebamook ; Tahmunt pronounced it SebemooL When
I asked what it meant, they answered, Moosehead Lake.
At length, getting my meaning, they alternately repeated
the word over to themselves, as a philologist might, —
Sebamook, — Sebamook, — now and then comparing notes
in Indian ; for there was a slight difference in their di-
alects ; and finally Tahmunt said, " Ugh ! I know," —
and he rose up partly on the moose-hide, — " like as here
is a place, and there is a place," pointing to different
parts of the hide, " and you take water from there and
144 THE MAINE WOODS.
fill this, and it stays here ; that is SebamooL" I under-
stood him to mean that it was a reservoir of water which
did not run away, the river coming in on one side and
passing out again near the same place, leaving a perma-
nent bay. Another Indian said, that it meant Large-
Bay Lake, and that Sebago and Sebec, the names of
other lakes, were kindred words, meaning large open
water. Joe said that Seboois meant Little River. I
observed their inability, often described, to convey an
abstract idea. Having got the idea, though indistinctly,
they groped about in vain for words with which to ex-
press it. Tahmunt thought that the whites called it
Moosehead Lake, because Mount Kineo, which com-
mands it, is shaped like a moose's head, and that Moose
River was so called " because the mountain points right
across the lake to its mouth." John Josselyn, writing
about 1673, says, "Twelve miles from Casco Bay, and
passable for men and horses, is a lake, called by the In-
dians Sebug. On the brink thereof, at one end, is the
famous rock, shaped like a moose deer or helk, diaph-
anous, and called the Moose Rock." He appears to have
confounded Sebamook with Sebago, which is nearer, but
has no " diaphanous " rock on its shore.
I give more of their definitions, for what they are
worth, — partly because they differ sometimes from the
commonly received ones. They never analyzed these
words before. After long deliberation and repeating of
the word, for it gave much trouble, Tahmunt said that
ChesuncooJc meant a place where many streams emptied
in (?), and he enumerated them, — Penobscot, Umba-
zookskus, Cusabesex, Red Brook, etc. — " Caucomgomoc,
— what does that mean ? " " What are those large white
birds?" he asked. "Gulls," said I. "Ugh! Gull
CHESUNCOOK. 145
Lake." — Pammadumcook, Joe thought, meant the Lake
with Gravelly Bottom or Bed. — Kenduskeag, Tahmunt
concluded at last, after asking if birches went up it, for he
said that he was not much acquainted with it, meant some-
thing like this : " You go up Penobscot till you come to
Kenduskeag, and you go by, you don't turn up there.
That is Kenduskeag" (?) Another Indian, however,
who knew the river better, told us afterward that it
meant Little Eel River. — Mattawamkeag was a place
where two rivers meet. (?) — Penobscot was Rocky
River. One writer says, that this was " originally the
name of only a section of the main channel, from the
head of the tide-water to a short distance above Old-
town."
A very intelligent Indian, whom we afterward met,
son-in-law of Neptune, gave us also these other defi-
nitions:— Umbazookskus, Meadow Stream; Millinoket,
Place of Islands ; Aboljacarmegus, Smooth-Ledge Falls
(and Dead- Water) ; Aboljacarmeguscook, the stream
emptying in ; (the last was the word he gave when I
asked about Aboljacknagesic, which he did not recog-
nize;) Mattahumkeag, Sand-Creek Pond; Piscataquis,
Branch of a River.
I asked our hosts what Musketaquid, the Indian name
of Concord, Massachusetts, meant ; but they changed it
to Musketicook, and repeated that, and Tahmunt said that
it meant Dead Stream, which is probably true. Cook
appears to mean stream, and perhaps quid signifies the
place or ground. When I asked the meaning of the
names of two of our hills, they answered that they were
another language. As Tahmunt said that he traded at
Quebec, my companion inquired the meaning of the word
Quebec, about which there has been so much question.
7 j
146 THE MAINE WOODS.
He did not know, but began to conjecture. He asked
what those great ships were called . that carried soldiers.
" Men-of-war," we answered. " Well," he said, " when
the English ships came up the river, they could not go
any farther, it was so narrow there ; they must go back,
— go-back, — that 's Que-bec." I mention this to show
the value of his authority in the other cases.
Late at night the other two Indians came home from
moose-hunting, not having been successful, aroused the
fire again, lighted their pipes, smoked awhile, took some-
thing strong to drink, and ate some moose-meat, and,
finding what room they could, lay down on the moose-
hides ; and thus we passed the night, two white men and
four Indians, side by side.
When I awoke in the morning the weather was driz-
zling. One of the Indians was lying outside, rolled in
his blanket, on the opposite side of the fire, for want of
room. Joe had neglected to awake my companion, and
he had done no hunting that night. Tahmunt was mak-
ing a cross-bar for his canoe with a singularly shaped
knife, such as I have since seen other Indians using.
The blade was thin, about three quarters of an inch wide,
and eight or nine inches long, but curved out of its plane
into a hook, which he said made it more convenient to
shave with. As the Indians very far north and north-
west use the same kind of knife, I suspect that it was
made according to an aboriginal pattern, though some
white artisans may use a similar one. The Indians
baked a loaf of flour bread in a spider on its edge before
the fire for their breakfast ; and while my companion was
making tea, I caught a dozen sizable fishes in the Pe-
nobscot, two kinds of sucker and one trout. After we
}iad breakfasted by ourselves, one of our bedfellows, who
CHESUNCOOK. 147
had also breakfasted, came along, and, being invited,
took a cup of tea, and finally, taking up the common
platter, licked it clean. But he was nothing to a white
fellow, a lumberer, who was continually stuffing himself
with the Indians' moose-meat, and was the butt of his
companions accordingly. He seems to have thought that
it was a feast " to eat all." It is commonly said that the
white man finally surpasses the Indian on his owa
ground, and it was proved true in this case. I cannot
swear to his employment during the hours of darkness,
but I saw him at it again as soon as it was light, though
he came a quarter of a mile to his work.
The rain prevented our continuing any longer in the
woods ; so giving some of our provisions and utensils to
the Indians, we took leave of them. This being the
steamer's day, I set out for the lake at once.
I walked over the carry alone and waited at the head
of the lake. An eagle, or some other large bird, flew
screaming away from its perch by the shore at my
approach. For an hour after I reached the shore there
was not a human being to be seen, and I had all that
wide prospect to myself. I thought that I heard the
sound of the steamer before she came in sight on the open
lake. I noticed at the landing, when the steamer came
in, one of our bedfellows, who had been a-moose-hunting
the night before, now very sprucely dressed in a clean
white shirt and fine black pants, a true Indian dandy,
who had evidently come over the carry to show himself
to any arrivers on the north shore of Moosehead Lake,
just as New York dandies take a turn up Broadway and
stand on the steps of a hotel.
Midway the lake we took on board two manly-looking
middle-aged men, with their bateau, w^o had been explor-
148 THE MAINE WOODS.
ing for six weeks as far as the Canada line, and had let
their beards grow. They had the skin of a beaver, which
they had recently caught, stretched on an oval hoop,
though the fur was not good at that season. I talked
with one of them, telling him that I had come all this
distance partly to see where the white-pine, the Eastern
stuff of which our houses are built, grew, but that on this
and a previous excursion into another part of Maine I
had found it a scarce tree ; and I asked him where I
must look for it. With a smile, he answered, that he
could hardly tell me. However, he said that he had
found enough to employ two teams the next winter in a
place where there was thought to be none left. What
was considered a " tip-top " tree now was not looked at
twenty years ago, when he first went into the business ;
but they succeeded very well now with what was con-
sidered quite inferior timber then. The explorer used
to cut into a tree higher and higher up, to see if it was
false-hearted, and if there was a rotten heart as big as
his arm, he let it alone ; but now they cut such a tree,
and sawed it all around the rot, and it made the very
best of boards, for in such a case they were never shaky.
One connected with lumbering operations at Bangor
told me that the largest pine belonging to his firm, cut
the previous winter, " scaled " in the woods four thousand
five hundred feet, and was worth ninety dollars in the
log at the Bangor boom in Oldtown. They cut a road
three and a half miles long for this tree alone. He
thought that the principal locality for the white-pine that
came down the Penobscot now was at the head of the
East Branch and the Allegash, about Webster Stream
and Eagle and Chamberlain Lakes. Much timber has
been stolen from the public lands. (Pray, what kind of
CHESUNCOOK. 149
forest-warden is the Public itself?) I heard of one man
who, having discovered some particularly fine trees just
within the boundaries of the public lands, and not daring
to employ an accomplice, cut them down, and by means
of block and tackle, without cattle, tumbled them into a
stream, and so succeeded in getting off with them with-
out the least assistance. Surely, stealing pine-trees in
this way is not so mean as robbing hen-roosts.
We reached Monson that night, and the next day rode
to Bangor, all the way in the rain again, varying our
route a little. Some of the taverns on this road, which
were particularly dirty, were plainly in a transition state
from the camp to the house.
The next forenoon we went to Oldtown. One slender
old Indian on the Oldtown shore, who recognized my
companion, was full of mirth and gestures, like a French-
man. A Catholic priest crossed to the island in the same
lateau with us. The Indian houses are framed, mostly
of one story, and in rows one behind another, at the south
end of the island, with a few scattered ones. I counted
about forty, not including the church and what my com-
panion called the council-house. The last, which I sup-
pose is their town-house, was regularly framed and shin-
gled like the rest. There were several of two stories,
quite neat, with front-yards enclosed, and one at least had
green blinds. Here and there were moose-hides stretched
and drying about them. There were no cart-paths, nor
tracks of horses, but foot-paths ; very little land culti-
vated, but an abundance of weeds, indigenous and natu-
ralized ; more introduced weeds than useful vegetables,
as the Indian is said to cultivate the vices rather than the
virtues of the white man. Yet this village was cleaner
150 THE MAINE WOODS.
than I expected, far cleaner than such Irish villages as I
have seen. The children were not particularly ragged
nor dirty. The little boys met us with bow in hand and
arrow on string, and cried, " Put up a cent." Verily, the
Indian has but a feeble hold on his bow now ; but the
curiosity of the white man is insatiable, and from the first
he has been eager to witness this forest accomplishment.
That elastic piece of wood with its feathered dart, so sure
to be unstrung by contact with civilization, will serve for
the type, the coat-of-arms of the savage. Alas for the
Hunter Race ! the white man has driven off their game,
and substituted a cent in its place. I saw an Indian
woman washing at the water's edge. She stood on a
rock, and, after dipping the clothes in the stream, laid
them on the rock, and beat them with a short club. In
the graveyard, which was crowded with graves, and
overrun with weeds, I noticed an inscription in Indian,
painted on a wooden grave-board. There was a large
wooden cross on the island.
Since my companion knew him, we called on Gov-
ernor Neptune, who lived in a little " ten-footer," one of
the humblest of them all. Personalities are allowable in
speaking of public men, therefore I will give the particu-
lars of our visit. He was a-bed. When we entered the
room, which was one half of the house, he was sitting on
the side of the bed. There was a clock hanging in one
corner. He had on a black frock-coat, and black pants,"
much worn, white cotton shirt, socks, a red silk handker-
chief about his neck, and a straw hat. His black hair
was only slightly grayed. He had very broad cheeks,
and his features were decidedly and refreshingly different
from those of any of the upstart Native American party
whom I have seen. He was no darker than many old
CHESUNCOOK. 151
white men. He told me that he was eighty-nine ; but
he was going a-moose-hunting that fall, as he had been
the previous one. Probably his companions did the
hunting. We saw various squaws dodging about. One
sat on the bed by his side and helped him out with his
stories. They were remarkably corpulent, with smooth,
round faces, apparently full of good-humor. Certainly
our much-abused climate had not dried up their adipose
substance. While we were there, — for we stayed a
good while, — one went over to Oldtown, returned and
cut out a dress, which she had bought, on another bed in
the room. The Governor said, that " he could remem-
ber when the moose were much larger ; that they did not
use to be in the woods, but came out of the water, as all
deer did. Moose was whale once. Away down Mem-
mack way, a whale came ashore in a shallow bay. Sea
went out and left him, and he came up on land a moose.
What made them know he was a whale was, that at first,
before he began to run in bushes, he had no bowels in-
side, but " and then the squaw who sat on the bed
by his side, as the Governor's aid, and had been putting
in a word now and then and confirming the story, asked
me what we called that soft thing we find along the sea-
shore. " Jelly-fish," I suggested. " Yes," said he, " no
bowels, but jelly-fish."
There may be some truth in what he said about the
moose growing larger formerly ; for the quaint John Jos-
selyn, a physician who spent many years in this very dis-
trict of Maine in the seventeenth century, says, that the
tips of their horns " are sometimes found to be two fath-
oms asunder," — and he is particular to tell us that a
fathom is six feet, — " and [they are] in height, from the
toe of the fore foot to the pitch of the shoulder, twelve
152 THE MAINE WOODS. £>O
foot, both which hath been taken by some of my scep-
tique readers to be monstrous lies " ; and he adds,
"There are certain transcendentia in every creature, which
are the indelible character of God, and which discover
God." This is a greater dilemma to be caught in than
is presented by the cranium of the young Bechuana ox,
apparently another of the transcendentia, in the collec-
tion of Thomas Steel, Upper Brook Street, London,
whose " entire length of horn, from tip to tip, along the
curve, is. 13 ft. 5 in. ; distance (straight) between the
tips of the horns, 8 ft. 84- in." However, the size both of
the moose and the cougar, as I have found, is generally
rather underrated than overrated, and I should be in-
clined to add to the popular estimate a part of what I
subtracted from Josselyn's.
But we talked mostly with the Governor's son-in-law,
a very sensible Indian ; and the Governor, being so old
and deaf, permitted himself to be ignored, while we
asked questions about him. The former said, that there
were two political parties among them, — one in favor of
schools, and the other opposed to them, or rather they
did not wish to resist the priest, who was opposed to
them. The first had just prevailed at the election and
sent their man to the legislature. Neptune and Aitteon
and he himself were in favor of schools. He said, " If
Indians got learning, they would keep their money."
When we asked where Joe's father, Aitteon, was, he
knew that he must be at Lincoln, though he was about
going a-moose-hunting, for a messenger had just gone to
him there to get his signature to some papers. I asked
Neptune if they had "any of the old breed of dogs yet.
He answered, " Yes." " But that," said I, pointing to
one that had just come in, " is a Yankee dog." He as-
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH.
I STARTED on my third excursion to the Maine woods
Monday, July 20th, 1857, with one companion, arriving
at Bangor the next day at noon. We had hardly left
the steamer, when we passed Molly Molasses in the
street. As long as she lives the Penobscots may be con-
sidered extant as a tribe. The succeeding morning, a
relative of mine, who is well acquainted with the Penob-
scot Indians, and who had been my companion in my
two previous excursions into the Maine woods, took me
in his wagon to Oldtown, to assist me in obtaining an
Indian for this expedition. We were ferried across to
the Indian Island in a batteau. The ferryman's boy had
got the key to it, but the father who was a blacksmith,
after a little hesitation, cut the chain with a cold-chisel
on the rock. He told me that the Indians were nearly
all gone to the seaboard and to Massachusetts, partly on
account of the small-pox, of which they are very much
afraid, having broken out in Oldtown, and it was doubt-
ful whether we should find a suitable one at home. The
old chief Neptune, however, was there still. The first
man we saw on the island was an Indian named Joseph
Polis, whom my relative had known from a boy, and now
addressed familiarly as " Joe." He was dressing a deer-
skin in his yard. The skin was spread over a slanting
162 THE MAINE WOODS.
log, and he was scraping it with a stick, held by both
hands. He was stoutly built, perhaps a little above the
middle height, with a broad face, and, as others said, per-
fect Indian features and complexion. His house was a
two-story white one with blinds, the best looking that I
noticed there, and as good as an average one on a New
England village street. It was surrounded by a garden
and fruit-trees, single cornstalks standing thinly amid
the beans. We asked him if he knew any good Indian
who would like to go into the woods with us, that is, to
the Allegash Lakes, by way of Moosehead, and return by
the East Branch of the Penobscot, or vary from this as
we pleased. To which he answered, out of that strange
remoteness in which the Indian ever dwells to the white
man, "Me like to go myself; me want to get some
moose"; and kept on scraping the skin. His brother
had been into the woods with my relative only a year or
two before, and the Indian now inquired what the latter
had done to him, that he did not come back, for he had
not seen nor heard from him since.
At length we got round to the more interesting topic
again. The ferryman had told us that all the best
Indians were gone except Polis, who was one of the aris-
tocracy. He to be sure would be the best man we could
have, but if he went at all would want a great price ; so
we did not expect to get him. Polis asked at first two
dollars a day, but agreed to go for a dollar and a half,
and fifty cents a week 'for his canoe. He would come to
Bangor with his canoe by the seven o'clock train that
evening, — we might depend on him. We thought our-
selves lucky to secure the services of this man, who was
known to be particularly steady and trustworthy.
I spent the afternoon with my companion, who had
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 163
remained in Bangor, in preparing for our expedition,
purchasing provisions, hard bread, pork, coffee, sugar,
&c., and some India-rubber clothing.
We had at first thought of exploring the St. John from
its source to its mouth, or else to go up the Penobscot by
its East Branch to the lakes of the St. John, and return
by way of Chesuncook and Moosehead* We had finally
inclined to the last route, only reversing the order of it,
going by way of Moosehead, and returning by the Penob-
scot, otherwise it would have been all the way up stream
and taken twice as long.
At evening the Indian arrived in the cars, and I led
the way while he followed me three quarters of a mile to
my friend's house, with the canoe on his head. I did not
know the exact route myself, but steered by the lay of
the land, as I do in Boston, and I tried to enter into con-
versation with him, but as he was puffing under the
weight of his canoe, not having the usual apparatus for
carrying it, but, above all, was an Indian, I might as well
have been thumping on the bottom of his birch the while./
In answer to the various observations which I made by
way of breaking the ice, he only grunted vaguely from
beneath his canoe once or twice, so that I knew he was
there.
Early the next morning (July 23d) the stage called
for us, the Indian having breakfasted with us, and already
placed the baggage in the canoe to see how it would go.
My companion and I had each a large knapsack as full
as it would hold, and we had two large India-rubber bags
which held our provision and utensils. As for the In-
dian, all the baggage he had, beside his axe and gun, was
a blanket, which he brought loose in his hand. However,
he had laid in a store of tobacco and a new pipe for the
164 THE MAINE WOODS.
excursion. The canoe was securely lashed diagonally
across the top of the stage, with bits of carpet tucked un-
der the edge to prevent its chafing. The very accommo-
dating driver appeared as much accustomed to carrying
canoes in this way as bandboxes.
At the Bangor House we took in four men bound on
a hunting excursion, one of the men going as cook.
They had a dog, a middling-sized brindled cur, which
ran by the side of the stage, his master showing his head
and whistling from time to time ; but after we had gone
about three miles the dog was suddenly missing, and two
of the party went back for him, while the stage, which
was full of passengers, waited. I suggested that he had
taken the back track for the Bangor House. At length
one man came back, while the other kept on. This
whole party of hunters declared their intention to stop
till the dog was found ; but the very obliging driver was
ready to wait a spell longer. He was evidently unwill-
ing to lose so many passengers, who would have taken
a private conveyance, or perhaps the other line of stages,
the next day. Such progress did we make with a jour-
ney of over sixty miles, to be accomplished that day, and
a rain-storm just setting in. We discussed the subject of
dogs and their instincts till it was threadbare, while we
waited there, and the scenery of the suburbs of Bangor
is still distinctly impressed on my memory. After full
half an hour the man returned, leading the dog by a
rope. He had overtaken him just as he was entering
the Bangor House. He was then tied on the top of the
stage, but being wet and cold, several times in the course
of the journey he jumped off, and I saw him dangling
by his neck. This dog was depended on to stop bears
with. He had already stopped one somewhere in New
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 165
Hampshire, and I can testify that he stopped a stage in
aine. This party of four probably paid nothing for
the dog's ride, nor for his run, while our party of three
paid two dollars, and were charged four for the light
canoe which lay still on the top.
It soon began to rain, and grew more and more stormy
as the day advanced. This was the third time that I had
passed over this route, and it rained steadily each time
all day. We accordingly saw but little of the country.
The stage was crowded all the way, and I attended the
more to my fellow-travellers. If you had looked inside
this coach you would have thought that we were prepared
to run the gauntlet of a band of robbers, for there were
four or five guns on the front seat, the Indian's included,
and one or two on the back one, each man holding his
darling in his arms. One had a gun which carried twelve
to a pound. It appeared that this party of hunters was
going our way, but much farther down the Allegash and
St. John, and thence up some other stream, and across
to the Pistigouche and the Bay of Chaleur, to be gone
six weeks. They had canoes, axes, and supplies depos-
ited some distance along the route. They carried flour,
and were to have new bread made every day. Their
leader was a handsome man about thirty years old, of
good height, but not apparently robust, of gentlemanly
address and faultless toilet; such a one as you might
expect to meet on Broadway. In fact, in the popular
sense of the word, he was the most " gentlemanly " ap-
pearing man in the stage, or that we saw on the road.
He had a fair white complexion, as if he had always
lived in the shade, and an intellectual face, and with his
quiet manners might have passed for a divinity student
who had seen something of the world. I was surprised
166 THE MAINE WOODS.
to find, on talking with him in the course of the day's
journey, that he was a hunter at all, — for his gun was
not much exposed, — and yet more to find that he was
probably the chief white hunter of Maine, and was
known all along the road. He had also hunted in some
of the States farther south and west. I afterwards
heard him spoken of as one who could endure a great
deal of exposure and fatigue without showing the effect
of it ; and he could not only use guns, but make them,
being himself a gunsmith. In the spring, he had saved
a stage-driver and two passengers from drowning in the
backwater of the Piscataquis in Foxcroft on this road,
having swum ashore in the freezing water and made a
raft and got them off, — though the horses were drowned,
— at great risk to himself, while the only other man who
could swim withdrew to the nearest house to prevent
freezing. He could now ride over»this road for nothing.
He knew our man, and remarked that we had a good In-
dian there, a good hunter ; adding that he was said to be
worth $ 6,000. The Indian also knew him, and said to
me, " the great hunter."
The former told me that he practised a kind of still
hunting, new or uncommon in those parts, that the cari-
bou, for instance, fed round and round the same meadow,
returning on the same path, and he lay in wait for them.
The Indian sat on the front seat, saying nothing to
anybody, with a stolid expression of face, as if barely
awake to what was going on. Again I was struck by
the peculiar vagueness of his replies when addressed in
the stage, or at the taverns. He really never said any-
thing on such occasions. He was merely stirred up, like
a wild beast, and passively muttered some insignificant
response. His answer, in such cases, was never the con-
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BEANCH. 167
sequence of a positive mental energy, but vague as a
pun0 of smoke, suggesting no responsibility, and if you
considered it, you would find that you had got nothing
out of him. This was instead of the conventional palaver
and smartness of the white man, and equally profitable.
Most get no more than this out of the Indian, and pro-
nounce him stolid accordingly. I was surprised to see
what a foolish and impertinent style a Maine man, a
passenger, used in addressing him, as if he were a
child, which only made his eyes glisten a little. A tipsy
Canadian asked him at a tavern, in a drawling tone, if
he smoked, to which he answered with an indefinite
" yes." " Won't you lend me your pipe a little while ? "
asked the other. He replied, looking straight by the
man's head, with a face singularly vacant to all neighbor-
ing interests, " Me got no pipe " ; yet I had seen him put
a new one, with a supply of tobacco, into his pocket that
morning.
Our little canoe, so neat and strong, drew a favora-
ble criticism from all the wiseacres among the tavern
loungers along the road. By the roadside, close to the
wheels, I noticed a splendid great purple-fringed orchis
with a spike as big as an epilobium, which I would fain
have stopped the stage to pluck, but as this had never
been known to stop a bear, like the cur on the stage, the
driver would probably have thought it a waste of time.
When we reached the lake, about half past eight in
the evening, it was still steadily raining, and harder than
before ; and, in that fresh, cool atmosphere, the hylodes
were peeping and the toads singing about the lake uni-
versally, as in the spring with us. It was as if the sea-
son had revolved backward two or three months, or I
had arrived at the abode of perpetual spring.
168 THE MAINE WOODS.
We had expected to go upon the lake at once, and
after paddling up two or three miles, to camp on one of
its islands ; but on account of the steady and increasing
rain, we decided to go to one of the taverns for the night,
though, for my own part, I should have preferred to
camp out.
About four o'clock the next morning, (July 24th,)
though it was quite cloudy, accompanied by the landlord
to the water's edge, in the twilight, we launched our canoe
from a rock on the Moosehead Lake. When I was
there four years before we had a rather small canoe for
three persons, and I had thought that this time I would
get a larger one, but the present one was even smaller
than that. It was 18 J feet long by 2 feet 6£ inches
wide in the middle, and one foot deep within, as I found
by measurement, and I judged that it would weigh not
far from eighty pounds. The Indian had recently made
it himself, and its smallness was partly compensated for
by its newness, as well as stanchness and solidity, it
being made of very thick bark and ribs. Our baggage
weighed about 166 pounds, so that the canoe carried
about 600 pounds in all, or the weight of four men. The
principal part of the baggage was, as usual, placed in the
middle of the broadest part, while we stowed ourselves
in the chinks and crannies that were left before and
behind it, where there was no room to extend our legs,
the loose articles being tucked into the ends. The canoe
was thus as closely packed as a market-basket, and might
possibly have been upset without spilling any of its con-
tents. The Indian sat on a cross-bar in the stern, but we
flat on the bottom, with a splint or chip behind our backs,
to protect them from the cross-bar, and one of us commonly
paddled with the Indian. He foresaw that we should
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 169
not want a pole till we reached the Umbazookskus River,
it being either dead water or down stream so far, and he
was prepared to make a sail of his blanket in the bows,
if the wind should be fair ; but we never used it.
It had rained more or 'less the four previous days, so
that we thought we might count on some fair weather.
The wind was at first southwesterly.
Paddling along the eastern side of the lake in the still
of the morning, we soon saw a few sheldrakes, which
the1 Indian called Shecorways, and some peetweets Nar-
amekechus, on the rocky shore ; we also saw and heard
loons, medawisla, which he said was a sign of wind. It
was inspiriting to hear the regular dip of the paddles,
as if they were our fins or flippers, and to realize that
we were at length fairly embarked. We who had felt
strangely as stage-passengers and tavern-lodgers were
suddenly naturalized there and presented with the free-
dom of the lakes and the woods. Having passed the
small rocky isles within two or three miles of the foot
of the lake, we -had a short consultation respecting our
course, and inclined to the western shore for the sake of
its lee ; for otherwise, if the wind should rise, it would be
impossible for us to reach Mount Kineo, which is about
midway up the lake on the east side, but at its narrowest
part, where probably we could recross if we took the
western side. The wind is the chief obstacle to crossing
the lakes, especially" in so small a canoe. The Indian
remarked several times that he did not like to cross the
lakes "in littlum canoe," but nevertheless, "just as we
say, it made no odds to him." He sometimes took a
straight course up the middle of the lake between Sugar
and Deer Islands, when there was no wind.
Measured on the map, Moosehead Lake is twelve
170 THE MAINE WOODS.
miles wide at the widest place, and thirty miles long in
a direct line, but longer as it lies. The captain of the
steamer called it thirty-eight miles as he steered. We
should probably go about forty. The Indian said that
it was called " Mspame, because large water." Squaw
Mountain rose darkly on our left, near the outlet of the
Kennebec, and what the Indian called Spencer Bay Moun-
tain, on the east, and already we saw Mount Kineo before
us in the north.
Paddling near the shore, we frequently heard the
pe-pe of the olive-sided fly-catcher, also the wood-pewee,
and the kingfisher, thus early in the morning. The
Indian reminding us that he could not work without
eating, we stopped to breakfast on the main shore, south-
west of Deer Island, at a spot where the Mimulus
ringens grew abundantly. We took out our bags, and
the Indian made a fire under a very large bleached log,
using white-pine bark from a stump, though he said that
hemlock was better, and kindling with canoe-birch bark.
Our table was a large piece of freshly peeled birch-bark,
laid wrong-side-up, and our breakfast consisted of hard
bread, fried pork, and strong coffee, well sweetened, in
which we did not miss the milk.
While we were getting breakfast a brood of twelve
black dippers, half grown, came paddling by within three
or four rods, not at all alarmed ; and they loitered about
as long as we stayed, now huddled close together, within
a circle of eighteen inches in diameter, now moving off
in a long line, very cunningly. Yet they bore a certain
proportion to the great Moosehead Lake on whose bosom
they floated, and I felt as if they were under its protection.
Looking northward from this place it appeared as if
we were entering a large bay, and we did not know
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 171
whether we should be obliged to diverge from our course
and keep outside a point which we saw, or should find a
passage between this and the mainland. I consulted my
map and used my glass, and the Indian did the same,
but we could not find our place exactly on the map, nor
could we detect any break in the shore. When I asked
the Indian the way, he answered " I don't know," which
I thought remarkable, since he had said that he was fa-
miliar with the lake ; but it appeared that he had never
been up this side. It was misty dog-day weather, and we
had already penetrated a smaller bay of the same kind,
and knocked the bottom out of it, though we had been
obliged to pass over a small bar, between an island and
the shore, where there was but just breadth and depth
enough to float the canoe, and the Indian had observed,
"Very easy makum bridge here," but now it seemed
that, if we held on, we should be fairly embayed. Pres-
ently, however, though we had not stirred, the mist lifted
somewhat, andirevealed a break in the shore northward,
showing that the point was a portion of Deer Island,
and that our course lay westward of it. Where it had
seemed a continuous shore even through a glass, one
portion was now seen by the naked eye to be much more
distant than the other which overlapped it, merely by
the greater thickness of the mist which still rested on it,
while the nearer or island portion was comparatively
bare and green. " The line of separation was very dis-
tinct, and the Indian immediately remarked, "I guess
you and I go there, — I guess there 's room for my canoe
there." This was his common expression instead of say-
ing we. He never addressed us by our names, though
curious to know how they were spelled and what they
meant, while we called him Polis. He had already
172 THE MAINE WOODS.
guessed very accurately at our ages, and said that he
was forty-eight.
After breakfast I emptied the melted pork that was
left into the lake, making what sailors call a " slick," and
watching to see how much it spread over and smoothed
the agitated surface. The Indian looked at it a moment
and said, " That make hard paddlum thro' ; hold 'em ca-
noe. So say old times."
We hastily reloaded, putting the dishes loose in the
bows, that they might be at hand when wanted, and set
out again. The western shore, near which we paddled
along, rose gently to a considerable height, and was ev-
erywhere densely covered with the forest, in which was
a large proportion of hard wood to enliven and relieve
the fir and spruce.
The Indian said that the usnea lichen which we saw
hanging from the trees was called chorchorque. We
asked him the names of several small birds which we
heard this morning. The wood-thrush, nhich was quite
common, and whose note he imitated, he said was called
Adelungquamooktum ; but sometimes he could not tell
the name of some small bird which I heard and knew,
but he said, " I tell all the birds about here, — this coun-
try ; can't tell littlum noise, but I see 'em, then I can tell."
I observed that I should like to go to school to him to
learn his language, living on the Indian island the
while ; could not that be done ? " 0, yer," he replied,
" good many do so." I asked how long he thought it
would take. He said one week. I told him that in this
voyage I would tell him all I knew, and he should tell
me all he knew, to which he readily agreed.
The birds sang quite as in our woods, — the red-eye,
red-start, veery, wood-pewee, etc., but we saw no blue-
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 173
birds in all our journey, and several told me in Bangor
that they had not the bluebird there. Mt. Kineo, which
was generally visible, though occasionally concealed by
islands or the mainland in front, had a level bar of cloud
concealing its summit, and all the mountain-tops about
the lake were cut off at the same height. Ducks of va-
rious kinds — sheldrake, summer ducks, etc. — were quite
commpn, and ran over the water before us as fast as a
horse trots. Thus they were soon out of sight.
The Indian asked the meaning of realility, as near
as I could make out the word, which he said one of us
had used ; also of " interrent" that is intelligent. I ob-
served that he could rarely sound the letter r, but used
1, as also r for 1 sometimes ; as load for road, pickelel
for pickerel, Soogle Island for Sugar Island, lock for-
rock, etc. Yet he trilled the r pretty well after me.
He generally added the syllable um to his words when
he could, — as padlwm, etc. I have once heard a Chippe-
wa lecture, who made his audience laugh unintentionally
by putting ne after the word too, which word he~~"brought
in continually and unnecessarily, accenting and prolong-
ing this sound into m ar sonorously as if it were neces-
sary to bring in so much of his vernacular as a relief to
his organs, a compensation for twisting his jaws about,
and putting his tongue into every corner of his mouth,
as he complained that he was obliged to do when he
spoke English. There was so much of the Indian ac-
cent resounding through his English, so much of the
" bow-arrow tang " as my neighbor calls it, and I have
no doubt that word seemed to him the best pronounced.
It was a wild and refreshing sound, like that of the
wind among the pines, or the booming of the surf on the
shore.
174 THE MAINE WOODS.
I asked him the meaning of the word Musketicook, the
Indian name of Concord River. He pronounced it Mus-
keeticook, emphasizing the second syllable with a peculiar
guttural sound, and said that it meant " Dead-water,"
which it is, and in this definition he agreed exactly with
the St. Francis Indian with whom I talked in 1853.
On a point on the mainland some miles southwest of
Sand-bar Island, where we landed to stretch our legs and
look at the vegetation, going inland a few steps, I discov-
ered a fire still glowing beneath its ashes, where some-
body had breakfasted, and a bed of twigs prepared for
the following night. So I knew not only that they had
just left, but that they designed to return, and by the
breadth of the bed that there was more than one in the
•party. You might have gone within six feet of these
signs without seeing them. There grew the beaked ha-
zel, the only hazel which I saw on this journey, the Di-
ervitta, rue seven feet high, which was very abundant on
all the lake and river shores, and Cornus stolonifera, or
red osier, whose bark, the Indian said, was good to smoke,
and was called maquoxigill, " tobacco before white people
came to this country, Indian tobacco."
The Indian was always very careful in approaching
the shore, lest he should injure his canoe on the rocks,
letting it swing round slowly side wise, and was still
more particular that we should not step into it on shore,
nor till it floated free, and then should step gently lest
we should open its seams, or make a hole in the bottom.
He said that he would tell us when to jump.
Soon after leaving this point we passed the mouth
of the Kennebec, and heard and saw the falls at the
dam there, for even Moosehead Lake is dammed. Af-
ter passing Deer Island, we saw the little steamer from
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. .175
Greenville, far east in the middle of the lake, she ap-
peared nearly stationary. Sometimes we could hardly
tell her from an island which had a few trees on it.
Here we were exposed to the wind from over the
whole breadth of the lake, and ran a little risk of being
swamped. While I had my eye fixed on the spot where
a large fis-h had leaped, we took in a gallon or two of
water, which filled my lap; but we soon reached the
shore and took the canoe over the bar, at Sand-bar
Island, a few feet wide only, and so saved a considerable
distance. One landed first at a more sheltered place,
and walking round caught the canoe by the prow, to
prevent it being injured against the shore.
Again we crossed a broad bay opposite the mouth
of Moose River, before reaching the narrow strait at
Mount Kineo, made what the voyageurs call a traverse,
and found the water quite rough. A very little wind
on these broad lakes raises a sea which will swamp a
canoe. Looking off from a lee shore, the surface may
appear to be very little agitated, almost smooth, a mile
distant, or if you see a few white crests they appear
nearly level with the rest of the lake; but when you
get out so far, you may find quite a sea running, and
erelong, before you think of it, a wave will gently
creep up the side of the canoe and fill your lap, like a
monster deliberately covering you with its slime before
it swallows you, or it will strike the canoe violently and
break into it. The same thing may happen when the
wind rises suddenly, though it were perfectly calm ancj.
smooth there a few minutes before ; so that nothing
can save you, unless you can swim ashore, for it is
impossible to get into a canoe again when it is upset.
Since you sit flat on the bottom, though the danger
176 THE MAINE WOODS.
should not be imminent, a little water is a great incon-
venience, not to mention the wetting of your provisions.
We rarely crossed even a bay directly, from point to
point, when there was wind, but made a slight curve
corresponding somewhat to the shore, that we might
the sooner reach it if the wind increased.
When the wind is aft, and not too strong, the Indian
makes a spritsail of his blanket. He thus easily skims
over the whole length of this lake in a day.
• The Indian paddled on one side, and one of us on
the other, to keep the canoe steady, and when he wanted
to change hands he would say " t' other side." He as-
serted, in answer to our questions, that he had never
upset a canoe himself, though he may have been upset
by others.
Think of our little egg-shell of a canoe tossing across
that great lake, a mere black speck to the eagle soaring
above it.
My companion trailed for trout as we paddled along,
but the Indian warning him that a big fish might upset
us, for there are some very large ones there, he agreed
to pass the line quickly to him in the stern if he had
a bite. Beside trout, I heard of cusk, white-fish, &c.,
as found in this lake.
While we were crossing this bay, where Mount Kineo
rose dark before us, within two or three miles, the Indian
repeated the tradition respecting this mountain's having
anciently been a cow moose, — how a mighty Indian
hunter, whose name I forget, succeeding in killing this
queen of the moose tribe with great difficulty, while
her calf was killed somewhere among the islands in
Penobscot Bay, and, to his eyes, this mountain had
still the form of the moose in a reclining posture, its
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. , 177
precipitous side presenting the outline of her head.
He told this at some length, though it did not amount
to much, and with apparent good faith, and asked us
how we supposed the hunter could have killed such a
mighty moose as that, — how we could, do it. Where-
upon a man-of-war to fire broadsides into her was
suggested, etc. An Indian tells such a story as if he
thought it deserved to have a good deal said about it,
only he has not got it to say, and so he makes up for
the deficiency by a drawling tone, long-windedness, and
a dumb wonder which he hopes will be contagious.
We approached the land again through pretty rough
water, and then steered directly across the lake, at its
narrowest part, to the eastern side, and were soon partly
under the lee of the mountain, about a mile north of
the Kineo House, having paddled about twenty miles.
It was now about noon.
We designed to stop there that afternoon and night,
and spent half an hour looking along the shore north-
ward for a suitable place to camp. We took out all our
baggage at one place in vain, it being too rocky and
uneven, and while engaged in this search we made our
first acquaintance with the moose-fly. At length, half a
mile farther north, by going half a dozen rods into the
dense spruce and fir wood on the side of the mountain,
almost as dark as a cellar, we found a place sufficiently
clear and level to lie down on, after cutting away a few
bushes. We required a space only seven feet by six for
our bed, the fire being four or five feet in front, though
it made no odds how rough the hearth was ; but it was
not always easy to find this in those woods. The Indian
first cleared a path to it from the shore with his axe, and
we then carried up all our baggage, pitched our tent, and
178 THE MAINE WOODS.
made our bed, in order to be ready for foul weather,
which then threatened us, and for the night. He gath-
ered a large armful of fir twigs, breaking them off, which
he said were the best for our bed, partly, I thought,
because they were the largest and could be most rapidly
collected. It had been raining more or less for four or
five days, and the wood was even damper than usual, but
he got dry bark for the fire from the under-side of a dead
leaning hemlock, which, he said, he could always do.
This noon his mind was occupied with a law question,
and I referred him to my companion, who was a lawyer.
It appeared that he had been buying land lately, (I think
it was a hundred acres,) but there was probably an
incumbrance to it, somebody else claiming to have bought
some grass on it for this year. He wished to know to
whom the grass belonged, and was told that if the other
man could prove that he bought the grass before he,
Polis, bought the land, the former could take it, whether
the latter knew it or not. To which he only answered,
" Strange ! " He went over this several times, fairly sat
down to it, with his back to a tree, as if he meant to con-
fine us to this topic henceforth ; but as he made no head-
way, only reached the jumping-off place of his wonder
at white men's institutions after each explanation, we let
the subject die.
He said that he had fifty acres of grass, potatoes, &c.,
somewhere above Oldtown, beside some about his house ;
that he hired a good deal of his work, hoeing, &c., and
preferred white men to Indians, because "they keep
steady, and know how."
After dinner we returned southward along the shore,
in the canoe, on account of the difficulty of climbing over
the rocks and fallen trees, and began to ascend the moun-
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 179
tain along the edge of the precipice. But a smart shower
coming up just then, the Indian crept under his canoe,
while we, being protected by our rubber coats, proceeded
to botanize. So we sent him back to the camp for shelter,
agreeing that he should come there for us with his canoe
toward night. It had rained a little in the forenoon, and
we trusted that this would be the clearing-up shower,
which it proved ; but our feet and • legs were thoroughly
wet by the bushes. The clouds breaking away a little,
we had a glorious wild view, as we ascended, of the
broad lake with its fluctuating surface and numerous
forest-clad islands, extending beyond our sight both north
and south, and the boundless forest undulating away from
its shores on every side, as densely packed as a rye-field,
and enveloping nameless mountains in succession; but
above all, looking westward over a large island was
visible a very distant part of the lake, though we did not
then suspect it to be Moosehead, — at first a mere broken
white line seen through the tops of the island trees, like
hay-caps, but spreading to a lake when we got higher.
Beyond this we saw what appears to be called Bald
Mountain on the map, some twenty-five miles distant,
near the sources of the Penobscot. It was a perfect lake
of the woods. But this was only a transient gleam, for
the rain was not quite over.
Looking southward, the heavens were completely over-
cast, the mountains Capped with clouds, and the lake
generally wore a dark and stormy appearance, but from
its surface just north of Sugar Island, six or eight miles
distant, there was reflected upward to us through the
misty air a bright blue tinge from the distant unseen sky
of another latitude beyond. They probably had a clear
sky then at Greenville, the south end of the lake. Stand-
180 THE MAINE WOODS.
ing on a mountain in the midst of a lake, where would
you look for the first sign of approaching fair weather ?
Not into the heavens, it seems, but. into the lake.
Again we mistook a little rocky islet seen through the
" drisk," with some taller bare trunks or stumps on it,
for the steamer with its smoke-pipes, but as it had not
changed its position after half an hour, we were unde-
ceived. So much do the works of man resemble the
works of nature. A moose might mistake a steamer for
a floating isle, and not be scared till he heard its puffing
or its whistle.
If I wished to see a mountain or other scenery under
the most favorable auspices, I would go to it in foul
weather, so as to be there when it cleared up ; we are
then in the most suitable mood, and nature is most fresh
and inspiring. There is no serenity so fair as that which
is just established in a tearful eye.
Jackson, in his Report on the Geology of Maine,
in 1838, says of this mountain : " Hornstone, which will
answer for flints, occurs in various parts of the State,
where trap-rocks have acted upon silicious slate. The
largest mass of this stone known in the world is Mount
Kineo, upon Moosehead Lake, which appears to be en-
tirely composed of it, and rises seven hundred feet above
the lake level. This variety of hornstone I have seen
in every part of New England in the form of Indian ar-
row-heads, hatchets, chisels, etc., which were probably
obtained from this mountain by the aboriginal inhabitants
of the country." I have myself found hundreds of ar-
row-heads made of the same material. It is generally
slate-colored, with white specks, becoming a uniform
white where exposed to the light and air, and it breaks
with a conchoidal fracture, producing a ragged cutting
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 181
edge, I noticed some conchoidal hollows more than a
foot in diameter. I picked up a small thin piece which
had so sharp an edge that I used it as a dull knife, and
to see what I could do, fairly cut off an aspen one inch
thick with it, by bending it and making many cuts;
though I cut my fingers badly with the back of it in the
meanwhile.
From the summit of the precipice which forms the
southern and eastern sides of this mountain peninsula,
and is its most remarkable feature, being described as five
or six hundred feet high, we looked, and probably might
have jumped down to the water, or to the seemingly
dwarfish trees on the narrow neck of land which connects
it with the main. It is a dangerous place to try the
steadiness of your nerves. Hodge says that these cliffs
descend " perpendicularly ninety feet " below the surface
of the water.
The plants which chiefly attracted our attention on this
mountain were the mountain cinquefoil (Potentilla tri-
dentata), abundant and in bloom still at the very base, by
the water-side, though it is usually confined to the sum-
mits of mountains in our latitude; very beautiful hare-
bells overhanging the precipice; bear-berry; the Can-
ada blueberry (Vaccinium Canadense), similar to (the V.
Pennsylvanicum) our earliest one, but entire leaved and
with a downy stem and leaf; I have not seen it in Mas-
sachusetts ; Diervilla trifida ; Microstylis ophioglossoides,
an orchidaceous plant new to us ; wild holly (Nemopan-
thes Canadensis) ; the great round-leaved orchis (Platan-
thera orbiculata), not long in bloom ; Spiranthes cernua,
at the top ; bunch-berry, reddening as we ascended,
green at the base of the mountain, red at the top ; and
the small fern, Woodsia ilvensis, growing, in tufts, now in
182 THE MAINE WOODS.
fruit. I have also received Liparis liliifolia, or tway-
blade, from this spot. Having explored the wonders of
the mountain, and the weather being now entirely cleared
up, we commenced the descent. We met the Indian,
puffing and panting, about one third of the way up, but
thinking that he must be near the top, and saying that it
took his breath away. I thought that superstition had
something to do with his fatigue. Perhaps he believed
that he was climbing over the back of a tremendous
moose. He said that he had never ascended Kineo.
On reaching the canoe we found that he had caught a
lake trout weighing about three pounds, at the depth of
twenty-five or thirty feet, while we were on the moun-
tain.
When we got to the camp, the canoe was taken out
and turned over, and a log laid across it to prevent its
being blown away. The Indian cut some large logs of
damp and rotten hard wood to smoulder and keep fire
through the night. The trout was fried for supper. Our
tent was of thin cotton cloth and quite small, forming
with the ground a triangular prism closed at the rear end,
six feet long, seven wide, and four high, so that we could
barely sit up in the middle. It required two forked
stakes, a smooth ridge-pole, and a dozen or more pins to
pitch it. It kept off dew and wind, and an ordinary
rain, and answered our purpose well enough. We re-
clined within it till bedtime, each with his baggage at
his head, or else sat about the fire, having hung our wet
clothes on a pole before the fire for the night.
As we sat there, just before night, looking out through
the dusky wood, the Indian heard a noise which he said
was made by a snake. He imitated it at my request,
making a low whistling note, — pheet — pheet, — two or
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. . 183
three times repeated, somewhat like the peep of the hy-
lodes, but not so loud. In answer to my inquiries, he said
that he had never seen them while making it, but go-
ing to the spot he finds the snake. This, he said on
another occasion, was a sign of rain. When I had se-
lected this place for our camp, he had remarked that
there were snakes there, — he saw them. But they won't
do any hurt, I said. " O no," he answered, "just as you
say, it makes no difference to me."
He lay on the right side of the tent, because, as he
said, he was partly deaf in one ear, and he wanted to
lie with his good ear up. As we lay there, he inquired
if I ever heard " Indian sing." I replied that I had not
often, and asked him if he would not favor us with a
song. He readily assented, and lying on his back, with
his blanket wrapped around him, he commenced a slow,
somewhat nasal, yet musical chant, in his own language,
which probably was taught his tribe long ago by the
Catholic missionaries. He translated it to us, sentence by
sentence, afterward, wishing to see if we could remember
it. It proved to be a very simple religious exercise or
hymn, the burden of which was, that there was only
one God who ruled all the world. This was hammered
(or sung) out very thin, so that some stanzas wellnigh
meant nothing at all, merely keeping up the idea. He
then said that he would sing us a Latin song ; but we did
not detect any Latin, only one or two Greek words in it,
— the rest may have been Latin with the Indian pronun-
ciation.
His singing carried me back to the period of the dis-
covery of America, to San Salvador and the Incas, when
Europeans first encountered the simple faith of the In-
dian. There was, indeed, a beautiful simplicity about it ;
184 THE MAINE WOODS.
nothing of the dark and savage, only the mild and in-
fantile. The sentiments of humility and reverence
chiefly were expressed.
It was a dense and damp spruce and fir wood in which
we lay, and, except for our fire, perfectly dark ; and when
I awoke in the night, I either heard an owl from deeper
in the forest behind us, or a loon from a distance over
the lake. Getting up some time after midnight to col-
lect the scattered brands together, while my companions
were sound asleep, I observed, partly in the fire, which had
ceased to blaze, a perfectly regular elliptical ring of light,
about five inches in its shortest diameter, six or seven in
its longer, and from one eighth to one quarter of an inch
wide. It was fully as bright as the fire, but not reddish
or scarlet like a coal, but a white and slumbering light,
like the glowworm's. I could tell it from the fire only
by its whiteness. I saw at once that it must be phospho-
rescent wood, which I had so often heard of, but never
chanced to see. Putting my finger on it, with a little hes-
itation, I found that it was a piece of dead moose-wood
(Acer striatum) which the Indian had cut off in a slanting
direction the evening before. Using my knife, I discov-
ered that the light proceeded from that portion of the
sap-wood immediately under the bark, and" thus presented
a regular ring at the end, which, indeed, appeared raised
above the level of the wood, and when I pared off the
bark and cut into the sap, it was all aglow along the log.
I was surprised to find the wood quite hard and appar-
ently sound, though probably decay had commenced in
the sap, and I cut out some little triangular chips, and
placing them in the hollow of my hand, carried them
into the camp, waked my companion, and showed them
to him. They lit up the inside of my hand, revealing
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 185
the lines and wrinkles, and appearing exactly like coals
of fire raised to a white heat, and I saw at once how,
probably, the Indian jugglers had imposed on their peo-
ple and on travellers, pretending to hold coals of fire in
their mouths.
I also noticed that part of a decayed stump within four
or five feet of the fire, an inch wide and six inches long,
soft and shaking wood, shone with equal brightness.
I neglected to ascertain whether our fire had anything
to do with this, but the previous day's rain and long-con-
tinued wet weather undoubtedly had.
I was exceedingly interested by this phenomenon, and
already felt paid for my journey. It could hardly have
thrilled me more if it had taken the form of letters, or
of the human face. If I had met with this ring of light
while groping in this forest alone, away from any fire, I
should have been still more surprised. I little thought
that there was such a light shining in the darkness of the
wilderness for me.
The next day the Indian told me their name for
this light, — Artoosoqu\ — and on my inquiring concern-
ing the will-o'-the-wisp, and the like phenomena, he said
that his "folks." sometimes saw fires passing along at va-
rious heights, even as high as the trees, and making a
noise. I was prepared after this to hear of the most
startling and unimagined phenomena witnessed by " his
folks," they are abroad at all hours and seasons in scenes
so unfrequented by white men. Nature must have made
a thousand revelations to them which are still secrets
to us.
I did not regret my not having seen this before, since
I now saw it under circumstances so favorable. I was in
just the frame of mind to see something wonderful, and
186 THE MAINE WOODS.
this was a phenomenon adequate to my circumstances
and expectation, and it put me on the alert to see more
like it. I exulted like " a pagan suckled in a creed " that
had never been worn at all, but was bran new, and ade-
quate to the occasion. I let science slide, and rejoiced
in that light as if it had been a fellow-creature. I saw
that it was excellent, and was very glad to know that it
was so cheap. A scientific explanation, as it is called,
would have been altogether out of place there. That is
for pale daylight. Science with its retorts would have
put me to sleep ; it was the opportunity to be ignorant
that I improved. It suggested to me that there was
something to be seen if one had eyes. It made a be-
liever of me more than before. I believed that the
woods were not tenantless, but choke-full of honest spir-
its as good as myself any day, — not an empty chamber,
in which chemistry was left to work alone, but an inhab-
ited house, — and for a few moments I enjoyed fellowship
with them. Your so-called wise man goes trying to per-
suade himself that there is no entity there but himself
and his traps, but it is a great deal easier to believe the
truth. It suggested, too, that the same experience al-
ways gives birth to the same sort of belief or religion.
One revelation has been made to the Indian, another to
the white man. I have much to learn of the Indian,
nothing of the missionary. I am not sure but all that
would tempt me to teach the Indian my religion would
be his promise to teach me his. Long enough I had
heard of irrelevant things ; now at length I was glad to
make acquaintance with the light that dwells in rotten
wood. Where is all your knowledge gone to ? It evap-
orates completely, for it has no depth.
I kept those little chips and wet them again the next
night, but they emitted no light.
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 187
SATURDAY, July 25.
At breakfast this Saturday morning, the Indian, evi-
dently curious to know what would be expected of him
the next day, whether we should go along or not, asked
me how I spent the Sunday when at home. I told him
that I commonly sat in my chamber reading, etc., in the
forenoon, and went to walk in the afternoon. At which
he shook his head and said, " Er, that is ver bad." " How
do you spend it ? " I asked. He said that he did no
work, that he went to church at Oldtown when he was at
home ; in short, he did as he had been taught by the
whites. This led to a discussion in which I found my-
self in the minority. He stated that he was a Protestant,
and asked me if I was. I did not at first know what to
say, but I thought that I could answer with truth that I
was.
When we were washing the dishes in the lake, many
fishes, apparently chivin, came close up to us to get the
particles of grease.
The weather seemed to be more settled this morning,
and we set out early in order to finish our voyage up the
lake before the wind arose. Soon after, starting the In-
dian directed our attention to the Northeast Carry, which
we could plainly see, about thirteen miles distant in that
direction as measured on the map, though it is called
much farther. This carry is a rude wooden railroad,
running north and south about two miles, perfectly
straight, from the lake to the Penobscot, through a low
tract, with a clearing three or four rods wide ; but low as
it is, it passes over the height of land there. This open-
ing appeared as a clear bright, or light point in the hori-
zon, resting on the edge of the lake, whose breadth a hair
could have covered at a considerable distance from the
188 THE MAINE WOODS.
eye, and of no appreciable height. We should not have
suspected it to be visible if the Indian had not drawn our
attention to it. It was a remarkable kind of light to
steer for, — daylight seen through a vista in the forest,
— but visible as far as an ordinary beacon by night.
We crossed a deep and wide bay which makes east-
ward north of Kineo, leaving an island on our left, and
keeping up the eastern side of the lake. This way or
that led to some Tomhegan or Socatarian stream, up
which the Indian had hunted, and whither I longed to
go. The last name, however, had a bogus sound, too
much like sectarian for me, as if a missionary had tam-
pered with it ; but I know that the Indians were very
liberal. I think I should have inclined to the Tomhegan
first.
We then crossed another broad bay, which, as we
could no longer observe the shore particularly, afforded
ample time for conversation. The Indian said that he
had got his money by hunting, mostly high up the west
branch of the Penobscot, and toward the head of the St.
John ; he had hunted there from a boy, and knew all
about that region. His game had been, beaver, otter,
black cat (or fisher), sable, moose, &c. Loup cervier
(or Canada lynx) were plenty yet in burnt grounds.
For food in the woods, he uses partridges, ducks, dried
moose-meat, hedge-hog, &c. Loons, too, were good, only
" bile 'em good." He told us at some length how he had
suffered from starvation when a mere lad, being over-
taken by winter when hunting with two grown Indians
in the northern part of Maine, and obliged to leave their
canoe on account of ice.
Pointing into the bay, he said that it was the way to
various lakes which he knew. Only solemn bear-haunted
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 189
mountains, with their great wooded slopes, were visible ;
where, as man is not, we suppose some other power to
be. My imagination personified the slopes themselves,
as if by their very length they would waylay you, and
compel you to camp again on them before night. Some
invisible glutton would seem to drop from the trees and
gnaw at the heart of the solitary hunter who threaded
those woods; and yet I was tempted to walk there.
The Indian said that he had been along there several
times.
I asked him how he guided himself in the woods.
" 0," said he, " I can tell good many ways." When I
pressed him further, he answered, " Sometimes I lookum
side-hill," and he glanced toward a high hill or mountain
on the eastern shore, " great difference between the north
and south, see where the sun has shone most. So trees, —
the large limbs bend toward south. Sometimes I lookum
locks" (rocks). I asked what he saw on the rocks, but
he did not describe anything in particular, answering
vaguely, in a mysterious or drawling tone, " Bare locks
on lake shore, — great difference between N. S. E. W.
side, — can tell what the sun has shone on." " Suppose,"
said I, " that I should take you in a dark night, right up
here into the middle of the woods a hundred miles, set you
down, and turn you round quickly twenty times, could
you steer straight to Oldtown?" "O yer," said he,
" have done pretty much same thing. I will tell you.
Some years ago I met an old white hunter at Millinocket ;
very good hunter. He said he could go anywhere in
the woods. He wanted to hunt with me that day, so
we start. We chase a moose all the forenoon, round
and round, till middle of afternoon, when we kill him.
Then I said to him, now you. go straight to camp. Don't
190 THE MAINE WOODS.
go round and round where we Ve been, but go straight.
He said, I can't do that, I don't know where I am.
Where you think camp ? I asked. He pointed so.
Then I laugh at him. I take the lead and go right off
the other way, cross our tracks many times, straight
camp." " How do you do that ? " asked I. " O, I can't
tell you" he replied. " Great difference between me
and white man."
It appeared as if the sources of information were so
various that he did not give a distinct, conscious attention
to any one, and so could not readily refer to any when
questioned about it, but he found his way very much
as an animal does. Perhaps what is commonly called
instinct in the animal, in this case is merely a sharpened
and educated sense. Often, when an Indian says, "I
don't know," in regard to the route he is to take, he does
not mean what a white man would by those words, for
his Indian instinct may tell him still as much as the
most confident white man knows. He does not carry
things in his head, nor remember the route exactly like
a white man, but relies on himself at the moment. Not
having experienced the need of the other sort of knowl-
edge, all labelled and arranged, he has not acquired it.
The white hunter with whom I talked in the stage .
knew some of the resources of the Indian. He said that
he steered by the wind, or by the limbs of the hemlocks,
which were largest on the south side ; also sometimes,
when he knew that there was a lake near, by firing his
gun and listening to hear the direction and distance of
the echo from over it.
The course we took over this lake, and others after-
ward, was rarely direct, but a succession of curves from
point to point, digressing considerably into each of the
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 191
bays ; and this was not merely on account of the wind,
for the Indian, looking toward the middle of the lake,
said it was hard to go there, easier to keep near the
shore, because he thus got over it by successive reaches
and saw by the shore how he got along.
The following will suffice for a common experience in
crossing lakes in a canoe. As the forenoon advanced
the wind increased. The last bay which we crossed
before reaching the desolate pier at the northeast carry,
was two or three miles over, and the wind was south-
westerly. After going a third of the way, the waves had
increased so as occasionally to wash into the canoe, and
we saw that it was worse and worse ahead. At first we
might have turned about, but were not willing to. It
would have been of no use to follow the course of the
shore, for not only the distance would have been much
greater, but the waves ran still higher there on account
of the greater sweep the wind had. At any rate it would
have been dangerous now to alter our course, because
the waves would have struck us at an advantage. It
will not do to meet them at right angles, for then they
will wash in both sides, but you must take them quarter-
ing. So the Indian stood up in the canoe, and exerted
all his skill and strength for a mile or two, while I pad-
dled right along in order to give him more steerage-way.
For more than a mile he did not allow a single wave to
strike the canoe as it would, but turned it quickly from
this side to that, so that it would always be on or near
the crest of a wave when it broke, where all its force
was spent, and we merely settled down with it. At
length I jumped out on to the end of the pier, against
which the waves were dashing violently, in order to
lighten the canoe, and catch it at the landing, which was
192 THE MAINE WOODS.
not much sheltered; but* just as I jumped we took in
two or three gallons of water. I remarked to the Indian,
" You managed that well," to which he replied : " Ver
few men do that. Great many waves ; when I look out
for one, another come quick."
While the Indian went to get cedar-bark, &c., to carry
his canoe with, we cooked the dinner on the shore, at
this end of the carry, in the midst of a sprinkling rain.
He prepared his canoe for carrying in this wise. He
took a cedar shingle or splint eighteen inches long and
four or five wide, rounded at one end, that the corners
might not be in the way, and tied it with cedar-bark by
two holes made midway, near the edge on each side, to
the middle crossbar of the canoe. When the canoe was
lifted upon his head bottom up, this shingle, with its
rounded end uppermost, distributed the weight over his
shoulders and head, while a band of cedar-bark, tied to
the cross-bar on each side of the shingle, passed round
his breast, and another longer one, outside of the last,
round his forehead ; also a hand on each side rail served
to steer the canoe and keep it from rocking. He thus
carried it with his shoulders, head, breast, forehead, and
both hands, as if the upper part of his body were all one
hand to clasp and hold it. If you know of a better way,
I should like to hear of it. A cedar-tree furnished all
the gear in this case, as it had the woodwork of the
canoe. One of the paddles rested on the crossbars in
the bows. I took the canoe upon my head and found
that I could carry it with ease, though the straps were
not fitted to my shoulders ; but I let him carry it, not
caring to establish a different precedent, though he said
that if I would carry the canoe, he would take all the
rest of the baggage, except my companion's. This shin-
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. . 193
gle remained tied to the crossbar throughout the voyage,
was always ready for the carries, and also served to pro-
tect the back of one passenger.
We were obliged to go over this carry twice, our load
was so great. But the carries were an agreeable variety,
and we improved the opportunity to gather the rare
plants which we had seen, when we returned empty-
handed.
"We reached the Penobscot about four o'clock, and
found there some St. Francis Indians encamped on the
bank, in the same place where I camped with four
Indians four years before. They were making a canoe,
and, as then, drying moose-meat. The meat looked very
suitable to make a black broth at least. Our Indian said
it was not good. Their camp was covered with spruce-
bark. They had got a young moose, taken in the river
a fortnight before, confined in a sort of cage of logs piled
up cob-fashion, seven or eight feet high. It was quite
tame, about four feet high, and covered with moose-flies.
There was a large quantity of cornel (C. stolonifera),
red maple, and also willow and aspen boughs, stuck
through between the logs on all sides, but-ends out, and
on their leaves it was browsing. It looked at first as if
it were in a bower rather than a pen.
Our Indian said that he used Hack spruce-roots to sew
canoes with, obtaining it from high lands or mountains.
The St. Francis Indian thought that white spruce-roots
might be best. But the former said, " No good, break,
can't split 'em " ; also that they were hard to get, deep
in ground, but the black were near the surface, on higher
land, as well as tougher. He said that the white spruce
was subekoondark, black, skusk. I told him I thought
that I could make a canoe, but he expressed great doubt
194 THE MAINE WOODS.
of it ; at any rate, he thought that my work would not be
"neat" the first time. An Indian at Greenville had
told me that the winter bark, that is, bark taken off
before the sap flows in May, was harder and much better
than summer bark.
Having reloaded, he paddled down the Penobscot,
which, as the Indian remarked, and even I detected,
remembering how it looked before, was uncommonly full.
We soon after saw a splendid yellow lily (Lilium Cana-
dense) by the shore, which I plucked. It was six feet
high, and had twelve flowers, in two whorls, forming a
pyramid, such as I have seen in Concord. We after-
ward saw many more thus tall along this stream, and
also still more numerous on the East Branch, and, on
the latter, one which I thought approached yet nearer to
the Lilium superbum. The Indian asked what we called
it, and said that the " loots " (roots) were good for soup,
that is, to cook with meat, to thicken it, taking the place
of flour. They get them in the fall. I dug some, and
found a mass of bulbs pretty deep in the earth, two .
inches in diameter, looking, and even tasting, somewhat
like raw green corn on the ear.
When we had gone about three miles down the Penob-
scot, we saw through the tree-tops a thunder-shower
coming up in the west, and we looked out a camping-
place in good season, about five o'clock, on the west side,
not far below the mouth of what Joe Aitteon, in '53,
called Lobster Stream, coming from Lobster Pond. Our
present Indian, however, did not admit this name, nor
even that of Matahumkeag, which is on the map, but
called the lake Beskabekuk.
I will describe, once for all, the routine of camping at
this season. We generally told the Indian that we would
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 195
stop at the first suitable place, so that he might be on the
lookout, for it. Having observed a clear, hard, and flat
beach to land on, free from mud, and from stones which
would injure the canoe, one would run up the bank to
see if there were open and level space enough for the
camp between the trees, or if it could be easily cleared,
preferring at the same time a cool place, on account of
insects. Sometimes we paddled a mile or more before
finding one to our minds, for where the shore was suita-
ble, the bank would often be too steep, or else too low
and grassy, and therefore mosquitoey. We then took
out the baggage and drew up the canoe, sometimes turn-
ing it over on shore for safety. The Indian cut a path
to the spot we had selected, which was usually within
two or three rods of the water, and we carried up our
baggage. One, perhaps, takes canoe-birck bark, always
at hand, and dead dry wood or bark, and kindles a fire
five or six feet in front of where we intend to lie. It
matters not, commonly, on which side this is, because
there is little or no wind in so dense a wood at that sea-
son ; and then he gets a kettle of water from the river,
and takes out the pork, bread, coffee, &c., from their
several packages.
Another, meanwhile, having the axe, cuts down the
nearest dead rock-maple or other dry hard wood, col-
lecting several large logs to last through the night, also
a green stake, with a notch or fork to it, which is slanted
over the fire, perhaps resting on a rock or forked stake,
to hang the kettle on, and two forked stakes and a pole
for the tent.
The third man pitches the tent, cuts a dozen or more
pins with his knife, usually of moose-wood, the common
underwood, to fasten it down with, and then collects an
196 THE MAINE WOODS.
armful or two of fir-twigs,* arbor-vitae, spruce, or hem-
lock, whichever is at hand, and makes the bed, beginning
at either end, and laying the twigs wrong-side up, in reg-
ular rows, covering the stub-ends of the last row ; first,
however, filling the hollows, if there are any, with coarser
material. Wrangel says that his guides in Siberia first
strewed a quantity of dry brushwood on the ground, and
then cedar twigs on that.
Commonly, by the time the bed is made, or within fif-
teen or twenty minutes, the water boils, the pork is fried,
and supper is ready. We eat this sitting on the ground,
or a stump, if there is any, around a large piece of birch-
bark for a table, each holding a dipper in one hand and
a piece of ship-bread or fried pork in the other, frequently
making a pass with his hand, or thrusting his head into
the smoke, to avoid the mosquitoes.
Next, pipes are lit by those who smoke, and veils are
donned by those who have them, and we hastily examine
and dry our plants, anoint our faces and hands, and go
to bed, — and — the mosquitoes.
Though you have nothing to do but see the country,
there 's rarely any time to spare, hardly enough to exam-
ine a plant, before the night or drowsiness is upon you.
Such was the ordinary experience, but this evening
we had camped earlier on account of the rain, and had
more time.
We found that our camp to-night was on an old, and
now more than usually indistinct, supply-road, running
along the river. What is called a road there shows no
ruts or trace of wheels, for they are not used ; nor, in-
deed, of runners, since they are used only in the winter,
when the snow is several feet deep. It is only an indis-
* These twigs are called in Rasle's Dictionary, Sediak.
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 197
tinct vista through the wood, which it takes air experi-
enced eye to detect.
We had no sooner pitched our tent than the thunder-
shower burst on us, and we hastily crept under it, draw-
ing our bags after us, curious to see how much of a shel-
ter our thin cotton roof was going to be in this excursion.
Though the violence of the rain forced a fine shower
through the cloth before it was fairly wetted and shrunk,
with which we were well bedewed, we managed to keep
pretty dry, only a box of matches having been left out
and spoiled, and before we were aware of it the shower
was over, and only the dripping trees imprisoned us.
Wishing to see what fishes there were in the river
there, we cast our lines over the wet bushes on the shore,
but they were repeatedly swept down the swift stream in
vain. So, leaving the Indian, we took the canoe just before
dark, and dropped down the river a few rods to fish at
the mouth of a sluggish brook on the opposite side. We
pushed up this a rod or two, where, perhaps, only a canoe
had been before. But though there were a few small
fishes, mostly chivin, there, we were soon driven off" by
the mosquitoes. While there we heard the Indian fire
his gun twice in such rapid succession that we thought it
must be double-barrelled, though we observed afterward
that it was single. His object was to clean out and dry
it after the rain, and he then loaded it with ball, being
now on ground where he expected to meet with 'large
game. This sudden, loud, crashing noise in*the still aisles
of the forest, affected me like an insult to nature, or ill
manners at any rate, as if you were to fire a gun in a
hall or temple. It was not heard far, however, except
along the river, the sound being rapidly hushed up or
absorbed by the damp trees and mossy ground.
198 THE MAINE WOODS.
The Indian made a little smothered fire of damp
leaves close to the back of the camp, that the smoke
might drive through and keep out the mosquitoes ; but
just before we fell asleep this suddenly blazed up, and
came near setting fire to the tent. We were considerably
molested by mosquitoes at this camp.
SUNDAY, July 26.
The note of the white-throated sparrow, a very in-
spiriting but almost wiry sound, was the first heard in
the morning, and with this all the woods rang. This
was the prevailing bird in the northern part of Maine.
The forest generally was all alive with them at this sea-
son, and they were proportionally numerous and musical
about Bangor. They evidently breed in that State.
Wilson did not know where they bred, and says, " Their
only note is a kind of chip." Though commonly un-
seen, their simple ah, te-te-te, te-te-te, te-te-te, so sharp and
piercing, was as distinct to the ear as the passage of a
spark of fire shot into the darkest of the forest would be
to the eye. I thought that they commonly uttered it as
they flew. I hear this note for a few days only in the
spring, as they go through Concord, and in the fall see
them again going southward, but then they are mute.
We were commonly aroused by their lively strain very
early. What a glorious time they must have in that
wilderness, far from mankind and election day !
I told the Indian that we would go to church to Che-
suncook this {Sunday) morning, some fifteen miles. It
was settled weather at last. A few swallows flitted over
the water, we heard the white throats along the shore,
the phebe notes of the chicadee, and, I believe, red-starts,
and moose-flies of large size pursued us in mid-stream.
The Indian thought that we should lie by on Sunday.
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 199
Said he, " We come here lookum things, look all round ;
but come Sunday, lock up all that, and then Monday look
again." He spoke of an Indian of his acquaintance who
had been with some ministers to Ktaadn, and had told
him how they conducted. This he described in a low and
solemn voice. " They make a long prayer every morn-
ing and night, and at every meal. Come Sunday," said
he, " they stop 'em, no go at all that day, — keep still, —
preach all day, — first one then another, just like church.
O, ver good men." " One day," said he, " going along a
river, they came to the body of a man in the water,
drowned good while, all ready fall to pieces. They go
right ashore, — stop there, go no farther that day, — they
have meeting there, preach and pray just like Sunday.
Then they get poles and lift up the body, and they go back
and carry the body 'with them. O, they ver good men."
I judged from this account that their every camp was
a camp-meeting, and they had mistaken their route, —
they should have gone to Eastham ; that they wanted
an opportunity to preach somewhere more than to see
Ktaadn. I read of another similar party that seem to
have spent their time there singing the songs of Zion.
I was glad that I did not go to that mountain with such
slow coaches.
However, the Indian added, plying the paddle all the
while, that if we would go along, he must go with us,
he our man, and he suppose that if he no takum pay for
what he do Sunday, then ther 's no harm, but if he
takum pay, then wrong. I told him that he was stricter
than white men. Nevertheless, I noticed that he did
not forget to reckon in the Sundays at last.
He appeared to be a very religious man, and said his
prayers in a loud voice; in Indian, kneeling before the
200 THE MAINE WOODS.
camp, morning and evening, — sometimes scrambling up
again in haste when he had forgotten this, and saying
them with great rapidity. In the course of the day, he
remarked, not very originally, " Poor man remember-
um God more than rich."
We soon passed the island where I had camped four
years before, and I recognized the very spot. The dead
water, a mile or two below it, the Indian called, Beska
bekukskishtuk, from the lake Beskabekuk, which empties
in above. This dead water, he said,, was " a great place
for moose always." We saw the grass bent where a
moose came out the night before, and the Indian said
that he could smell one as far as he could see him ; but,
he added, that if he should see five or six to-day close
by canoe, he no shoot 'em. Accordingly, as he was
the only one of the party who had a gun, or had come
a-hunting, the moose were safe.
Just below this, a cat-owl flew heavily over the
stream, and he, asking if I knew what it was, imitated
very well the common hoo, hoo, hoo, hoorer, hoo, of our
woods ; making a hard, guttural sound, " Ugh, ugh, ugh,
— ugh, ugh." When we passed the Moose-horn, he
said that it had no name. What Joe Aitteon had
called Ragmuff, he called Pay tay te quick, and said that
it meant Burnt Ground Stream. We stopped there,
where I had stopped before, and I bathed in this tribu-
tary. It was shallow but cold, apparently too cold for
the Indian, who stood looking on. As we were pushing
away again, a white-beaked eagle sailed over our heads.
A reach some miles above Pine Stream, where there
were several islands, the Indian said was Nonglangyis,
dead-water. Pine Stream he called Black River, and
said that its Indian name was KarsaootuJc. He could
go to Caribou Lake that way.
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BEANCH. 201
We carried a part of the baggage about Pine Stream
Falls, while the Indian went down in the canoe. A
Bangor merchant had told us that two men in his em-
ploy were drowned some time ago while passing these
falls in a bateau, and a third clung to a rock all night,
and was taken off in the morning. There were mag-
nificent great purple-fringed orchises on this carry and
the neighboring shores. I measured the largest canoe-
birch which I saw in this journey near the end of the
carry. It was 14£ feet in circumference at two feet from
the ground, but at five feet divided into three parts. The
canoe-birches thereabouts were commonly marked by
conspicuous dark spiral ridges, with a groove between, so
that I thought at first that they had been struck by light-
ning, but, as the Indian said, it was evidently caused by
the grain of the tree. He cut a small, woody knob, as
big as a filbert, from the trunk of a fir, apparently an old
balsam vesicle filled with wood, which he said was good
medicine.
After we had embarked and gone half a mile, my
companion remembered that he had left his knife, and
we paddled back to get it, against the strong and swift
current. This taught us the difference between going
up and down the stream, for while we were working
our way back a quarter of a mile, we should have gone
down a mile and a half at least. So we landed, and
while he and the Indian were gone back for it, I
watched the motions of the foam, a kind of white water-
fowl near the shore, forty or fifty rods below. It alter-
nately appeared and disappeared behind the rock, being
carried round by an eddy. Even this semblance of life
was interesting on that lonely river.
Immediately below these falls was the Chesuncook
9*
202 THE MAINE WOODS.
dead-water, caused by the flowing back of the lake. As
we paddled slowly over this, the Indian told us a story
of his hunting thereabouts, and something more interest-
ing about himself. It appeared that he had represented
his tribe at Augusta, and also once at Washington, where
he had met some Western chiefs. He had been con-
sulted at Augusta, and gave advice, which he said was
followed, respecting the eastern boundary of Maine, as
determined by highlands and streams, at the time of the
difficulties on that side. He was employed with the
surveyors on the line. Also he had called on Daniel
Webster in Boston, at the time of his Bunker Hill
oration.
I was surprised to hear him say that he liked to go to
Boston, New York, Philadelphia, &c., &c. ; that he would
like to live there. But then, as if relenting a little, when
he thought what a poor figure he would make there, he
added, " I suppose, I live in New York, I be poorest
hunter, I expect." He understood very well both his
superiority and his inferiority to the whites. He criti-
cised the people of the United States as compared with
other nations, but the" only distinct idea with which he
labored was, that they were "very strong," but, like
some individuals, " too fast." He must have the credit
of saying this just before the general breaking down of
railroads and banks. He had a great idea of education,
and would occasionally break out into such expressions
as this, " Kademy — a-cad-e-my — good thing — I sup-
pose they usum Fifth Reader there You been col-
lege?"
From this dead-water the outlines of the mountains
about Ktaadn were visible. The top of Ktaadn was
concealed by a cloud, but the Souneunk Mountains were
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 203
nearer, and quite visible. We steered across the north-
west end of the lake, from which we looked down south-
southeast, the whole length to Joe Merry Mountain, seen
over its extremity. It is an agreeable change to cross a
lake, after you have been shut up in the woods, not only
on account of the greater expanse of water, but also
of sky. It is one of the surprises which Nature has in
store for the traveller in the forest. To look down, in
this case, over eighteen miles of water, was liberating
and civilizing even. No doubt, the short distance to
which you can see in the woods, and the general twilight,
would at length react on the inhabitants, and make them
salvages. The lakes also reveal the mountains, and give
ample scope and range to our thought. The very gulls
which we saw sitting on the rocks, like white specks, or
circling about, reminded me of custom-house officers.
Already there were half a dozen log-huts about this end
of the lake, though so far from a road. I perceive that
in these woods the earliest settlements are, for various
reasons, clustering about the lakes, but partly, I think,
for the sake of the neighborhood as the oldest clearings.
They are forest schools already established, • — great
centres of light. Water is a pioneer which the settler
follows, taking advantage of its improvements.
Thus far only I had been before. About noon we
turned northward, up a broad kind of estuary, and at its
northeast corner found the Caucomgomoc River, and
after going about a mile from the lake, reached the Um-
bazookskus, which comes in on the right at a point where
the former river, coming from the west, turns short to
the south. Our course was up the Umbazookskus, but
as the Indian knew of a good camping-place, that is, a
cool place where there were few mosquitoes, about half a
204
THE MAINE WOODS.
mile farther up the Caucomgomoc, we went thither. The
latter river, judging from the map, is the longer and
principal stream, and, therefore, its name must* prevail
below the junction. So quickly we changed the civiliz-
ing sky of Chesuncook for the dark wood of the Cau-
comgomoc. On reaching the Indian's camping-ground,
on the south side, where the bank was about a dozen feet
high, I read on the trunk of a fir-tree blazed by an axe
an inscription in charcoal which had been left by liim.
It was surmounted by a drawing of a bear paddling a
canoe, which he said was the sign which had been used
by his family always. The drawing, though rude, could
not be mistaken for anything but a bear, and he doubted
my ability to copy it. The inscription ran thus, verbatim
et literatim. I interline the English of his Indian as he
gave it to me.
[The figure of a bear in a boat.]
July 26,
1853.
Polls start
l«'a olta
for Oldtown
ouke ni
right away,
quambi
^Y^': 1£*"/>^We al°
J* ^^ ^j\&&
July 15,
1855.
Niasoseb.
He added now below : —
1857,
July 26.
Io. Polls.
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 205
This was one of his homes. I saw where he had
sometimes stretched his moose-hides on the opposite or
sunny north side of the river, where there was a narrow-
meadow.
After we had selected a place for our camp, and kin-
dled our fire, almost exactly on the site of the Indian's
last camp here, he, looking up, observed, "That tree
danger." It was a dead part, more than a foot in diam-
ter, of a large canoe-birch, which branched at the ground.
This branch, rising thirty feet or more, slanted directly
over the spot which we had chosen for our bed. I told
him to try it with his axe ; but he could not shake it
perceptibly, and, therefore, seemed inclined to disregard
it, and my companion expressed his willingness to run
the risk. But it seemed to me that we should be fools
to lie under it, for though the lower part was firm, the
"top, Tor aught we knew, might be just ready to fall, and
we should at any rate be very uneasy if the wind arose
in the night. It is a common accident for men camping
in the woods to be killed by a falling tree. So the camp
was moved to the other side of the fire.
It was, as usual, a damp and shaggy forest, that Cau-
comgomoc one, and the most you knew about it was, that
on this side it stretched toward the settlements, and on
that to still more unfrequented regions. You carried so
much topography in your mind always, — and sometimes
it seemed to make a considerable difference whether
you sat or lay nearer the settlements, or farther off, than
your companions, — were the rear or frontier man of the
camp. But there is really the same difference between
our positions wherever we may be camped, and some are
nearer the frontiers on feather-beds in the towns than
others on fir-twigs in the backwoods.
206 THE MAINE WOODS.
The Indian said that the Umbazookskus, being a dead
stream with broad meadows, was a good place for moose,
and he frequently came ajjmatieg here, being out alone
three weeks or more from Oldtown. He sometimes,
also, went a-hunting to the Seboois Lakes, taking the
stage, with his gun and ammunition, axe and blankets,
hard bread and pork, perhaps for a hundred miles of the
way, and jumped off at the wildest place on the road,
where he was at once at home, and every rod was a tav-
ern-site for him. Then, after a short journey through
the woods, he would build a spruce-bark canoe in one
day, putting but few ribs into it, that it might be light,
and after doing his hunting with it on the lakes, would
return with his furs the same way he had come. Thus
you have an Indian availing himself cunningly of the
advantages of civilization, without losing any of his
woodcraft, but proving himself the more successful hunter
for it.
This man was very clever and quick to learn anything
in his line. Our tent was of a kind new to him ; but
when he had once seen it pitched it was surprising how
quickly he would find and prepare the pole and forked
stakes to pitch it with, cutting and placing them right the
first time, though I am sure that the majority of white
men would have blundered several times.
This river came from Caucomgomoc Lake, about ten
miles farther up. Though it was sluggish here, there
were falls not far above us, and we saw the foam from
them go by from time to time. The Indian said that
Caucomgomoc meant Big-gull Lake, (i. e. Herring-gull,
I suppose,) gomoc meaning lake. Hence this was Cau-
comgomoctook, or the river from that lake. This was the
Penobscot Caucomgomoc-took ! there was another St.
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 207
John one not far north. He finds the eggs of this gull,
sometimes twenty together, as big as hen's eggs, on rocky
ledges on the west side of Millinocket River, for instance,
and eats them.
Now I thought I would observe how he spent his Sun-
day. While I and my companion were looking about at
the trees and river, he went to sleep. Indeed, he im-
proved every opportunity to get a nap, whatever the day.
Rambling about the woods at this camp, I noticed that
they consisted chiefly of firs, black spruce, and some
white, red maple, canoe-birch, and, along the river, the
hoary alder, Alnus incana. I name them in the order of
their abundance. The Viburnum nudum was a common
shrub, and of smaller plants, there were the dwarf-cornel,
great round-leaved orchis, abundant and in bloom (a
greenish-white flower growing in little communities),
Uvularia grandiflora, whose stem tasted like a cucumber,
Pyrola secunda, apparently the commonest Pyrola in those
woods, now out of bloom, Pyrola ettiptica, and Chiogenes
hispidula. The Clintonia borealis, with ripe berries, was
very abundant, and perfectly at home there. Its leaves,
disposed commonly in triangles about its stem, were just
as handsomely formed and green, and its berries as blue
and glossy, as if it grew by some botanist's favorite path.
I could trace the outlines of large birches that had
fallen long ago, collapsed and rotted and turned to soil,
by faint yellowish-green lines of feather-like moss,
eighteen inches wide and twenty or thirty feet long,
crossed by other similar lines.
I heard a Maryland yellow-throat's midnight strain,
wood-thrush, kingfisher (tweezer bird), or parti-colored
warbler, and a night-hawk. I also heard and saw red
squirrels, and heard a bull-frog. The Indian said that
he heard a snake.
208 THE MAINE WOODS.
Wild as it was, it was hard for me to get rid of the
associations of the settlements. Any steady and monot-
onous sound, to which I did not distinctly attend, passed
for a sound of human industry. The waterfalls which
I heard were not without their dams and mills to my im-
agination, — and several times I found that I had been re-
garding the steady rushing sound of the wind from over
the woods beyond the rivers as that of a train of cars, — •
the cars at Quebec. Our minds anywhere, when left to
themselves, are always thus busily drawing conclusions
from false premises.
I asked the Indian to make us a sugar-bowl of birch-
bark, which he did, using the great knife which dangled
in a sheath from his belt ; but the bark broke at the cor-
ners when he bent it up, and he said it was not good ;
that there was a great difference in this respect between
the bark of one canoe-birch and that of another, i. e. one
cracked more easily than another. I used some thin and
delicate sheets of this bark which he split and cut, in my
flower-book ; thinking it would be good to separate the
dried specimens from the green.
My companion, wishing to distinguish between the
black and white spruce, asked Polis to show him a twig
of the latter, which he did at once, together with the
black ; indeed, he could distinguish them about as far as
he could see them ; but as the two twigs appeared very
much alike, my companion asked the Indian to point out
the difference ; whereupon the latter, taking the twigs, in-
stantly remarked, as he passed his hand over them succes-
sively in a stroking manner, that the white was rough (i. e.
the needles stood up nearly perpendicular), but the black
smooth (i. e. as if bent or combed down). This was an
obvious difference, both to sight and touch. However, if I
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BKANCH. 209
remember rightly, this would not serve to distinguish the
white spruce from the light-colored variety of the black.
I asked him to let me see him get some black spruce
root, and make some thread. Whereupon, without look-
ing up at the trees overhead, he began to grub in the
ground, instantly distinguishing the black spruce roots,
and cutting off a slender one, three or four feet long, and
as big as a pipe-stem, he split the end with his knife, and
taking a half between the thumb and forefinger of each
hand, rapidly separated its whole length into two equal
semi-cylindrical halves ; then giving me another root, he
said, " You try." But in my hands it immediately ran
off one side, and I got only a very short piece. In short,
though it looked very easy, I found that there was a
great art in splitting these roots. The split is skilfully
humored by bending short with this hand or that, and so
kept in the middle. He then took off the bark from
each half, pressing a short piece of cedar bark against
the convex side with both hands, while he drew the root
upward with his teeth. An Indian's teeth are strong,
and I noticed that he used his often where we should
have used a hand. They amounted to a third hand. He
thus obtained, in a moment, a very neat, tough, and flexi-
ble string, which he could tie into a knot, or make into a
fish-line even. It is said that in Norway and Sweden the
roots of the Norway spruce (Abies excelsa) are used in
the same way for the same purpose. He said that you
would be obliged to give half a dollar for spruce root
enough for a canoe, thus prepared. He had hired the
sewing of his own canoe, though he made all the rest.
The root in his canoe was of a pale slate color, probably
acquired by exposure to the weather, or perhaps from
being boiled in water first.
N
210 . THE MAINE WOODS.
He had discovered the day before that his canoe leaked
a little, and said that it was owing to stepping into it
violently, which forced the water under the edge of the
horizontal seams on the side. I asked him where he
would get pitch to mend it with, for they commonly use
hard-pitch, obtained of the whites at Oldtown. He said
that he could make something very similar, and equally
good, not of spruce gum, or the like, but of material
which we had with us ; and he wished me to guess what.
But I could not, and he would not tell me, though he
showed me a ball of it when made, as big as a pea, and
like black pitch, saying, at last, that there were some
things which a man did not tell even his wife. It may
have been his own discovery. In Arnold's expedition
the pioneers used for their canoe "the turpentine of the
pine, and the scrapings of the pork-bag."
Being curious to see what kind of fishes there were
in this dark, deep, sluggish river, I cast in my line just
before night, and caught several small somewhat yellow-
ish sucker-like fishes, which the Indian at once rejected,
saying that they were Michigan fish (i. e. soft and stink-
ing fish) and good for nothing. Also, he would not
touch a pout, which I caught, and said that neither
Indians nor whites thereabouts ever ate them, which I
thought was singular, since they are esteemed in Massa-
chusetts, and he had told me that he ate hedgehogs,
loons, &c. But he said that some small silvery fishes,
which I called white chivin, which were similar in size
and form to the first, were the best fish in the Penobscot
waters, and if I would toss them up the bank to him, he
would cook them for me. After cleaning them, not very
carefully, leaving the heads on, he laid them on the coals
and so broiled them.
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 211
Keturning from a short walk, he brought a vine in his
hand, and asked me if I knew what it was, saying that
it made the best tea of anything in the woods. It was
the Creeping Snowberry (Chiogenes hispidula), which
was quite common there, its berries just grown. He
called it cowosnebagosar, which name implies that it
grows where old prostrate trunks have collapsed and
rotted. So we determined to have some tea made of
this to-night. It had a slight checkerberry flavor, and
we both agreed that it was really better than the black
tea which we had brought. We thought it quite a dis-
covery, and that it might well be dried, and sold in the
shops. I, for one, however, am not an old tea-drinker,
and cannot speak with authority to others. It would
have been particularly good to carry along for a cold
drink during the day, the water thereabouts being inva-
riably warm. The Indian said that they also used for
tea a certain herb which grew in low ground, which he
did not find there, and Ledum, or Labrador tea, which I
have since found and tried in Concord ; also hemlock
leaves, the last especially in the winter, when the other
plants were covered with snow ; and various other things ;
but he did not approve of arbor wittz, which I said I had
drunk in those woods. We could have had a new kind
of tea every night.
Just before night we saw a musquash, (he did not say
muskrat,) the only one we saw in this voyage, swimming
downward on the opposite side of the stream. The
Indian, wishing to get one to eat, hushed us, saying,
" Stop, me call 'em " ; and sitting flat on the bank, he
began to make a curious squeaking, wiry sound with his
lips, exerting himself considerably. I was greatly sur-
prised, — thought that I had at last got into the wilder-
212 THE MAINE WOODS.
ness, and that he was a wild man indeed, to be talking
to a musquash- ! I did not know which of the two was
the strangest to me. He seemed suddenly to have quite
forsaken humanity, and gone over to the musquash side.
The musquash, however, as near as I could see, did not
turn aside, though he may have hesitated a little, and the
Indian said that he saw our fire ; but it was evident that
he was in the habit of calling the musquash to him, as he
said. An acquaintance of mine who was hunting moose
in those woods a month after this, tells me that his Indian
in this way repeatedly called the musquash within reach
of his paddle in the moonlight, and struck at them.
The Indian said a particularly long prayer this Sun-
day evening, as if to atone for working in the morning.
MONDAY, July 27.
Having rapidly loaded the canoe, which the Indian
always carefully attended to, that it might be well
trimmed, and each having taken a look, as usual, to see
that nothing was left, we set out again, descending the
Caucomgomoc,- and turning northeasterly up the Utnba-
zookskus. This name, the Indian said, meant Much
Meadow River. We found it a very meadowy stream,
and dead water, and now very wide on account of the
rains, though, he said, it was sometimes quite narrow.
The space between the woods, chiefly bare meadow, was
from fifty to two hundred rods in breadth, and is a rare
place for moose. It reminded me of the Concord ; and
what increased the resemblance, was one old musquash
house almost afloat.
In the water on the meadows grew sedges, wool-grass,
the common blue-flag abundantly, its flower just showing
itself above the high water, as if it were a blue water-
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 213
lily, and higher in the meadows a great many clumps of
a peculiar narrow-leaved willow (Salix petiolaris), which
is common in our river meadows. It was the prevailing
one here, and the Indian said that the musquash ate
much of it; and here also grew the red osier (Cornus
stolonifera), its large fruit now whitish.
Though it was still early in the morning, we saw night-
hawks circling over the meadow, and as usual heard the
Pepe (Muscicapa Cooperi), which is one of the pre-
vailing birds in these woods, and the robin.
It was unusual for the woods to be so distant from the
shore, and there was quite an echo from them, but when
I was shouting in order to awake it, the Indian reminded
me that I should scare the moose, which he was looking
out for, and which we all wanted to see. The word for
echo was Pockadunkquaywayle.
A broad belt of dead larch-trees along the distant edge
of the meadow, against the forest on each side, increased
the usual wildness of the scenery. The Indian called
these juniper, and said that they had been killed by the
back water caused by the dam at the outlet of Chesun-
cook Lake, some twenty miles distant. I plucked at the
water's edge the Asclepias incarnata, with quite hand-
some flowers, a brighter red than our variety (the pul-
chra). It was the only form of it which I saw there.
Having paddled several miles up the Umbazookskus,
it suddenly contracted to a mere brook, narrow and
swift, the larches and other trees approaching the bank
and leaving no open meadow, and we landed to get a
black-spruce pole for pushing against the stream. This
was the first occasion for one. The one selected was quite
slender, cut about ten feet long, merely whittled to a point,
and the bark shaved off. The stream, though narrow
214 THE MAINE WOODS.
and swift, was still deep, with a muddy bottom, as I
proved by diving to it. Beside the plants which I have
mentioned, I observed on the bank here the Salix cor-
data and rostrata. Ranunculus recurvatus, and Rubus
triflorus with ripe fruit.
While we were thus employed, two Indians in a canoe
hove in sight round the bushes, coming down stream.
Our Indian knew one of them, an old man, and fell into
conversation with him in Indian. He belonged at the
foot of Moosehead. The other was of another tribe.
They were returning from hunting. I asked the younger
if they had seen any moose, to which he said no ; but I,
seeing the moose-hides sticking out from a great bundle
made with their blankets in the middle of the canoe,
added, " Only their hides." As he was a foreigner, he
may have wished to deceive me, for it is against the law
for white men and foreigners to kill moose in Maine
at this season. But, perhaps, he need not have been
alarmed, for the moose-wardens are not very particular.
I heard quite directly of one, who being asked by a white
man going into the woods what he would say if he killed
a moose, answered, " If you bring me a quarter of it, I
guess you won't be troubled." His duty being, as he said,
only to prevent the " indiscriminate " slaughter of them
for their hides. I suppose that he would consider it an
indiscriminate slaughter when a quarter was not re-
served for himself. Such are the perquisites of this
office.
We continued along through the most extensive larch
wood which I had seen, — tall and slender trees with fan-
tastic branches. But though this was the prevailing tree
here, I do not remember that we saw any afterward.
You do not find straggling trees of this species here and
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 215
there throughout the wood, but rather a little forest of
them. The same is the case with the white and red
pines, and some other trees, greatly to the convenience
of the lumberer. They are of a social habit, growing in
" veins," " clumps," " groups," or '^communities," as the
explorers call them, distinguishing them far away, from
the top of a hill or a tree, the white pines towering above
the surrounding forest, or else they form extensive forests
by themselves. I would have liked to come across a
large community of pines, which had never been invaded
by the lumbering army.
We saw some fresh moose tracks along the shore, but
the Indian said that the moose were not driven out of the
woods by the flies, as usual at this season, on account of
the abundance of water everywhere. The stream was
only from one and one half to three rods wide, quite
winding, with occasional small islands, meadows, and
some very swift and shallow places. "When we came to
an island, the Indian never hesitated which side to take,
as if the current told him which was the shortest and
deepest. It was lucky for us that the water was so high.
We had to walk but once on this stream, carrying a part
of the load, at a swift and shallow reach, while he got up
with the canoe, not being obliged to take out, though he
said it was very strong water. Once or twice we passed
the red wreck of a bateau which had been stove some
spring.
While making this portage I saw many splendid speci-
mens of the great purple-fringed orchis, three feet high.
It is remarkable that such delicate flowers should here
adorn these wilderness paths.
Having resumed our seats in the canoe, I felt the In-
dian wiping my back, which he had accidentally spat
216 THE MAINE WOODS.
upon. He said it was a sign that I was going to be
married.
The Umbazookskus River is called ten miles long.
Having polled up the narrowest point some three or four
miles, the next opening in the sky was over Umbazook-
skus Lake, which we suddenly entered about eleven
o'clock in the forenoon. It stretches northwesterly four
or five miles, with what the Indian called the Caucom-
gomoc Mountain seen far beyond it. It was an agree-
able change.
This lake was very shallow a long distance from the
shore, and I saw stone heaps on the bottom, like those
in the Assabet at home. The canoe ran into one. The
Indian thought that they were made by an eel. Joe
Aitteon in 1853 thought that they were made by chub.
We crossed the southeast end of the lake to the carry
into Mud Pond.
Umbazookskus Lake is the head of the Penobsc^t
in this direction, and Mud Pond is the nearest bend of
the Allegash, one of the chief sources of the St. John.
Hodge, who went through this way to the St. Lawrence
in the service of the State, calls the portage here a mile
and three quarters long, and states that Mud Pond has
been found to be fourteen feet higher than Umbazook-
skus Lake. As the west branch of the Penobscot at the
Moosehead carry is considered about twenty-five feet
lower than Moosehead Lake, it appears that the Penob-
scot in the upper part of its course runs in a broad and
shallow valley, between the Kennebec and St. Johns,
and lower than either of them, though, judging from the
map, you might expect it to be the highest.
Mud Pond is about half-way from Umbazookskus to
Chamberlain Lake, into which it empties, and to which
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 217
we were bound. The Indian said that this was the
•wettest carry in the State, and as the season was a very
wet one, we anticipated an unpleasant walk. As usual
he made one large bundle of the pork-keg, cooking uten-
sils, and other loose traps, by tying them up in his blan-
ket. We should be obliged to go over the carry twice,
and our method was to carry one half part way, and
then go back for the rest.
Our path ran close by the door of a log-hut in a clear-
ing at this end of the carry, which the Indian, who alone
entered it, found to be occupied by a Canadian and his
family, and that the man had been blind for a year. He
seemed peculiarly unfortunate to be taken blind there,
where there were so few eyes to see for him. He could
not even be led out of that country by a dog, but must
be taken down the rapids as passively as a barrel of
flour. This was the first house above Chesuncook, and
the last on the Penobscot waters, and was built here, no
doubt, because it was the route of the lumberers in the
winter and spring.
After a slight ascent from the lake through the springy
soil of the Canadian's clearing, we entered on a level and
very wet and rocky path through the universal dense
evergreen forest, a loosely paved gutter merely, where
we went leaping from rock to rock and from side to side,
in the vain attempt to keep out of the water and mud.
We concluded that it was yet Penobscot water, though
there was no flow to it. It was on this carry that the
white hunter whom I met in the stage, as he told me,
had shot two bears a few months before. They stood
directly in the path, and did not turn out for him. They
might be excused for not turning out there, or only tak-
ing the right as the law directs. He said that at this
10
218 THE MAINE WOODS.
season bears were found on the mountains and hillsides,
in search of berries, and were apt to be saucy, — that
we might come across them up* Trout Stream ; and he
added, what I hardly credited, that many Indians slept
in their canoes, not daring to sleep on land, on account
of them.
Here commences what was called, twenty years ago,
the best timber land in the State. This very spot was
described as " covered with the greatest abundance of
pine," but now this appeared to me, comparatively, an
uncommon tree there, — and yet you did not see where
any more could have stood, amid the dense growth of
cedar, fir, &c. It was then proposed to cut a canal from
lake to lake here, but the outlet was finally made farther
east, at Telos Lake, as we shall see.
The Indian with his canoe soon disappeared before
us ; but erelong he came back and told us to take a path
which turned off westward, it being better walking, and,
at my suggestion, he agreed to leave a bough in the
regular carry at that place, that we might not pass it by
mistake. Thereafter, he said, we were to keep the main
path, and he added, " You see 'em my tracks." But I
had not much faith that we could distinguish his tracks,
since others had passed over the carry within a few
days.
We turned off at the right place, but were soon con-
fused by numerous logging-paths, coming into the one
we were on, by which lumberers had been to pick out
those pines which I have mentioned. However, we kept
what we considered the main path, though it was a wind-
ing one, and in this, at long intervals, we distinguished a
faint trace of a footstep. This, though comparatively
unworn, was at first a better, or, at least, a drier road,
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 219
than the regular carry which we had left. It led through
an arbor-vitse wilderness of the grimmest character.
The great fallen and rotting trees had been cut through
and rolled aside, and their huge trunks abutted on the
path on each side, while others still lay across it two
or three feet high. It was impossible for us to discern
the Indian's trail in the elastic moss, which, like a thick
carpet, covered every rock and fallen tree, as well as the
earth. Nevertheless, I did occasionally detect the track
of a man, and I gave myself some credit for it. I carried
my whole load at once, a heavy knapsack, and a large
India-rubber bag, containing our bread and a blanket,
swung on a paddle ; in all, about sixty pounds ; but my
companion preferred to make two journeys, by short
stages, while I waited for him. We could not be sure
that we were not depositing our loads each time farther
off from the true path.
As I sat waiting for my companion, he would seem to
be gone a long time, and I had ample opportunity to
make observations on the forest. I now first began to
be seriously "molested by the black-fly, a very small but
perfectly formed fly of that color, about one tenth of an
inch long, which I first felt, and then saw, in swarms
about me, as I sat by a wider and more than usually
doubtful fork in this dark forest-path. The hunters tell
bloody stories about them, — how they settle in a ring about
your neck, before you know it, and are wiped off in
great numbers with your blood. But remembering that
I had a wash in my knapsack, prepared by a thoughtful
hand in Bangor, I made haste to apply it to my face
and hands, and was glad to find it effectual, as long as it
was fresh, or for twenty minutes, not only against black-
flies, but all the insects that molested us. They would
220 THE MAINE WOODS.
not alight on the part thus defended. It was composed
of sweet-oil and oil of turpentine, with a little oil of
spearmint, and camphor. However, I finally concluded
that the remedy was worse than the disease. It was so
disagreeable and inconvenient to have your face and
hands covered with such a mixture.
Three large slate-colored birds of the jay genus ( Gar-
rulus Canadensis), the Canada-jay, moose-bird, meat-bird,
or what not, came flitting silently and by degrees toward
me, and hopped down the limbs inquisitively to within
seven or eight feet. They were more clumsy and not
nearly so handsome as the blue-jay. Fish-hawks, from
the~iake, uttered their sharp whistling notes low over the
top of the forest near me, as if they were anxious about
a nest there.
After I had sat there some time, I noticed at this fork
in the path a tree which had been blazed, and the letters
" Chamb. L." written on it with red chalk. This I knew
to mean Chamberlain Lake. So I concluded that on the
whole we were on the right course, though as we had
come nearly two miles, and saw no signs of Mud Pond,
I did harbor the suspicion that we might be on a direct
course to Chamberlain Lake, leaving out Mud Pond.
This I found by my map would be about five miles north-
easterly, and I then took the bearing by my compass.
My companion having returned with his bag, and also
defended his face and hands with the insect-wash, we set
forward again. The walking rapidly grew worse, and
the path more indistinct, and at length, after passing
through a patch . of calla palustris, still abundantly in
bloom, we found ourselves in a more open and regular
swamp, made less passable than ordinary by the unusual
wetness of the season. We sank a foot deep in water
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 221
and mud at every step, and sometimes up to our knees,
and the trail was almost obliterated, being no more than
that a musquash leaves in similar places, when he parts
the floating sedge. In fact, it probably was a musquash
trail in some places. We concluded that if Mud Pond
was as muddy as the approach to it was wet, it certainly
deserved its name. It would have been amusing to
behold the dogged and deliberate pace at which we
entered that swamp, without interchanging a word, as if
determined to go through it, though it should come up
to our necks. Having penetrated a considerable distance
into this, and found a tussuck on which we could deposit
our loads, though there was no plaoe to sit, my com-
panion went back for the rest of his pack. I had thought
to observe on this carry when we crossed the dividing
line between the Penobscot and St. John, but as my feet
had hardly been out of water the whole distance, and it
was all level and stagnant, I began to despair of finding
it. I remembered hearing a good deal about the " high-
lands" dividing the waters of the Penobscot from those
of the St. John, as well as the St. Lawrence, at the time
of the northeast boundary dispute, and I observed by
my map, that the line claimed by Great Britain as the
boundary prior to 1842 passed between TJmbazookskus
Lake and Mud Pond, so that we had either crossed or
were then on it. These, then, according to her inter-
pretation of the treaty of '83, were the " highlands which
divide those rivers that empty themselves into the St.
Lawrence from those which fall into the Atlantic Ocean."
Truly an interesting spot to stand on, — r if that were it, —
though you could not sit down there. I thought that if
the commissioners themselves, and the king of Holland
with them, had spent a few days here, with their packs
222 THE MAINE WOODS.
upon their backs, looking for that " highland," they would
have had an interesting time, and perhaps it would have
modified their views of the question somewhat. The
king of Holland would have been in his element. Such
were m y meditations while my companion was gone back
for his bag.
It was a cedar swamp, through which the peculiar
note of the white-throated sparrow rang loud and clear.
There grew the side-saddle flower, Labrador tea, Kal-
mia glauca, and, what was new to me, the Low Birch (Be-
tula pumila), a little round-leafed shrub, two or three feet
high only. We thought to name this swamp after the
latter.
After a long while my companion came back, and the
Indian with him. We had taken the wrong road, and
the Indian had lost us. He had very wisely gone bacli
to the Canadian's camp, and asked him which way we
had probably gone, since he could better understand the
ways of white men, and he told him correctly that we
had undoubtedly taken the supply road to Chamberlain
Lake (slender supplies they would get over such a road
at this season). The Indian was greatly surprised that
we should have taken what he called a " tow " (i. e. tote
or toting or supply) road, instead of a carry path, —
that we had not followed his tracks, — said it was
" strange," and evidently thought little of our woodcraft.
Having held a consultation, and eaten a mouthful of
bread, we concluded that it would, perhaps, be nearer for
us two now to keep on to Chamberlain Lake, omitting Mud
Pond, than to go back and start, anew for the last place,
though the Indian had never been through this way, and
knew nothing about it. In the meanwhile he would go
back and finish carrying over his canoe and bundle to
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 223
Mud Pond, cross that, and go down its outlet and up
Chamberlain Lake, and trust to meet us there before
night. It was now a little after noon. He supposed
that the water in which we stood had flowed back from
Mud Pond, which could not be far off eastward, but was
unapproachable through the dense cedar swamp.
Keeping on, we were erelong agreeably disappointed
by reaching firmer ground, and we crossed a ridge where
the path was more distinct, but there was never any out-
look over the forest. While descending the last, I saw
many specimens of the great round-leaved orchis, of large
size ; one which I measured had leaves, as usual, flat on
the ground, nine and a half inches long, and nine wide,
and was two feet high. The dark, damp wilderness is
favorable to some of these orchidaceous plants, though
they are too delicate for cultivation. I also saw the
swamp gooseberry (Ribes lacustre), with green fruit, and
in all the low ground, where it was not too wet, the Ru-
bus triflorus in fruit. At one place I heard a very clear
and piercing note from a small hawk, like a single note
from a white-throated sparrow, only very much louder,
as he dashed through the tree-tops over mj head. I
wondered that he allowed himself to be disturbed by our
presence, since it seemed as if he could not easily find
his nest again himself in that wilderness. We also saw
and heard several times the red squirrel, and often, as
before observed, the bluish scales of the fir cones which
it had left on a rock or fallen tree. This, according to
the Indian, is the only squirrel found in those woods, ex-
cept a very few striped ones. It must have a solitary
time in that dark evergreen forest, where there is so little
life, seventy-five miles from a road as we had come. I
wondered how he could call any particular tree there his
224 THE MAINE WOODS.
home ; and yet he would run up the stem of one out of the
myriads, as if it were an old road to him* How can a
hawk ever find him there ? I fancied that he must be
glad to see us, though he did seem to chide us. One of
those sombre fir and spruce woods is not complete unless
you hear from out its cavernous mossy and twiggy
recesses his fine alarum, — his spruce voice, like the
working of the sap through some crack in a tree, — the
working of the spruce-beer. Such an impertinent fellow
would occasionally try to alarm the wood about me.
" 0," said I, " I am well acquainted with your family, I
know your cousins in Concord very well. Guess the
mail 's irregular in these parts, and you 'd like to hear
from 'em." But my overtures were vain, for he would
withdraw by his aerial turnpikes into a more distant cedar-
top, and spring his rattle again.
We then entered another swamp, at a necessarily slow
pace, where the walking was worse than ever, not only
on account of the water, but the fallen timber, which
often obliterated the indistinct trail entirely. The fallen,,
trees were so numerous, that for long distances the route
was through a succession of small yards, where we
climbed over fences as high as our heads, down into water
often up to our knees, and then over another fence into a
second yard, and so on ; and going back for his bag my
companion once lost his way and came back without it.
In many places the canoe would have run if it had not
been for the fallen timber. Again it would be more
open, but equally wet, too wet for trees to grow, and no
place to sit down. It was a mossy swamp, which it re-
quired the long legs of a moose to traverse, and it is very
likely that we scared some of them in our transit, though
we saw none. It was ready to echo the growl of a bear,
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 225
the howl of a wolf, or the scream of a panther; but
when you get fairly into the middle of one of these grim
forests, you are surprised to find that the larger inhabit-
ants are not at home commonly, but have left only a puny
red squirrel to bark at you. Generally speaking, a howl-
ing wilderness does not howl : it is the imagination of
the traveller that does the howling. I did, however, see
one dead porcupine ; perhaps he had succumbed to the
difficulties of the way. These bristly fellows are a very
suitable small fruit of such unkempt wildernesses.
Making a logging-road in the Maine woods is called
" swamping it," and they who do the work are called
" swampers." I now perceived the fitness of the term.
This was the most perfectly swamped of all the roads I
ever saw. Nature must have co-operated with art here.
However, I suppose they would tell you that this name
took its origin from the fact that the chief work of road-
makers in those woods is to make the swamps passable.
We came to a stream where the bridge, which had been
made of logs tied together with cedar bark, had been
broken up, and we got over as we could. This proba-
bly emptied into Mud Pond, and perhaps the Indian
might have come up it and taken us in there if he had
known it. Such as it was, this ruined bridge was the
chief evidence that we were on a path of any kind.
We then crossed another low rising ground, and I,
who wore shoes, had an opportunity to wring out my
stockings, but my companion, who used boots, had found
that this was not a safe experiment for him, for he might
not be able to get his wet boots on again. He went over
the whole ground, or water, three times, for which rea-
son our progress was very slow ; beside that the water
softened our feet, and to some extent unfitted them for
10* o
226 THE MAINE WOODS.
walking. As I sat waiting for him, it would naturally
seem an unaccountable time that he was gone. There-
fore, as I could see through the woods that the sun was
getting low, and it was uncertain how far the lake might
be, even if we were on the right course, and in what
part of the world we should find ourselves at nightfall, I
proposed that I should push through with what speed I
could, leaving boughs to mark my path, and find the lake
and the Indian, if possible, before night, and send the
latter back to carry my companion's bag.
Having gone about a mile, and got into low ground
again, I heard a noise like the note of an owl, which I
soon discovered to be made by the Indian, and answering
him, we soon came together. He had reached the lake,
after crossing Mud Pond, and running some rapids be-
low it, and had come up about a mile and a half on our
path. If he had not come back to meet us, we probably
should not have found him that night, for the path
branched once or twice before reaching this particular
part of the lake. So he went back for my companion
and his bag, while I kept on. Having waded through
another stream where. the bridge of logs had been broken
up and half floated away, — and this was not altogether
worse than our ordinary walking, since it was less muddy,
— we continued on, through alternate mud and water, to
the shore of Apmoojenegamook Lake, which we reached in
season for a late supper, instead of dining there, as we
had expected, having gone without our dinner. It was
at least five miles by the way we had come, and as my
companion had gone over most of it three times, he had
walked full a dozen miles, bad as it was. In the winter,
when the water is frozen, and the snow is four feet deep,
it is no doubt a tolerable path to a footman. As it was,
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 227
I would not have missed that walk for a good deal. If
you want an exact recipe for making such a road, take
one part Mud Pond, and dilute it with equal parts of
Umbazookskus and Apmoojenegamook ; then send a
family of musquash through to locate it, look after the
grades and culverts, and finish it to their minds, and let
a hurricane follow to do the fencing.
We had come out on a point extending into Apmoo-
jenegamook, or Chamberlain Lake, west of the outlet of
Mud Pond, where there was a broad, gravelly, and rocky
shore, encumbered with bleached logs and trees. We
were rejoiced to see such dry things in that part of the
world. But at first we did not attend to dryness so much
as to mud and wetness. We all three walked into the
lake up to our middle to wash our clothes.
This was another noble lake, called twelve miles long,
east and west ; if you add Tebos Lake, which, since the
dam was built, has been connected with it by dead water,
it will be twenty ; and it is apparently from a mile and
a half to two miles wide. We were about midway its
length, on the south side. We could see the only clear-
ing in these parts, called the " Chamberlain Farm," with
two or three log buildings close together, on the opposite
shore, some two and a half miles distant. The smoke
of our fire on the shore brought over two men in a canoe
from the farm, that being a common signal agreed on
when one wishes to cross. It took them about half an
hour to come over, and they had their labor for their
pains this time. Even the English name of the lake had
a wild, woodland sound, reminding me of that Chamber-
lain who killed Paugus at Lovewell's fight.
After putting on such dry clothes as we had, and hang-
ing the others to dry on the pole which the Indian ar-
228 THE MAINE WOODS.
ranged over the fire, we ate our supper, and lay down on
th«3 pebbly shore with our feet to the fire, without pitching
our tent, making a thin bed of grass to cover the stones.
Here first I was molested by the little midge called the
No-see-em (Simulium nocivum, the latter word is not
the Latin for no-see-em), especially over the sand at the
water's edge, for it is a kind of sand-fly. You would not
observe them but for their light-colored wings. They
are said to get under your clothes, and produce a fever-
ish heat, which I suppose was what I felt that night.
Our insect foes in this excursion, to sum them up,
were, first, mosquitoes, the chief ones, but only troublesome
at night, or when we sat still on shore by day ; second,
black flies (Simulium molestum), which molested us more
or less on the carries by day, as I have before described,
and sometimes in narrower parts of the stream. Harris
mistakes when he says that they are not seen after June.
Third, moose-flies. The big ones, Polis said, were called
Bososquasis. It is a stout brown fly, much like a horse-fly,
about eleven sixteenths of an inch long, commonly rusty
colored beneath, with unspotted wings. They can bite
smartly, according to Polis, but are easily avoided or
killed. Fourth, the No-see-ems above mentioned. Of
all these, the mosquitoes are the only ones that troubled
me seriously ; but, as I was provided with a wash and a
veil, they have not made any deep impression.
The Indian would not use our wash to protect his face
and hands, for fear that it would hurt his skin, nor had
he any veil ; he, therefore, suffered from insects now, and
throughout this journey, more than either of us. I think
that he suffered more than I did, when neither of us was
protected. He regularly tied up his face in his handker-
chief, and buried it in his blanket, and he now finally lay
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 229
•
down on the sand between us and the fire for the sake
of the smoke, which he tried to make enter his blanket
about his face, and for the same purpose he lit his pipe
and breathed the smoke into his blanket.
As we lay thus on the shore, with nothing between us
and the stars, I inquired what stars he was acquainted
with, or had names for. They were the Great Bear,
which he called by this name, the Seven Stars, which he
had no English name for, " the morning star," and " the
north star."
In the middle of the night, as indeed each time that
we lay on the shore of a lake, we heard the voice of the
loon, loud and distinct, from far over the lake. It is a
very wild sound, quite in keeping with the place and the
circumstances of the traveller, and very unlike the voice
of a bird. I could lie awake for hours listening to it, it
is so thrilling. When camping in such a wilderness as
this, you are prepared to hear sounds from some of its in-
habitants which will give voice to its wildness. Some idea
of bears, wolves, or panthers runs in your head naturally,
and when this note is first heard very far off at midnight,
as you lie with your ear to the ground, — the forest being
perfectly still about you, you take it for granted that it
is the voice of a wolf or some other wild beast, for only
the last part is heard when at a distance, — you conclude
that it is a pack of wolves baying the moon, or, per-
chance, cantering after a moose. Strange as it may
seem, the " mooing " of a cow on a mountain-side comes
nearest to my idea of the voice of a bear ; and this bird's
note resembled that. It was the unfailing and character-
istic sound of those lakes. We were not so lucky as to
hear wolves howl, though that is an occasional serenade.
Some friends of mine, who two years ago went up the
230 THE MAINE WOODS.
»
Caucomgomoc River, were serenaded by wolves while
moose-hunting by moonlight. It was a sudden burst, as
if a hundred demons had broke loose, — a startling sound
enough, which, if any, would make your hair stand on
end, and all was still again. It lasted but a moment, and
you 'd have thought there were twenty of them, when
probably there were only two or three. They heard it
twice only, and they said that it gave expression to the
wilderness which it lacked before. I heard of some men
who, while skinning a moose lately in those woods, were
driven off from the carcass by a pack of wolves, which
ate it up.
This of the loon — I do not mean its laugh, but its
looning — is a long-drawn call, as it were, sometimes
singularly human to my ear, — hoo-hoo-ooooo, like the
hallooing of a man on a very high key, having thrown
his voice into his head. I have heard a sound exactly
like it when breathing heavily through my own nostrils,
half awake at ten at night, suggesting my affinity to the
loon ; as if its language were but a dialect of my own,
after all. Formerly, when lying awake at midnight in
those woods, I had listened to hear some words or syl-
lables of their language, but it chanced that I listened in
vain until I heard the cry of the loon. I have heard it
occasionally on the ponds of my native town, but there
its wildness is not enhanced by the surrounding scenery.
I was awakened at midnight by some heavy, low-fly-
ing bird, probably a loon, flapping by close over my
head, along the shore. So, turning the other side of my
half-clad body to the fire, I sought slumber again.
TUESDAY, July 28.
When we awoke we found a heavy dew on our blan-
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 231
kets. I lay awake very early, and listened to the clear,
shrill ak-tette-tette-te, of the white-throated sparrow, re-
peated at short intervals, without the least variation, for
half an hour, as if it could not enough express its hap-
piness. Whether my companions heard it or not, I
know not, but it was a kind of matins to me, and the
event of that forenoon.
It was a pleasant sunrise, and we had a view of the
mountains in the southeast. Ktaadn appeared about
southeast by south. A double-topped mountain, about
southeast by east, and another portion of the same, east-
southeast. The last the Indian called Nerlumskeechti-
cook, and said that it was at the head of the East Branch,
and we should pass near it on our return that way.
We did some more washing in the lake this morning,
and with our clothes hung about on the dead trees
and rocks, the shore looked like washing-day at home.
The Indian, taking the hint, borrowed the soap, and
walking into the lake, washed his only cotton shirt on his
person, then put on his pants and let it dry on him.
I observed that he wore a cotton shirt, originally
white, a greenish flannel one over it, but no waistcoat,
flannel drawers, and strong linen or duck pants, which
also had been white, blue woolfen stockings, cowhide
boots, and a Kossuth hat. He carried no change of
clothing, but putting on a stout, thick jacket, which he
laid aside in the canoe, and seizing a full-sized axe, his
gun and ammunition, arid a blanket, which would do for
a sail or knapsack, if wanted, and strapping on his belt,
which contained a large sheath-knife, he walked off at
once, ready to be gone all summer. This looked very
independent; a few simple and effective tools, and no
India-rubber clothing. He was always the first ready
232 ' THE MAINE WOODS.
to start in the morning, and if it had not held some of
our property would not have been obliged to roll up his
blanket. Instead of carrying a large bundle of his own
extra clothing, &c., he brought back the great-coats of
moose tied up in his blanket. I found that his outfit was
the result of a long experience, and in the main hardly to
be improved on, unless by washing and an extra shirt.
Wanting a button here, he walked off to a place where
some Indians had recently encamped, and searched for
one, but I believe in vain.
Having softened our stiffened boots and shoes with
the pork fat, the usual disposition of what was left at
breakfast, we crossed the lake early, steering in a diag-
onal direction northeasterly about four miles, to the out-
let, which was not to be discovered till we were close to
it. The Indian name, Apmoojenegamook, means lake
that is crossed, because the usual course lies across, and
not along it. This is the largest of the Allegash lakes,
and was the first St. John's water that we floated on.
It is shaped in the main like Chesuncook. There are
no mountains or high hills very near it. At Bangor we
had been told of a township many miles farther north-
west; it was indicated to us as containing the highest
land thereabouts, where, by climbing a particular tree in
the forest, we could get a general idea of the country.
I have no doubt that the last was good advice, but we
did not go there. We did not intend to go far down the
Allegash, but merely to get a view of the great lakes
which are its source, and then return this way to the
East Branch of the Penobscot. The water now, by good
rights, flowed northward, if it could be said to flow at all.
After reaching the middle of the lake, we found the
waves as usual pretty high, and the Indian warned my
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 233
companion, who was nodding, that he must not allow
himself to fall asleep in the canoe lest he should upset
us ; adding, that when Indians want to sleep in a
canoe, they lie down straight on the bottom. But in this
crowded one that was impossible. However, he said
that he would nudge him if he saw him nodding.
A belt of dead trees stood all around the lake, some
far out in the water, with others prostrate behind them,
and they made the shore, for the most part, almost inac-
cessible. This is the effect of the dam at the outlet.
Thus the natural sandy or rocky shore, with its green
fringe, was concealed and destroyed. We coasted west-
ward along the north side, searching for the outlet, about
one quarter of a mile distant from this savage-looking
shore, on which the waves were breaking violently,
knowing that it might easily be concealed amid this rub-
bish, or by the over-lapping of the shore. It is remark-
able how little these important gates to a lake are bla-
zoned. There is no triumphal arch over the modest
inlet or outlet, but at some undistinguished point it tric-
kles in or out through the uninterrupted forest, almost as
through a sponge.
We reached the outlet in about an hour, and carried
over the dam there, which is quite a solid structure, and
about one quarter of a mile farther there was a second
dam. The reader will perceive that the result of this
particular damming about Chamberlain Lake is, that the
head-waters of the St. John are made to flow by Ban-
gor. They have thus dammed all the larger lakes, rais-
ing their broad surfaces many feet ; Moosehead, for
instance, some forty miles long, with its steamer on it ;
thus turning the forces of nature against herself, that they
might float their spoils out of the country. They rapidly
234= THE MAINE WOODS.
run out of these immense forests all the finer, and more
accessible pine timber, and then leave the bears to watch
the decaying dams, not clearing nor cultivating the land,
nor making roads, nor building houses, but leaving it a
wilderness, as they found it. Jn many parts, only these
dams remain, like deserted beaver-dams. Think how
much land they have flowed, without asking Nature's
leave ! When the State wishes to endow an academy or
university, it grants it a tract of forest land: one saw
represents an academy; a gang, a university.
The wilderness experiences a sudden rise of all her
streams and lakes, she feels ten thousand vermin gnaw-
ing at the base of her noblest trees, many combining,
drag them off, jarring over the roots of the survivors, and
tumble them into the nearest stream, till the fairest hav-
ing fallen, they scamper off to ransack some new wilder-
ness, and all is still again. It is as when a migrating
army of mice girdles a forest of pines. The chopper
fells trees from the same motive that the mouse gnaws
them, — to get his living. You tell me that he has a
more interesting family than the mouse. That is as it
happens. He speaks of a "berth" of timber, a good
place for him to get into, just as a worm might. When
the chopper would praise a pine, he will commonly tell
you that the one he cut was so big that a yoke of oxen
stood on its stump ; as if that were what the pine had
grown for, to become the footstool of oxen. In my mind's
eye, I can see these unwieldy tame deer, with a yoke
binding them together, and brazen-tipped horns betray-
ing their servitude, taking their stand on the stump of
each giant pine in succession throughout this whole for-
est, and chewing their cud there, until it is nothing but
an ox-pasture, and run out at that. As if it were good
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 235
for the oxen, and some terebinthine or other medicinal
quality ascended into their nostrils. Or is their elevated
position intended merely as a symbol of the fact that the
pastoral comes next in order to the sylvan or hunter life.
The character of the logger's admiration is betrayed
by his very mode of expressing it. If he told all that
was in his mind, he would say, it was so big that I cut
it down and then a yoke of oxen could stand on its
stump. He admires the log, the carcass or corpse, more
than the tree. Why, my dear sir, the tree might have
stood on its own stump, and a great deal more comforta-
bly and firmly than a yoke of oxen can, if you had not
cut it down. What right have you to celebrate the vir-
tues of the man you murdered ?
The Anglo-American can indeed cut down, and grub
up all this waving forest, and make a stump speech, and
vote for Buchanan on its ruins, but he cannot converse
with the spirit of the tree he fells, he cannot read the
poetry and mythology which retire as he advances. He
ignorantly erases mythological tablets in order to print
his handbills and town-meeting warrants on them. Be-
fore he has learned his a b c in the beautiful but mystic
lore of the wilderness which Spenser and Dante had just
begun to read, he cuts it down, coins a pine-tree shilling,
(as if to signify the pine's value to him,) puts up a
Restrict school-house, and introduces Webster's spelling-
book.
Below the last dam, the river being swift and shallow,
though broad enough, we two walked about half a mile
to lighten the canoe. I made it a rule to carry my knap-
sack when I walked, and also to keep it tied to a cross-
bar when in the canoe, that it might be found with the
canoe if we should upset.
236 THE MAINE WOODS.
I heard the dog-day locust here, and afterward on the
carries, a sound which I had associated only with more
open, if not settled countries. The area for locusts must
be small in the Maine woods.
We were now fairly on the Allegash River, which
name our Indian said meant hemlock bark. These
waters flow northward about 100 miles, at first very
feebly, then southeasterly 250 more to the Bay of Fun-
dy. After perhaps two miles of river, we entered Heron
Lake, called on the map Pongokwahem^ scaring up forty
or fifty young shecorways, sheldrakes, at the entrance,
which ran over the water with great rapidity, as usual
in a long line.
This was the fourth great lake, lying northwest and
southeast, like Chesuncook, and most of the long lakes
in that neighborhood, and, judging from the map, it is
about ten miles long. We had entered it on the south-
west side, and saw a dark mountain northeast over the
lake, not very far off nor high, which the Indian said was
called Peaked Mountain, and used by explorers to look
for timber from. There was also some other high land
more easterly. The shores were in the same ragged
and unsightly condition, encumbered with dead timber,
both fallen and standing, as in the last lake, owing to the
dam on the Allegash below. Some low points or islands
were almost drowned.
I saw something white a mile off on the water, which
turned out to be a great gull on a rock in the middle,
which the Indian would have been glad to kill and eat,
but it flew away long before we were near ; and also
a flock of summer ducks that were about the rock with
it. I asking him about herons, since this was Heron
Lake, he said that he found the blue heron's nests in
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 237
the hard-wood trees. I thought that I saw a light-col-
ored object move along the opposite or northern shore,
four or five miles distant. He did not know what it
could be, unless it were a moose, though he had never
seen a white one ; but he said that he could distinguish a
moose " anywhere on shore, clear across the lake."
Rounding a point, we stood across a bay for a mile and
a half or two miles, toward a large island, three or four
miles down the lake. We met with ephemerae (shad-fly)
midway, about a mile from the shore, and they evident-
ly fly over the whole lake. On Moosehead I had seen a
large devil's-needle half a mile from the shore, coming
from the middle of the lake, where it was three or four
miles wide at least. It had probably crossed. But at
last, of course, you come to lakes so large that an insect
cannot fly across them ; and this, perhaps, will serve to
distinguish a large lake from a small one.
We landed on the southeast side of the island, which
was rather elevated, and densely wooded, with a rocky
shore, in season for an early dinner. Somebody had
camped there not long before, and left the frame on which
they stretched a moose-hide, which our Indian criticised
severely, thinking it showed but little woodcraft. Here
were plenty of the shells of crayfish, or fresh-water lob-
sters, which had been washed ashore, such as have given
a name to some ponds and streams. They are commonly
four or five inches long. The Indian proceeded at once
to cut a canoe-birch, slanted it up against another tree
on the shore, tying it with a withe, and lay down to sleep
in its shade.
When we were on the Caucomgomoc, he recommended
to us a new way home, the very one which we had first
thought of, by the St. John. He even said that it was
238 THE MAINE WOODS.
easier, and would take but little more time than the
other, by the east branch of the Penobscot, though very
much farther round ; and taking the map, he showed
where we should be each night, for he was familiar with
the route. According to his calculation, we should reach
the French- settlements the next night after this, by keep-
ing northward down the Allegash, and when we got into
the main St. John the banks would be more or less set-
tled all the way ; as if that were a recommendation.
There would be but one or two falls, with short carrying-
places, and we should go down the stream very fast, even
a hundred miles a day, if the wind allowed ; and he in-
dicated where we should carry over into Eel River to
save a bend below Woodstock in New Brunswick, and
so into the Schoodic Lake, and thence to the Matta-
wamkeag. It would be about three hundred and sixty
miles to Bangor this way, though only about one hun-
dred and sixty by the other ; but in the former case we
should explore the St. John from its source through two
thirds of its course, as well as the Schoodic Lake and
Mattawamkeag, — and we were again tempted to go that
way. I feared, however, that the banks of the St. John
were too much settled. When I asked him which course
would take us through the wildest country, he said the
route by the East Branch. Partly from this considera-
tion, as also from its shortness, we resolved to adhere to
the latter route, and perhaps ascend Ktaadn on the way.
We made this island the limit of our excursion in this
direction.
We had now seen the largest of the Allegash Lakes.
The next dam " was about fifteen miles " farther north,
down the Allegash, and it was dead water so far. We
had been told in Bangor of a man who lived alone, a sort
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 239
of hermit, at that dam, to take care of it, who spent his
time tossing" a bullet from one hand to the other, for want
of employment, — as if we might want to call on him.
This sort of tit-for-tat intercourse between his two hands,
bandying' to and fro a leaden subject, seems to have been
his symbol for society.
This island, according to the map, was about a hun-
dred and ten miles in a straight line north-northwest
from Bangor, and about ninety-nine miles east-southeast
from Quebec. There was another island visible toward
the north end of the lake, with an elevated clearing on
it ; but we learned afterward that it was not inhabited,
had only been used as a pasture for cattle which sum-
mered in these woods, though our informant said that
there was a hut on the mainland near the outlet of the
lake. This unnaturally smooth-shaven, squarish spot, in
the midst of the otherwise uninterrupted forest, only re-
minded us how uninhabited the country was. You
would sooner expect to meet with a bear than an ox in
such a clearing. At any rate, it must have been a sur-
prise to the bears when they came across it. Such, seen
far or near, you know at once to be man's work, for Na-
ture never does it. In .order to let in the light to the
earth as on a lake, he clears off the forest on the hillsides
and plains, and sprinkles fine grass-seed, like an en-
chanter, and so carpets the earth with a firm sward.
Polis had evidently more curiosity respecting the few
settlers in those woods than we. If nothing was said,
he took it for granted that we wanted to go straight to
the next log-hut. Having observed that we came by
the log-huts at Chesuncook, and the blind Canadian's at
the Mud Pond carry, without stopping to communicate
with the inhabitants, he took occasion now to suggest
240 THE MAINE WOODS.
that the usual way was, when you came near a house, to
go to it, and tell the inhabitants what you had seen or
heard, and then they tell you what they had seen ; but
we laughed, and said that we had had enough of houses
for the present, and had come here partly to avoid them.
In the mean while, the wind, increasing, blew down the
Indian's birch and created such a sea that we found our-
selves prisoners on the island, the nearest shore, which
was the western, being perhaps a mile distant, and we
took the canoe out to prevent its drifting away. We did
not know but we should be compelled to spend the rest of
the day and the night there. At any rate, the Indian went
to sleep again in the shade of his birch, my companion
busied himself drying his plants, and I rambled along the
shore westward, which was quite stony, and obstructed
with fallen bleached or drifted trees for four or five rods
in width. I found growing on this broad rocky and
gravelly shore the Salix rostrata, discolor, and lucida,
Ranunculus recurvatus, Potentilla Nbrvegica, Scutellaria
lateriflora, Eupatorium purpureum, Aster Tradescanti,
Mentha Canadensis, Epilobium angustifolium, abundant.
Lycopus minatus, Solidago lanceolata, Spircea salici-
folia, Antennaria margaraticea, Prunella, Rumex aceto-
setta, Raspberries, Wool-grass, Onoclea, &c. The nearest
trees were Betula papyracea and excelsa, and Populus
tremuloides. I give these names because it was my
farthest northern point.
Our Indian said that he was a doctor, and could tell
me some medicinal use for every plant I could show him.
I immediately tried him. He said that the inner bark
of the aspen (Populus tremuloides) was good for sore
eyes ; and so with various other plants, proving himself
as good as his word. According to his account, he had
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 241
acquired such knowledge in his youth from a wise old
Indian with whom he associated, and he lamented that
the present generation of Indians " had lost a great deal."
He said that the caribou was a " very great runner,"
that there was none about this lake now, though there
used to be many, and pointing to the belt of dead trees
caused by the dams, he added, " No likum stump, — when
he sees that he scared."
Pointing southeasterly over the lake and distant for-
est, he observed, " Me go Oldtown in three days." I
asked how he would get over the swamps and fallen trees.
" 0," said he, " in winter all covered, go anywhere on snow-
shoes, right across lakes." When I asked how he went,
he said, " First I go Ktaadn, west side, then I go Milli-
nocket, then Pamadumcook, then Nickatou, then Lincoln,
then Oldtown," or else he went a shorter way by the
Piscataquis. What a wilderness walk for a man to take
alone ! None of your half-mile swamps, none of your
mile-wide woods merely, as on the skirts of our towns,
without hotels, only a dark mountain or a lake for guide-
board and station, over ground much of it impassable in
summer !
It reminded me* of Prometheus Bound. Here was
travelling of the old heroic kind over the unaltered face
of nature. From the Allegash, or Hemlock River, and
Pongoquahem Lake, across great Apmoojenegamook, and
leaving the Nerlumskeechticook Mountain on his left, he
takes his way under the bear-haunted slopes of Souneunk
and Ktaadn Mountains to Pamadumcook and Millinocket's
inland seas, (where often gulls'-eggs may increase his
store,) and so on to the forks of the Nickatou, (nia soseb
" we alone Joseph " seeing what our folks see,) ever
pushing the boughs of the fir and spruce aside, with his
II F
242 THE MAINE WOODS.
load of furs, contending day and night, night and day,
with the shaggy demon vegetation, travelling through the
mossy graveyard of trees. Or he could go by "that
rough tooth of the sea," Kineo, great source of arrows
and of spears to the ancients, when weapons of stone
were used. Seeing and hearing moose, caribou, bears,
porcupines, lynxes, wolves, and panthers. Places where
he might live and die and never hear of the United
States, which make such a noise in the world, — never
hear of America, so called from the name of a European
gentleman.
There is a lumberer's road called the Eagle Lake
road, from the Seboois to the east side of this lake. It
may seem strange that any road through such a wilder-
ness should be passable, even in winter, when the snow
is three or four feet deep, but at that season, wherever
lumbering operations are actively carried on, teams are
continually passing on the single track, and it becomes as
smooth almost as a railway. I am told that in the Aroos-
took country the sleds are required by law to be of one
width, (four feet,) and sleighs must be altered to fit the
track, so that one runner may go in one rut and the other
follow the horse. Yet it is very bad turning out.
We had for some time seen a thunder-shower coming
up from the west over the woods of the island, and heard
the muttering of the thunder, though we were in doubt
whether it would reach us ; but now the darkness rapidly
increasing, and a fresh breeze rustling the forest, we
hastily put up the plants which we had been drying, and
with one consent made a rush for the tent material and
set about pitching it. A place was selected and stakes
and pins cut in the shortest possible time, and we were
pinning it down lest it should be blown away, when the
storm suddenly burst over us.
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 243
As we lay huddled together under the tent, which
leaked considerably about the sides, with our baggage
at our feet, we listened to some of the grandest thunder
which I ever heard, — rapid peals, round and plump, bang,
bang, bang, in succession, like artillery from some fortress
in the sky ; and the lightning was proportionally brilliant.
The Indian said, " It must be good powder." All for
the benefit of the moose and us, echoing far over the
concealed lakes. I thought it must be a place which the
thunder loved, where the lightning practised to keep its
hand in, and it would do no harm to shatter a few pines.
What had become of the ephemera and devil's-needles
then ? Were they prudent enough to seek harbor be-
fore the storm ? Perhaps their motions might guide the
voyageur.
Looking out I perceived that the violent shower falling
on the lake had almost instantaneously flattened the
waves, — the commander of that fortress had smoothed it
for us so, — and it clearing off, we resolved to start imme-
diately, before the wind raised them again.
Going outside, I said that I saw clouds still in the
southwest, and heard thunder there. The Indian asked
if the thunder went "lound" (round), saying that if it
did we should have more rain. I though^ that it did.
We embarked, nevertheless, and paddled rapidly back
toward the dams. The white-throated sparrows on the
shore were about, singing, Ah te, e, e, te, e, e, te, or else
ah te, e, e, te, e, e, te, e, e, te, e, e.
At the outlet of Chamberlain Lake we were overtaken
by another gusty rain-storm, which compelled us to take
shelter, the Indian under his canoe on the bank, and we
ran under the edge of the dam. However, we were
more scared than wet. From my covert I could see the
244 THE MAINE WOODS.
Indian peeping out from beneath his canoe to see what
had become of the rain. When we had taken our respec-
tive places thus once or twice, the rain not coming down
in earnest, we commenced rambling about the neighbor-
hood, for the wind had by this time raised such waves
on the lake that we could not stir, and we feared that we
should be obliged to carnp there. "We got an early sup-
per on the dam and tried for fish there, while waiting for
the tumult to subside. The fishes were not only few,
but small and worthless, and the Indian declared that
there were no good fishes in the St. John's waters ; that
we must wait till we got to the Penobscot waters.
At length, just before sunset, we set out again. It
was a wild evening when we coasted up the north side
of this Apmoojenegamook Lake. One thunder-storm
was just over, and the waves which it had raised still
running with violence, and another storm was now seen
coming up in the southwest, far over the lake; but it
might be worse in the morning, and we wished to get as.,
far as possible on our way up the lake while we might.
It bio wed hard against the northern shore about an
eighth of a mile distant on our left, and there was just as
much sea as our shallow canoe would bear, without our
taking unusual care. That which we kept off, and toward
which the waves were driving, was as dreary and har-
borless a shore as you can conceive. For half a dozen
rods in width it was a perfect maze of submerged trees,
all dead and bare and bleaching, some standing half their
original height, others prostrate, and criss-across, above
or beneath the surface, and mingled with them were loose
trees and limbs and stumps, beating about. Imagine
the wharves of the largest city in the world, decayed,
and the earth and planking washed away, leaving the
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 245
spiles standing in loose order, but often of twice the ordi-
nary height, and mingled with and beating against them
the wreck of ten thousand navies, all their spars and tim-
bers, while there rises from the water's edge the densest
and grimmest wilderness, ready to supply more material
when the former fails, and you may get a faint idea of
that coast. We could not have landed if we would,
without the greatest danger of being swamped ; so blow
as it might, we must depend on coasting by it. It was
twilight, too, and that stormy cloud was advancing rap-
idly in our rear. It was a pleasant excitement, yet we
were glad to reach, at length, in the dusk, the cleared
shore of the Chamberlain Farm.
We landed on a low and thinly wooded point there,
and while my companions were pitching the tent, I ran
up to the house to get some sugar, our six pounds being
gone ; — it was no wonder they were, for Polis had a sweet
tooth. He would first fill his dipper nearly a third full
.of sugar, and then add the coffee to it. Here was a
clearing extending back from the lake to a hill-top, with
some dark-colored log buildings and a storehouse in it,
and half a dozen men standing in front of the principal
hut, greedy for news. Among them was the man who
tended the dam on the Allegash and tossed the bullet.
He having charge of the dams, and learning that we
were going to Webster Stream the next day, told me that
some of their men, who were haying at Telos Lake, had.
shut the dam at the canal there in order to catch trout,
and if we wanted more water to take us through the
canal we might raise the gate, for he would like to have
it raised. The Chamberlain Farm is no doubt a cheerful
opening in the woods, but such was the lateness of the
hour that it has left but a dusky impression on my mind.
246 THE MAINE WOODS.
As I have said, the influx of light merely is civilizing,
yet I fancied that they walked about on Sundays in their
clearing somewhat as in a prison-yard.
They were unwilling to spare more than four pounds
of brown sugar, — unlocking the storehouse to get it, —
since they only kept a little for such cases as this, and
they charged twenty cents a pound for it, which cer-
tainly it was worth to get it up there.
When I returned to the shore it- was quite dark, but
we had a rousing fire to warm and dry us by, and a snug
apartment behind it. The Indian went up to the house
to inquire after a brother who had been absent hunting
a year or two, and while another shower was beginning,
I groped about cutting spruce and arbor-vitae twigs for a
bed. I preferred the arbor-vitae on account of its fra-
grance, and spread it particularly thick about the shoul-
ders. It is remarkable with what pure satisfaction the
traveller in these woods will reach his camping-ground
on the eve of a tempestuous night like this, as if he had
got to his inn, and, rolling himself in his blanket, stretch
himself on his six feet by two bed of dripping fir-twigs,
with a thin sheet of cotton for roof, snug as a meadow-
mouse in its nest. Invariably our best nights were those
when it rained, for then we were not troubled with mos-
quitoes.
You soon come to disregard rain on such excursions,
at least in the summer, ft is so easy to dry yourself, sup-
posing a dry change of clothing is not to be had. You
can much sooner dry you by such a fire as you can make
in the woods than in anybody's kitchen, the fireplace is so
much larger, and wood so much more abundant. A shed-
shaped tent will catch and. reflect the heat like a Yankee-
baker, and you may be drying while you are sleeping.
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 247
Some who have leaky roofs in the towns may have
been kept awake, but we were soon lulled asleep by a
steady, soaking rain, which lasted all night. To-night, the
rain not coming at once with violence, the twigs were
soon dried by the reflected heat.
WEDNESDAY, July 29.
When we awoke it had done raining, though it was
still cloudy. The fire was put out, and the Indian's
boots, which stood under the eaves of the tent, were half
full of water. He was much more improvident in such
respects than either of us, and he had to thank us for
keeping his powder dry. "We decided to cross the lake
at once, before breakfast, or while we could ; and before
starting I took the bearing of the shore which we wished
to strike, S. S. E. about three miles distant, lest a sud-
den misty rain should conceal it when we were midway.
Though the bay in which we were was perfectly quiet
and smooth, we found the lake already wide awake
outside, but not dangerously or unpleasantly so ; never-
theless, when you get out on one of those lakes in a ca-
noe like this, you do not forget that you are completely
at the mercy of the wind, and a fickle power it is. The
playful waves may at any time become too rude for you
in their sport, and play right on over you. We saw a few
she-cor-ways and a fish-hawk thus early, and after much
steady paddling and dancing over the dark waves of
Apmoojenegamook, we found ourselves in the neighbor-
hood of the southern land, heard the waves breaking on
it, and turned our thoughts wholly to that side. After
coasting eastward along this shore a mile or two, we
breakfasted on a rocky point, the first convenient place
that offered.
It was well enough that we crossed thus early, for the
248 THE MAINE WOODS.
waves now ran quite high, and we should have been
obliged to go round somewhat, but beyond this point we
had comparatively smooth water. You can commonly
go along one side or the other of a lake, when you can-
not cross it.
The Indian was looking at the hard-wood ridges from
time to time, and said that he would like to buy a few
hundred acres somewhere about this lake, asking our
advice. It was to buy as near the crossing place as pos-
sible.
My companion and I having a minute's discussion on
some point of ancient history, were amused by the atti-
tude which the Indian, who could not tell what we were
talking about, assumed. He constituted himself umpire,
and, judging by our air and gesture, he very seriously
remarked from time to time, " you beat," or " he beat."
Leaving a spacious bay, a northeasterly prolongation
of Chamberlain Lake, on our left, we entered through a
short strait into a small lake a couple of miles over,
called on the map Telasinis, but the Indian had no dis-
tinct name for it, and thence into Telos Lake, which he
called Paytaywecomgomoc, or Burnt-Ground Lake. This
curved round toward the northeast, and may have been
three or four miles long as we paddled. He had not
been here since 1825. He did not know what Telos
meant ; thought it was not Indian. He used the word
" Spokelogan " (for an inlet in the shore which led no-
where), and when I asked its meaning said that there
was " no Indian in 'em." There was a clearing, with a
house and barn, on the southwest shore, temporarily oc-
cupied by some men who were getting the hay, as we
had been told ; also a clearing for a pasture on a hill on
the west side of the lake.
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 249
"We landed on a rocky point on the northeast side, to
look at some Red Pines (Pinus. resinosa), the first we
had noticed, and get some cones, for our few which grow
in Concord do not bear any.
The outlet from the lake into the East Branch of the
Penobscot is an artificial one, and it was not very appar-
ent where it was exactly, but the lake ran curving far
up northeasterly into two narrow valleys or ravines, as
if it had for a long time been groping its way toward the
Penobscot waters, or. remembered when ifr anciently
flowed there ; by observing where the horizon was lowest,
and following the longest of these, we at length reached
the dam, having come about a dozen miles from the last
camp. Somebody had left a line set for trout, and the
jackknife with which the bait had been cut on the dam
beside it, an evidence that man was near, and on a de-
serted log close by a loaf of bread baked in a Yankee-
baker. These proved the property of a solitary hunter,
whom we soon met, and /dance and gun and traps
were not far off. He told us that it was twenty miles
farther on our route to the foot of Grand Lake, where
you could catch as many trout as you wanted, and that
the first house below the foot of the lake, on the East
Branch, was Hunt's, about forty-five miles farther; though
there was one about a mile and a half up Trout stream,
some fifteen miles ahead, but it was rather a blind route
to it. It turned out that, though the stream was in our
favor, we did not reach the next house till the morning
of the third day after this. The nearest permanently in-
habited house behind us was now a dozen miles distant,
so that the interval between the two nearest houses on
our route was. about sixty miles.
This hunter, who was a quite small, sunburnt man,
250 THE MAINE WOODS.
having already carried his canoe over, and baked his
loaf, had nothing so interesting and pressing to do as to
observe our transit. He had been out a month or more
alone. How much more wild and adventurous his life
than that of the hunter in Concord woods, who gets back
to his house and the mill-dam every night ! Yet they in
the towns who have wild oats to sow commonly sow them
on cultivated and comparatively exhausted ground. And
as for the rowdy world in the large cities, so little enter-
prise has it that it never adventures in this direction, but
like vermin clubs together in alleys and drinking-saloons,
its highest accomplishment, perchance, to run beside a
fire-engine and throw brickbats. But the former is com-
paratively an independent and successful man, getting
his living in a way that he likes, without disturbing
his human neighbors. How much more respectable
also is the life of the solitary pioneer or settler in these,
or any woods, — having real difficulties, not of his own
creation, drawing his subsistence directly from nature, —
than that of the helpless multitudes in the towns who de-
pend on gratifying the extremely artificial wants of so-
ciety and are thrown out of employment by hard times !
Here for the first time we found the raspberries really
plenty, — that is, on passing the height of land between
the Allegash and the East Branch of the Penobscot ;
the same was true of the blueberries.
Telos Lake, the head of the St. John on this side, and
Webster Pond, the head of the East Branch of the Penob-
gcot, are only about a mile apart, and they are connected
by a ravine, in which but little digging was required to
make the water of the former, which is the highest, flow
into the latter. This canal, which is something less than
a mile long and about four rods wide, was made a few
THE ALLEGASH A*JD EAST BRANCH. 251
years before my first visit to Maine. Since then the lum-
ber of the upper Allegash and its lakes has been run
down the Penobscot, that is, up the Allegash, which here
consists principally of a chain of large and stagnant
lakes, whose thoroughfares, or river-links, have been
made nearly equally stagnant by damming, and then
down the Penobscot. The rush of the water has pro-
duced such changes in the canal that it has now the
appearance of a very rapid mountain stream flowing
through a ravine, and you would not suspect that any
digging had been required to persuade the waters of the
St. John to flow into the Penobscot here. It was so
winding that one could see but little way down.
It is stated by Springer, in his "Forest Life," that
the cause of this canal being dug was this. According
to the treaty of 1842 with Great Britain, it was agreed
that all the timber run down the St. John, which rises
in Maine, " when within the Province of New Bruns-
wick .... shall be dealt with as if it were the produce
of the said Province," which was thought by our side to
mean that it should be free from taxation. Immediately,
the Province, wishing to get something out of the Yan-
kees, levied a duty on all the timber that passed down
the St. John ; but to satisfy its own subjects " made a
corresponding discount on the stum page charged those
hauling timber from the crown lands." The result was
that the Yankees made the St. John run the other way,
or down the Penobscot, so that the Province lost both
its duty and its water, while the Yankees, being greatly
enriched, had reason to thank it for the suggestion.
It is wonderful how well watered this country is. As
you paddle across a lake, bays will be pointed out to
you, by following up which, and perhaps the tributary
252 THE MAINE WOODS.
stream which empties in, you may, after a short portage,
or possibly, at some seasons, none at all, get into another
river, which empties far away from the one you are on.
Generally, you may go in any direction in a canoe, by
making frequent but not very long portages. You are
only realizing once more what all nature distinctly re-
members here, for no doubt the waters flowed thus in
a former geological period, and instead of being a lake
country, it was an archipelago. It seems as if the more
youthful and impressible streams can hardly resist the
numerous invitations and temptations to leave their na-
tive beds and run down their neighbors' channels.
Your carries are often over half-submerged ground, on
the dry channels of a former period. In carrying from
one river to another, I did not go over such high and
rocky ground as in going about the falls of the same
river. For in the former case I was once lost in a
swamp, as I have related, and, again, found an artificial
canal which appeared to be natural.
I remember once dreaming of pushing a canoe up the
rivers of Maine, and that, when I had got so high that
the channels were dry, I kept on through the ravines
and gorges, nearly as well as before, by pushing a little
harder, and now it seemed to me that my dream was
partially realized.
Wherever there is a channel for water, there is a road
for the canoe. The pilot of the steamer which ran from
Oldtown up the Penobscot in 1854 told me that she drew
only fourteen inches, and would run easily in two feet of
water, though they did not like to. It is said that some
Western steamers can run on a heavy dew, whence we
can imagine what a canoe may do. Montresor, who was
sent from Quebec by the English about 1760 to explore
"THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 253
the route to the Kennebec, over which Arnold after-
ward passed, supplied the Penobscot near its source with
water by opening the beaver-dams, and he says, " This
is often done." He afterward states that the Governor
of Canada -had forbidden to molest the beaver about the
outlet of the Kennebec from Moosehead Lake, on ac-
count of the service which their dams did by raising the
water for navigation.
This canal, so called, was a considerable and extremely
rapid and rocky river. The Indian decided that there
was water enough in it without raising the dam, which
would only make it more violent, and that he would run
down it alone, while we carried the greater part of the
baggage. Our provision being about half consumed,
there was the less left in the canoe. We had thrown
away the pork-keg, and wrapt its contents in birch bark,
which is the unequalled wrapping-paper of the woods.
Following a moist trail through the forest, we reached
the head of Webster Pond about the same time with the
Indian, notwithstanding the velocity with which he
moved, our route being the most direct. The Indian
name of Webster Stream, of which this pond is the
source, is, according to him, Madurikchunk, i. e. Height
of Land, and of the pond, Madunkchunk-gamooc, or
Height of Land Pond. The latter was two or three
miles long. We passed near a pine on its shore which
had been splintered by lightning, perhaps the day before.
This was the first proper East Branch Penobscot water
that we came to.
At the outlet of Webster Lake was another dam, at
which we stopped and picked raspberries, while the In-
dian went down the stream a half-mile through the for-
est, to see what he had got to contend with. There was
254 THE MAINE WOODS.
a deserted log camp here, apparently used the previous
winter, with its " hovel " or barn for cattle. In the hut
was a large fir-twig bed, raised two feet from the floor,
occupying a large part of the single apartment, a long
narrow table against the wall, with a stout log bench be-
fore it, and above the table a small window, the only one
there was, which admitted a feeble light. It was a sim
pie and strong fort erected against the cold, and suggested
what valiant trencher work had been done there. I dis-
covered one or two curious wooden traps, which had not
been used for a long time, in the woods near by. The
principal part consisted of a long and slender pole.
We got our dinner on the shore, on the upper side of
the dam. As we were sitting by our fire, concealed by
the earth bank of the dam, a long line of sheldrake,
half grown, came waddling over it from the water below,
passing within about a rod of us, so that -we could almost
have caught them in our hands. They were very abun-
dant on all the streams and lakes which we visited, and
every two or three hours they would rush away in a long
string over the water before us, twenty to fifty of them
at once, rarely ever flying, but running with great rapid-
ity up or down the stream, even in the midst of the most
violent rapids, and apparently as fast up as down, or else
crossing diagonally, the old, as it appeared, behind, and
driving them, and flying to the front from time to time,
as if to direct them. We also saw many small black
dippers, which behaved in a similar manner, and, once
or twice, a few black ducks.
An Indian at Oldtown had told us that we should be
obliged to carry ten miles between Telos Lake on the
St. John's and Second Lake on the East Branch of the
Penobscot ; but the lumberers whom we met assured us
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 255
that there would not be more than a mile of carry. It
turned out that the Indian, who had lately been over
this route, was nearest right, as far as we were concerned.
However, if one of us could have assisted the Indian in
managing the canoe in the rapids, we might have run
the greater part of the way ; but as he was alone in the
management of the canoe in such places, we were obliged
to walk the greater part. I did not feel quite ready to
try such an experiment on Webster Stream, which has
so bad a reputation. According to my observation, a
bateau, properly manned, shoots rapids as a matter of
course, which a single Indian with a canoe carries round.
My companion and I carried a good part of the bag-
gage on our shoulders, while the Indian took that which
would be least injured by wet in the canoe. We did
not know when we should see him again, for he had not
been this way since the canal was cut, nor for more than
thirty years. He agreed to stop when he got to smooth
water, come up and find our path if he could, and halloo
for us, and after waiting a reasonable time go on and
try again, — and we were to look out in like manner
for him.
He commenced by running through the sluice-way
and over the dam, as usual, standing up in his tossing
canoe, and was soon out of sight behind a point in a wild
gorge. This Webster Stream is well known to lumber-
men as a difficult one. It is exceedingly rapid and
rocky, and also shallow, and can hardly be considered
navigable, unless that may mean that what is launched
in it is sure to be carried swiftly down it, though it may
be dashed to pieces by the way. It is somewhat like
navigating a thunder-spout. With commonly an irre-
sistible force urging you on, you have got to choose your
256 -THE MAINE WOODS.
own course each moment, between the rocks and shal-
lows, and to get into it, moving forward always with
the utmost possible moderation, and often holding on, if
you can, that you may inspect the rapids before you.
By the Indian's direction we took an old path on the
south side, which appeared to keep down the stream,
though at a considerable distance from it, cutting off
bends, perhaps to Second Lake, having first taken the
course from the map with a compass, which was north-
easterly, for safety. It was a wild wood-path, with a few
tracks of oxen which had been driven over it, probably
to some old camp clearing, for pasturage, mingled with
the tracks of moose which had lately used it. We kept on
steadily for about an hour without putting down our packs,
occasionally winding around or climbing over a fallen tree,
for the most part far out of sight and hearing of the riv-
er ; till, after walking about three miles, we were glad to
find that the path came to the river again at an old camp
ground, where there was a small opening in the forest,
at which we paused. • Swiftly as the shallow and rocky
river ran here, a continuous rapid with dancing waves, I
saw, as I sat on the shore, a long string of sheldrakes,
which something scared, run up the opposite side of the
stream by me, with the same ease that they commonly
did down it, just touching the surface of the waves, and
getting an impulse from them as they flowed from under
them ; but they soon came back, driven by the Indian,
who had fallen a little behind us, on account of the wind-
ings. He shot round a point just above, and came to
land by us with considerable water in his canoe. He
had found it, as he said, " very strong water," and had
been obliged to land once before to empty out what he
had taken in. He complained that it strained him to
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 257
paddle so hard in order to keep his canoe straight in its
course, having no one in the bows to aid him, and, shal-
low as it was, said that it would be no joke to upset
there, for the force of the water was such that he had as
lief I would strike him over the head with a paddle as
have that water strike him. Seeing him come out of that
gap was as if you should pour water down an inclined
and zigzag trough, then drop a nutshell into it, and tak-
ing a short cut to the bottom, get there in time to see it
come out, notwithstanding the rush and tumult, right
side up, and only partly full of water.
After a moment's breathing space, while I held his ca-
noe, he was soon out of sight again around another bend,
and we, shouldering our packs, resumed our course.
We did not at once fall into our paths again, but made
our way with difficulty along the edge of the river, till at
length, striking inland through the forest, we recovered
it. Before going a mile we heard the Indian calling to
us. He had come up through the woods and along the
path to find us, having reached sufficiently smooth water
to warrant his taking us in. The shore was about one
fourth of a mile distant, through a dense, dark forest, and
as he led us back to it, winding rapidly about to the
right and left, I had the curiosity to look down carefully,
and found that he was following his steps backward. I
could only occasionally perceive his trail in the moss,
and yet he did not appear to look down nor hesitate an
instant, but led us out exactly to his canoe. This sur-
prised me, for without a compass, or the sight or noise
of the river to guide us, we could not have kept our
course many minutes, and could have retraced our steps
but a short distance, with a great deal of pains and very
slowly, using a laborious circumspection. But it was
Q
258 -THE MAINE WOODS.
evident that he could go back through the forest wher-
ever he had been during the day.
After this rough walking in the dark woods it was an
agreeable change to glide down the rapid river in the
canoe once more. This river, which was about the size
of our Assabet (in Concord), though still very swift, was
almost perfectly smooth here, and showed a very visible
declivity, a regularly inclined plane, for several miles,
like a mirror set a little aslant, on which we coasted
down. This very obvious regular descent, particularly
plain when I regarded the water-line against the shores,
made a singular impression on me, which the swiftness
of our motion probably enhanced, so that we seemed to
be gliding down a much steeper declivity than we were,
and that we could not save ourselves from rapids and
falls if we should suddenly come to them. My. compan-
ion did not perceive this slope, but I have a surveyor's
eyes, and I satisfied myself that it was no ocular illusion.
You could tell at a glance on approaching such a river,
which .way the water flowed, though you might perceive
no motion. I observed the angle at which a level line
would strike the surface, and calculated the amount of
fall in a rod, which did not need to be remarkably great
to produce this effect.
It was very exhilarating, and the perfection of trav-
elling, quite unlike floating on our dead Concord River,
the coasting down this inclined mirror, which was now
and then gently winding, down a mountain, indeed, be-
tween two evergreen forests, edged with lofty dead
white pines, sometimes slanted half-way over the stream,
and destined soon to bridge it. I saw some monsters
there, nearly destitute of branches, and scarcely dimin-
ishing in diameter for eighty or ninety feet.
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST'BKANCH. 259
As we thus swept along, our Indian repeated in a
deliberate and drawling tone the words " Daniel Webster,
great lawyer," apparently reminded of him by the name
of the stream, and he described his calling on him once
in Boston, at what he supposed was his boarding-house.
He had no business with him, but merely went to pay
his respects, as we should say. In answer to our ques-
tions, he described his person well enough. It was on
the day after Webster delivered his Bunker Hill oration,
which I believe Polis- heard. The first time he called
he waited till he was tired without seeing him, and then
went away. The next time, he saw him go by the door
of the room in which he was waiting several times, in
his shirt-sleeves, without noticing him. He thought that
if he had come to see Indians, they would not have treated
him so. At length, after very long delay, he came in,
walked toward him, and asked in a loud voice, gruffly,
" What do you want ? " and he, thinking at first, by the
motion of his hand, that he was going to strike him, said
to himself, " You 'd better take care, if you try that I
shall know what to do." He did not like him, and de-
clared that all he said "was not worth talk about a
musquash." We suggested that probably Mr. Webster
was very busy, and had a great many visitors just then.
Coming to falls and rapids, our easy progress was sud-
denly terminated. The Indian went along shore to in-
spect the water, while we climbed over the rocks, picking
berries. The peculiar growth of blueberries on the tops
of large rocks here made the impression of high land,
and indeed this was the Height-of-land stream. When
the Indian came back, he remarked, " You got to walk ;
ver strong water." So, taking out his canoe, he launched
it again below the falls, and was soon out of sight. At
260 THE MAINE WOODS.
such times, he would step into the canoe, take up his
paddle, and, with an air of mystery, start off, looking far
down stream, and keeping his own counsel, as if absorb-
ing all the intelligence of forest and stream into himself;
but I sometimes detected a little fun in his face, which
could yield to my sympathetic smile, for he was thor-
oughly good-humored. We meanwhile scrambled along
the shore with our packs, without any path. This was
the last of our boating for the day.
The prevailing rock here was a kind of slate, standing
on its edges, and my companion, who was recently from
California, thought it exactly like that in which the gold
is found, and said that if he had had a pan he would have
liked to wash a little of the sand here.
The Indian now got along much faster than we, and
waited for us from time to time. I found here the only
cool spring that I drank at anywhere on this excursion,
a little water filling a hollow in the sandy bank. It was
a quite memorable event, and due to the elevation of the
country, for wherever else we had been the water in the
rivers and the streams emptying in was dead and warm,
compared with that of a mountainous region. It was
very bad walking along the shore over fallen and drifted
trees and bushes, and rocks, from time to time swinging
ourselves round over the water, or else taking to a gravel
bar or going inland. At one place, the Indian being
ahead, I was obliged to take off all my clothes in order
to ford a small but deep stream emptying in, while my
companion, who was inland, found a rude bridge, high up
in the woods, and I saw no more of him for some time.
I saw there very fresh moose tracks, found a new golden-
rod to me (perhaps Solidago thyrsoidea), and I passed
one white-pine log, which had lodged, in the forest near
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 261
the edge of the stream, which was quite five feet in
diameter at the but. Probably its size detained it.
Shortly after this, I overtook the Indian at the edge of
some burnt land, which extended three or four miles at
least, beginning about three miles above Second Lake,
which we were expecting to reach that night, and which
is about ten miles from Telos Lake. This burnt region
was still more rocky than before, but, though compara-
tively open, we could not yet see the lake. Not having
seen my companion for some time, I climbed, with the
Indian, a singular high rock on the edge of the river,
forming a narrow ridge only a foot or two wide at top, in
order to look for him ; and after calling many times, I at
length heard him answer from a considerable distance in-
land, he having taken a trail which led off from the river,
perhaps directly to the lake, and was now in search of the
river again. Seeing a much higher rock, of the same
character, about one third of a mile farther east, or down
stream, I proceeded toward it, through the burnt land, in
order to look for the lake from its summit, supposing that
the Indian would keep down the stream in his canoe, and
hallooing all the while that my companion might join me
on the way. Before we came together, I noticed where
a moose, which possibly I had scared by my shouting,
had apparently just run along a large rotten trunk of a
pine, which made a bridge, thirty or forty feet long, over
a hollow, as convenient for him as for me. The tracks
were as large as those of an ox, but an ox could not have
crossed there. This burnt land was an exceedingly wild
and desolate region. Judging by the weeds and sprouts,
it appeared to have been burnt about two years before.
It was covered with charred trunks, either prostrate or
standing, which crocked our clothes and hands, and we
262 THE MAINE WOODS.
could not easily have distinguished a bear there by his
color. Great shells of trees, sometimes unburnt without,
or burnt on one side only, but black within, stood twenty
or forty feet high. The fire had run up inside, as in a
chimney, leaving the sap-wocd. Sometimes we crossed
a rocky ravine fifty feet wide, on a fallen trunk ; and there
were great fields of fire-weed (EpiloUum angusti folium)
on all sides, the most extensive that I ever saw, which
presented great masses of pink. Intermixed with these
were blueberry and raspberry bushes.
Having crossed a second rocky ridge, like the first,
when I was beginning to ascend the third, the Indian,
whom I had left on the shore some fifty rods behind,
beckoned to me to come to him, but I made sign that I
would first ascend the highest rock before me, whence I
expected to see the lake. My companion accompanied
me to the top. This was formed just like the others.
Being struck with the perfect parallelism of these sin-
gular rock-hills, however much one might be in advance
of another, I took out my compass and found that they
lay northwest and southeast, the rock being on its edge,
and sharp edges they were. This one, to speak from
memory, was perhaps a third of a mile in length, but
quite narrow, rising gradually from the northwest to the
height of about eighty feet, but steep on the southeast
end. The southwest side was as steep as an ordinary
roof, or as we could safely climb ; the northeast was an
abrupt precipice from which you could jump clean to the
bottom, near which the river flowed ; while the level top
of the ridge, on which you walked along, was only from
one to three or four feet in width. For a rude illustra-
tion, take the half of a pear cut in two lengthwise, lay it
on its flat side, the stem to the northwest, and then halve
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 263
it vertically in the direction of its length, keeping the
southwest half. Such was the general form.
There was a remarkable series of these great rock-
waves revealed by the burning ; breakers, as it were. No
wonder that the river that found its way through them
was rapid and obstructed by falls. No doubt the absence
of soil on these rocks, or its dryness where there was any,
caused this to be a very thorough burning. We could
see the lake over the woods, two or three miles ahead,
and that the river made an abrupt turn southward around
the northwest end of the cliff on which we stood, or a
little above us, so that we had cut off a bend, and that
there was an important fall in it a short distance below
us. I could see the canoe a hundred rods behind, but
now on the opposite shore, and supposed that the Indian
had concluded to take out and carry round some bad
rapids on that side, and that that might be what he had
beckoned to me for; but after waiting a while I could still
see nothing of him, and I observed to my companion that
I wondered where he was, though I began to suspect
that he had gone inland to look for the lake from some
hill-top on that side, as we had done. This proved to be
the case ; for after I had started to return to the canoe,
I heard a faint halloo, and descried him on the top of a
distant rocky hill on that side. But as, after a long time
had elapsed, I still saw his canoe in the same place, and
he had not returned to it, and appeared in no hurry to do
so, and, moreover, as I remembered that he had previ-
ously beckoned to me, I thought that there might be
something more to delay him than I knew, and began to
return northwest, along the ridge, toward the angle in
the river. My companion, who had just been separated
from us, and had even contemplated the necessity of
264 THE MAINE WOODS.
camping alone, wishing to husband his steps, and yet
to keep with us, inquired where I was going ; to which I
answered, that I was going far enough back to communi-
cate with the Indian, and that then I thought we had bet-
ter go along the shore together, and keep him in sight.
When we reached the shore, the Indian appeared from
out the woods on the opposite side, but on account of the
roar of the water it was difficult to communicate with
him. He kept along the shore westward to his canoe,
while we stopped at the angle where the stream turned
southward around the precipice. I again said to my
companion, that we would keep along the shore and
keep the Indian in sight. We started to do so, being
'close together, the Indian behind us having launched
his canoe again, but just then I saw the latter, who had
crossed to our side, forty or fifty rods behind, beckoning
to me, and I called to my companion, who had just dis-
appeared behind large rocks at the point of the precipice,
three or four rods before me, on his way down the stream,
that I was going to help the Indian a moment. I did so,
— helped get the canoe over a fall, lying with my breast
over a rock, and holding one end while he received it
below, — and within ten or fifteen minutes at most I was
back again at the point where the river turned south-
ward, in order to catch up with my companion, while
Polis glided down the river alone, parallel with me. But
to my surprise, when I rounded the precipice, though the
shore was bare of trees, without rocks, for a quarter of a
mile at least, my companion was not to be seen. It was
as if he had sunk into the earth. This was the more un-
accountable to me, because I knew that his feet were
since our swamp walk very sore, and that he wished to
keep with the party ; and besides this was very bad walk-
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 265
ing, climbing over or about the rocks. I hastened along,
hallooing and searching for him, thinking he might be
concealed behind a rock, yet doubting if he had not taken
the other side of the precipice, but the Indian had got
along still faster in his canoe, till he was arrested by the
falls, about a quarter of a mile below. He then landed,
and said that we could go no farther that night. The
sun was setting, and on account of falls and rapids we
should be obliged to leave this river and carry a good
way into another farther east. The first thing then was
to find my companion, for I was now very much alarmed
about him, and I sent the Indian along the shore down
stream, which began to be covered with unburnt wood
again just below the falls, while I searched backward
about the precipice which we had passed. The Indian
showed some unwillingness to exert himself, complaining
that he was very tired, in consequence of his day's work,
that it had strained him very much getting down so
many rapids alone; but he went off calling somewhat like
an owl. I remembered that my companion was near-
sighted, and I feared that he had either fallen from the
precipice, or fainted and sunk down amid the rocks be-
neath it. I shouted and searched above and below this
precipice in the twilight till I could not see, expecting
nothing less than to find his body beneath it. For half
an hour I anticipated and believed only the worst. I
thought what I should do the next day, if I did not
find him, what I could do in such a wilderness, and how
his relatives would feel, if I should return without him.
I felt that if he were really lost away from the river
there, it would be a desperate undertaking to find him;
and where were they who could help you ? What would
it be to raise the country, where there were only two
12
266 THE MAINE WOODS.
or three camps, twenty or thirty miles apart, and no
road, and perhaps nobody at home ? Yet we must try
the harder, the less the prospect of success.
I rushed down from this precipice to the canoe in
order to fire the Indian's gun, but found that my com-
panion had the caps. I was still thinking of getting it
off when the Indian returned. He had not found him,
but he said that he had seen his tracks once or twice
along the shore. This encouraged me very much. He
objected to firing the gun, saying that if my companion
heard it, which was not likely, on account of the roar of
the stream, it would tempt him to come toward us, and
he might break his neck in the dark. For the same rea-
son we refrained from lighting a fire on the highest rock.
I proposed that we should both keep down the stream to
the lake, or that I should go at any rate, but the Indian
said, " No use, can't do anything in the dark ; come morn-
ing, then we find 'em. No harm, — he make 'em camp.
No bad animals here, no gristly bears, such as in Califor-
nia, where he 's been, — warm night, — he well off as
you and I." I considered that if he was well he could do
without us. He had just lived eight years in California,
and had plenty of experience with wild beasts and wilder
men, was peculiarly accustomed to make journeys of
great length, but if he were sick or dead, he was near
where we were. The darkness in the woods was by this so
thick that it alone decided the question. We must camp
where we were. I knew that he had his knapsack, with
blankets and matches, and, if well, would fare no worse
than we, except that he would have no supper nor society.
This side of the river being so encumbered with rocks,
we crossed to the eastern or smoother shore, and pro-
ceeded to camp there, within two or three rods of the
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BKANCH. ' 267
Falls. We pitched no tent, but lay on the sand, putting
a few handfuls of grass and twigs under us, there being
no evergreen at hand. For fuel we had some of the
charred stumps. Our various bags of provisions had got
quite wet in the rapids, and I arranged them about the
fire to dry. The fall close by was the principal one on
this stream, and it shook the earth under us. It was a
cool, because dewy, night ; the more so, probably, owing
to the nearness of the falls. The Indian complained a
good deal, and thought afterward that he got a cold there
which occasioned a more serious illness. We were not
much troubled by mosquitoes at any rate. I lay awake a
good deal from anxiety, but, unaccountably to myself, was
at length comparatively at ease respecting him. At first
I had apprehended the worst, but now I had little doubt
but that I should find him in the morning. From time
to time I fancied that I heard his voice calling through
the roar of the falls from the opposite side of the river ;
but it is doubtful if we could have heard him across the
stream there. Sometimes I doubted whether the Indian
had really seen his tracks, since he manifested an un-
willingness to make much of a search, and then my anx-
iety returned.
It was the most wild and desolate region we had
camped in, where, if anywhere, one might expect to meet
with befitting inhabitants, but I heard only the squeak of
a night-hawk flitting over. The moon in her first quar-
ter, in the fore part of the night, setting over the bare
rocky hills, garnished with tall, charred, and hollow stumps
or shells of trees, served to reveal the desolation.
THURSDAY, July 30.
I aroused the Indian early this morning to go in search
268 THE MAINE WOODS.
of our companion, expecting to find him within a mile or
two, farther down the stream. The Indian wanted his
breakfast first, but I reminded him that my companion
had had neither breakfast nor supper. We were obliged
first to carry our canoe and baggage over into another
stream, the main East Branch, about three fourths of a
mile distant, for Webster Stream was no farther navi-
gable. We went twice over this carry, and the dewy
bushes wet us through like water up to the middle ; I
hallooed in a high key from time to time, though I had
little expectation that I could be heard over the roar of
the rapids, and moreover we were necessarily on the
opposite side of the stream to him. In going over this
portage the last time, the Indian, who was before me
with the canoe on his head, stumbled and fell heavily
once, and lay for a moment silent, as if in pain. I hastily
stepped forward to help him, asking if he was much hurt,
but after a moment's pause, without replying, he sprang
up and went forward. He was all the way subject to
taciturn fits, but they were harmless ones.
We had launched our canoe and gone but little way
down the East Branch, when I heard an answering shout
from my companion, and soon after saw him standing on
a point where there was a clearing a quarter of a mile
below, and the smoke of his fire was rising near by.
Before I saw him I naturally shouted again and again,
but the Indian curtly remarked, " He hears you," as if
once was enough. It was just below the mouth of
Webster Stream. When we arrived, he was smoking his
pipe, and said that he had passed a pretty comfortable
night, though it was rather cold, on account of the dew.
It appeared that when we stood together the previous
evening, and I was shouting to the Indian across the
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 269
river, he, being near-sighted, had not seen the Indian nor
his canoe, and when I went back to the Indian's assist-
ance, did not see which way I went, and supposed that
we were below and not above him, and so, making haste
to catch up, he ran away from us. Having reached this
clearing, a mile or more below our camp, the night over-
took him, and he made a fire in a little hollow, and lay
down by it in his blanket, still thinking that we were
ahead of him. He thought it likely that he had heard
the Indian call once the evening before, but mistook it for
an owl. He had seen one botanical rarity before it was
dark, — pure white Epilobium angustifolium amidst the
fields of pink ones, in the burnt lands. He had already
stuck up the remnant of a lumberer's shirt, found on the
point, on a pole by the water-side, for a signal, and
attached a note to it, to inform us that he had gone on
to the lake, and that if he did not find us there, he would
be back in a couple of hours. If he had not found us
soon, he had some thoughts of going back in search of
the solitary hunter whom we had met at Telos Lake, ten
miles behind, and, if successful, hire him to take him to
Bangor. But if this hunter had moved as fast as we,
he would have been twenty miles off by this time, and
who could guess in what direction ? It would have been
like looking for a needle in a hay-mow, to search for
him in these woods. He had been considering how long
he could live on berries alone.
We substituted for his note a card containing our
names and destination, and the date of our visit, which
Polis neatly enclosed in a piece of birch-bark to keep it
dry. This has probably been read by some hunter or
explorer ere this.
We all had good appetites for the breakfast which we
272 THE MAINE WOODS.
garded us more suspiciously. Polis pushed the canoe
steadily forward in the shallow water, and I for a mo-
ment forgot the moose in attending to some pretty rose-
colored Polygonums just rising above the surface, but the
canoe soon grounded in the mud eight or ten rods dis-
tant from the moose, and the Indian seized his gun and
prepared to fire. After standing still a moment, she
turned slowly, as usual, so as to expose her side, and he
improved this moment to fire, over our heads. She
thereupon moved off eight or ten rods at a moderate
pace, across a shallow bay, to an old standing-place of
hers, behind some fallen red maples, on the opposite
shore, and there she stood still again a dozen or fourteen
rods from us, while the Indian hastily loaded and fired
twice at her, without her moving. My companion, who
passed him his caps and bullets, said that Polis was as
excited as a boy of fifteen, that his hand trembled, and
he once put his ramrod back up-side down. This was
remarkable for so experienced a hunter. Perhaps he
was anxious to make a good shot before us. The white
hunter had told me that the Indians were not good shots,
because they were excited, though he said that we had
got a good hunter with us.
The Indian now pushed quickly and quietly back, and
a long distance round, in order to get into the outlet, —
for he had fired over the neck of a peninsula between it
and the lake, — till we approached the place where the
moose had stood, when he exclaimed, " She is a goner,"
and was surprised that we did not see her as soon as he
did. There, to be sure, she lay perfectly dead, with her
tongue hanging out, just where she had stood to receive
the last shots, looking unexpectedly large and horse-like,
and we saw where the bullets had scarred the trees.
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 273
Using a tape, I found that the moose measured just
six feet from the shoulder to the tip of the hoof, and
was eight feet long as she lay. Some portions of the
body, for a foot in diameter, were almost covered with
flies, apparently the common fly of our woods, with a
dark spot on the wing, and not the very large ones
which occasionally pursued us in mid-stream, though both
are called moose-flies.
Polis, preparing to skin the moose, asked me to help
him find a stone on which to sharpen his large knife. It
being all a flat alluvial ground where the moose had
fallen, covered with red maples, &c., this was no easy
matter ; we searched far and wide, a long time, till at
length I found a flat kind of slate-stone, and soon after
he returned with a similar one, on which he soon made
his knife very sharp.
While he was skinning the moose, I proceeded to
ascertain what kind of fishes were to be found in the
sluggish and muddy outlet. The greatest difficulty was
to find a pole. It was almost impossible to find a slender,
straight pole ten or twelve feet long in those woods.
You might search half an hour in vain. They are
commonly spruce, arbor-vitae, fir, &c., short, stout, and
branchy, and do not make good fish-poles, even after you
have patiently cut off all their tough and scraggy
branches. The fishes were red perch and chivin.
The Indian having cut off a large piece of sirloin, the
upper lip and the tongue, wrapped them in the hide, and
placed them in the bottom of the canoe, observing that
there was " one man," meaning the weight of one. Our
load had previously been reduced some' thirty pounds,
but a hundred pounds were now added, a serious addi-
tion, which made our quarters still more narrow, and
12* R
274 THE MAINE WOODS.
considerably increased the danger on the lakes and rap-
ids, as well as the labor of the carries. The skin was
ours according to custom,, since the Indian was in our
employ, but we did not think of claiming it. He being
a skilful dresser of moose-hides, would make it worth
seven or eight dollars to him, as I was told. He said
that he sometimes earned fifty -or sixty dollars in a day at
them ; lie had killed ten moose in one day, though the
skinning and all took two days. This was the way he
had got his property. There were the tracks of a calf
thereabouts, which he said would come " by, by," and he
could get it if we cared to wait, but I cast cold water on
the project.
We continued along the outlet toward Grand Lake,
through a swampy region, by a long, winding, and nar-
row dead water, very much choked up by wood, where
we were obliged to land sometimes in order to get the
canoe over a log. It was hard to find any channel, and
we did not know but we should be lost in the swamp. It
abounded in ducks, as usual. At length we reached
Grand Lake, which the Indian called Matungamook.
At the head of this we saw, coming in from the south-
west, with a sweep apparently from a gorge in the moun-
tains, Trout Stream, or Uncardnerheese, which name, the
Indian said, had something to do with mountains.
We stopped to dine on an interesting high rocky
island, soon after entering Matungamook Lake, securing
our canoe to the cliffy shore. It is always pleasant to
step from a boat on to a large rock or cliff'. Here was
a good opportunity to dry our dewy blankets on the open
sunny rock. Indians had recently camped here, and ac-
cidentally burned over the western end of the island, and
Polis picked up a gun-case of blue broadcloth, and said
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 275
that he knew the Indian it belonged to, and would carry
it to him. His tribe is not so large but he may know
all its effects. We proceeded to make a fire and cook
our dinner amid some pines, where our predecessors had
done the same, while the Indian busied himself about
his moose-hide on the shore, for he said that he thought
it a good plan for one to do all the cooking, i. e. I sup-
pose if that one were not himself. A peculiar ever-
green overhung our fire, which at first glance looked like
a pitch pine (P. rigida), with leaves little more than an
inch long, spruce-like, but we found it to be the Pinus
Banksiana, — " Banks's, or the Labrador Pine," also called
Scrub Pine, Gray Pine, &c., a new tree to us. These
must have been good specimens , for several were thirty
or thirty-five feet high. Richardson found it forty feet
high and upward, and states that the porcupine feeds on
its bark. Here also grew the Red Pine (Pinus resinosa).
I saw where the Indians had made canoes in a little
secluded hollow in the woods, on the top of the rock,
where they were out of the wind, and large piles of
whittlings remained. This must have been a favorite re-
sort for their ancestors, and, indeed, we found here the
point of an arrow-head, such as they have not used for
two centuries and now know not how to make. . The
Indian, picking up a stone, remarked to me, " That very
strange lock (rock)." It was a piece of hornstone, which
I told him his tribe had probably brought here centuries
before to make arrow-heads of. He also picked up a
yellowish curved bone by the side of our fireplace and
asked me to* guess what it was. It was one of the upper
incisors of a beaver, on which some party had feasted
within a year or two. I found also most of the teeth,
and the skull, &c. We here dined on fried moose-meat.
276 THE MAINE WOODS.
One who was my companion in my two previous ex-
cursions to these woods, tells me that when hunting up
the Caucomgomoe, about two years ago, he found him-
self dining one day on moose-meat, mud-turtle, trout, and
beaver, and he thought that there were few places in the
world where these dishes could easily be brought together
on one table.
After the almost incessant rapids and falls of the Ma-
dunkchunk ( Heigh t-of-Land, or Webster Stream), we
had just passed through the dead-water of Second Lake,
and were now in the much larger dead-water of Grand
Lake, and I thought the Indian was entitled to take an
extra nap here. Ktaadn, near which we were to pass
the next day, is said to mean " Highest Land." So much
geography is there in their names. The Indian naviga-
tor naturally distinguishes by a name those parts 'of a
stream where he has encountered quick water and forks,
and again, the lakes and smooth water where he can rest
his weary arms, since those are the most interesting and
more arable parts to him. The very sight of the Ner-
lumskeechticook, or Dead- Water Mountains, a day's jour-
ney off over the forest, as we first saw them, must awaken
in him pleasing memories. And not less interesting is it
to the white traveller, when he is crossing a placid lake
in these out-of-the-way woods, perhaps thinking that he
is in some sense one of the earlier discoverers of it, to be
reminded that it was thus well known and suitably
named by Indian hunters perhaps a thousand years
ago.
Ascending the precipitous rock which formed this long
narrow island, I was surprised to find that its summit was
a narrow ridge, with a precipice on one side, and that its
axis of elevation extended from northwest to southeast,
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 277
exactly like that of the great rocky ridge at the com-
mencement of the Burnt Ground, ten miles northwesterly.
The same arrangement prevailed here, and we could
plainly see that the mountain ridges on the west of the
lake trended the same way. Splendid large harebells
nodded over the edge and in the clefts of the cliff, and
the blueberries ( Vaccinium Oanadense) were for the
first time really abundant in the thin soil on its top.
There was no lack of them henceforward on the East
Branch. There was a fine view hence over the spark-
ling lake, which looked pure and deep, and had two or
three, in all, rocky islands in it. Our blankets being dry,
we set out again, the Indian as usual having left his
gazette on a tree. This time it was we three in a canoe,
my companion smoking. "We paddled southward down
this handsome lake, which appeared to extend nearly as
far east as south, keeping near the western shore, just
outside a small island, under the dark Nerlumskeechti-
cook mountain. For I had observed on my map that
this was the course. It was three or four miles across it.
It struck me that the outline of this mountain on the
southwest of the lake, and of another beyond it, was not
only like that of the huge rock waves of Webster Stream,
but in the main like Kineo, on Moosehead Lake, having
a similar but less abrupt precipice at the southeast end ;
in short, that all the prominent hills and ridges here-
abouts were larger or smaller Kineos, and that possibly
there was such a relation between Kineo and the rocks of
Webster Stream.
The Indian did not know exactly where the outlet
was, whether at the extreme southwest angle or more
easterly, and had asked to see my plan at the last stop-
ping-place, but I had forgotten to show it to him. As
278 THE MAINE WOODS.
usual, he went feeling his way by a middle course be-
tween two probable points, from which he could diverge
either way at last without losing much distance. In ap-
proaching the south shore, as the clouds looked gusty,
and the waves ran pretty high, we so steered as to get
partly under the lee of an island, though at a great dis-
tance from it.
I could not distinguish the outlet till we were almost
in it, and heard the water falling over the dam there.
Here was a considerable fall, and a very substantial
dam, but no sign of a cabin or camp. The hunter whom
we met at Telos Lake had told us that there were plenty
of trout here, but at this hour they did not rise to the
bait, only cousin trout, from the very midst of the rush-
ing waters. There are not so many fishes in these rivers
as in the Concord.
While we loitered here, Polis took occasion to cut with
his big knife some of the hair from his moose-hide, and
so lightened and prepared it for drying. I noticed at
several old Indian camps in the woods the pile of hair
which they had cut from their hides.
Having carried over the dam, he darted down the rap-
ids, leaving us to walk for a mile or more, where for the
most part there was no path, but very thick and difficult
travelling near the stream. At length he would call to
let us know where he was waiting for us with his canoe,
when, on account of the windings of the stream, we did
not know where the shore was, but he did not call often
enough, forgetting that we were not Indians. He seemed
to be very saving of his breath, — yet he would be sur-
prised if we went by, or did not strike the right spot.
This was not because he was unaccommodating, but a
proof of superior manners. Indians like to get along
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 279
with the least possible communication and ado. He
was really paying us a great compliment all the while,
thinking that we preferred a hint to a kick.
At length, climbing over the willows and fallen trees,
when this was easier than to go round or under them, we
overtook the canoe, and glided down the stream in smooth
but swift water for several miles. I here observed again,
as at Webster Stream, and on a. still larger scale the next
day, that the river was a smooth and regularly inclined
plane down which we coasted. As we thus glided along
we started the first black ducks which we had distin-
guished.
We decided to camp early to-night, that we might have
ample time before dark ; so we stopped at the first favor-
able shore, where there was a narrow gravelly beach on
the western side, some five miles below the outlet of the
lake. It was an interesting spot, where the river began
to make a great bend to the east, and the last of the pecu-
liar moose-faced Nerlwnskeechticook mountains not far
southwest of Grand Lake rose dark in the northwest a
short distance behind, displaying its gray precipitous
southeast side, but we could not see this without coming
out upon the shore.
Two steps from the water on either side, and you
come to the abrupt bushy and rooty if not turfy edge
of the bank, four or five feet high, where the intermina-
ble forest begins, as if the stream had but just cut its
way through it.
It is surprising on stepping ashore anywhere into this
unbroken wilderness to see so often, at least within a
few rods of the -river, the marks of the axe, made by
lumberers who have either camped here, or driven logs
past in previous springs. You will see perchance where,
280 THE MAINE WOODS.
going on the same errand that you do, they have cut
large chips from a tall white-pine stump for their fire.
While we were pitching the camp and getting supper,
the Indian cut the rest of the hair from his moose-hide,
and proceeded to extend it vertically on a temporary
frame between two small trees, half a dozen feet from the
opposite side of the fire, lashing and stretching it with
arbor-vitae bark, which was always at hand, and in this
case was stripped from one of the trees it was tied to.
Asking for a new kind of tea, he made us some, pretty
good, of the checkerberry (Gaultheria procumbens),
which covered the ground, dropping a little bunch of it
tied up with cedar bark into the kettle ; but it was not
quite equal to the Chiogenes. We called this therefore
Checkerberry-tea Camp.
I was struck with the abundance of the Linncea bore-
alis, checkerberry, and Chiogenes hispidula, almost every-
where in the Maine woods. The wintergreen (Chima-
phila umbellata) was still in bloom here, and Clintonia
berries were abundant and ripe. This handsome plant
is one of the most common in that forest. We here first
noticed the moose-wood in fruit on the banks. The pre-
vailing trees were spruce (commonly black), arbor-vitae,
canoe-birch, (black ash and elms beginning to appear.)
yellow birch, red maple, and a little hemlock skulking in
the forest. The Indian said that the white-maple punk
was the best for tinder, that yellow-birch punk was pretty
good, but hard. After supper he put on the moose tongue
and lips to boil, cutting out the septum. He showed me
how to write on the under side of birch bark, with a
black spruce twig, which is hard and tough and can be
brought to a point.
The Indian wandered off into the woods a short dis-
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 281
tance just before night, and, coming back, said, "Me found
great treasure — fifty, sixty dollars worth." " What 's
that ? " we asked. " Steel traps, under a log, thirty or
forty, I did n't count 'em. I guess Indian work — worth
three dollars apiece." It was a singular coincidence that
he should have chanced to walk to and look under that
particular log, in that trackless forest.
I saw chivin and chub in the stream when washing
my hands, but my companion tried in vain to catch them.
I also heard the sound of bull-frogs from a swamp on the
opposite side, thinking at first that they were moose ; a
duck paddled swiftly by ; and sitting in that dusky wilder-
ness, under that dark mountain, by the bright river which
was full of reflected light, still I heard the wood-thrush
sing, as if no higher civilization could be attained. By
this time the night was upon us.
You commonly make your camp just at sundown, and
are collecting wood, getting your supper, or pitching your
tent while the shades of night are gathering around and
adding to the already dense gloom of the forest. You
have no time to explore or look around you before it is
dark. You may penetrate half a dozen rods farther into
that twilight wilderness, after some dry bark to kindle
your fire with, and wonder what mysteries lie hidden still
deeper in it, say at the end of a long day's walk; or
you may run down to the shore for a dipper of water, and
get a clearer view for a short distance up or down the
stream, and while you stand there, see a fish leap, or duck
alight in the river, or hear a wood-thrush or robin sing
in the woods. That is as if you had been to town or
civilized parts. But there is no sauntering off to see
the country, and ten or fifteen rods seems a great way
from your companions, and you come back with the air
282 THE MAINE WOODS.
of a much travelled man, as from a long journey, with
adventures to relate, though you may have heard the
crackling of the fire all the while, — and at a hundred
rods you might be lost past recovery, and have to camp
out. It is all mossy and moosey. In some of those dense
fir and spruce woods there is hardly room for the smoke
to go up. The trees are a standing night, and every fir
and spruce which you fell is a plume plucked from night's
raven wing. Then at night the general stillness is more
impressive than any sound, but occasionally you hear
the note of an owl farther or nearer in the woods, and
if near a lake, the semi-human cry of the loons at their
unearthly revels.
To-night the Indian lay between the fire and his
stretched moose-hide, to avoid the mosquitoes. Indeed,
he also made a small smoky fire of damp leaves at his
head and his feet, and then as usual rolled up his head
in his blanket. We with our veils and our wash were
tolerably comfortable, but it would be difficult to pursue
any sedentary occupation in the woods at this season:
you cannot see to read much by the light of a fire through
a veil in the evening, nor handle pencil and paper well
with gloves or anointed fingers.
On the mainland were Norway pines, indicating a
new geological formation, and it was such a dry and
sandy soil as we had not noticed before.
As we approached the mouth of the East Branch, we
passed two or three huts, the first sign of civilization
after Hunt's, though we saw no road as yet ; we heard a
cow-bell, and even saw an infant held up to a small
square window to see us pass, but apparently the infant
and the mother that held it were the only inhabitants
then at home for several miles. This took the wind out
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 283
of our sails, reminding us that we were travellers surely,
while it was a native of the soil, and had the advantage
of us. Conversation flagged. I would only hear the
Indian, perhaps, ask my companion, " You load my
pipe ? " He said that he smoked alder bark, for medi-
cine. On entering the West Branch at Nickertow it
appeared much larger than the East. Polis remarked
that the former was all gone and lost now, that it was
all smooth water hence to Oldtown, and he threw away
his pole which was cut on the Umbazookskus. Thinking
of the rapids, he said once or twice, that you would n't
catch him to go East Branch again ; but he did not by
any means mean all that he said.
Things are quite changed since I was here eleven
years ago. Where there were but one or two houses, I
now found quite a village, with saw-mills and a store
(the latter was locked, but its contents were so much the
more safely stored), and there was a stage-road to Mat-
tawamkeag, and the rumor of a stage. Indeed, a steamer
had ascended thus far once, when the water was very
high. But we were not able to get any sugar, only a
better shingle to lean our backs against.
We camped about two miles below Nickertow, on the
south side of the West Branch, covering with fresh twigs
the withered bed of a former traveller, and feeling that
we were now in a settled country, especially when in the
evening we heard an ox sneeze in its wild pasture,
across the river. Wherever you land along the fre-
quented part of the river, you have not far to go to find
these sites of temporary inns, the withered bed of flat-
tened twigs, the charred sticks, and perhaps the tent-
poles. And not long since, similar beds were spread
along the Connecticut, the Hudson, and the Delaware,
284 THE MAINE WOODS.
and longer still ago, by the Thames and Seine, and they
now help to make the soil where private and public gar-
dens, mansions and palaces are. We could not get fir
twigs for our bed here, and the spruce was harsh in com-
parison, having more twig in proportion to its leaf, but
we improved it somewhat with hemlock. The Indian
remarked as before, " Must have hard wood to cook
moose-meat," as if that were a maxim, and proceeded to
get it. My companion cooked some in California fashion,
winding a long string of the meat round a stick and
slowly turning it in his hand before the fire. It was very
good. But the Indian not approving of the mode, or
because he was not allowed to cook it his own way, would
not taste it. After the regular supper we attempted to
make a lily soup of the bulbs which I had brought along,
for I wished to learn all I could before I got out of the
woods. Following the Indian's directions, for he began
to be sick, I washed the bulbs carefully, minced some
moose-meat and some pork, salted and boiled all together,
but we had not patience to try the experiment fairly, for
he said it must be boiled till the roots were completely
softened so as to thicken the soup like flour ; but though
we left it on all night, we found it dried to the kettle in
the morning, and not yet boiled to a flour. Perhaps the
roots were not ripe enough, for they commonly gather
them in the fall. As it was, it was palatable enough,
.but it reminded me of the Irishman's limestone broth.
The other ingredients were enough alone. The Indian's
name for these bulbs was Sheepnoc. I stirred the soup
by accident with a striped maple or moose-wood stick,
which I had peeled, and he remarked that its bark was
an emetic.
He prepared to camp as usual between his moose-hide
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 285
and the fire, but it beginning to rain suddenly, he took
refuge under the tent with us, and gave us a song before
falling asleep.
FRIDAY, July 31.
The Indian said, " You and I kill moose last night,
therefore use 'em best wood. Always use hard wood
to cook moose-meat." His "best wood" was rock-
maple. He cast the moose's lip into the fire, to burn
the hair off, and then rolled it up with the meat to carry
along. Observing that we were sitting down to break-
fast without any pork, he said, with a very grave look,
" Me want some fat," so he was told that he might have
as much as he would fry.
We had smooth but swift water for a considerable dis-
tance, where we glided rapidly along, scaring up ducks
and kingfishers. But as usual, our smooth progress ere-
long came to an end, and we were obliged to carry canoe
and all about half a mile down the right bank, around
some rapids or falls. It required sharp eyes sometimes
to tell which side was the carry, before you went over
the falls, but Polis never failed to land us rightly. The
raspberries were particularly abundant and large here,
and all hands went to eating them, the Indian remarking
on their size.
Often on bare rocky carries the trail was so indistinct
that I repeatedly lost it, but when I walked behind him
I observed that he could keep it almost like a hound, and
rarely hesitated, or, if he paused a moment on a bare
rock, his eye immediately detected some sign which
would have escaped me. Frequently we found no path
at all at these places, and were to him unaccountably
delayed. He would only say it was " ver strange."
We had heard of a Grand Fall on this stream, and
286 THE MAINE WOODS.
thought tnat each fall we came to must be it, but after
christening several in succession with this name, we gave
up the search. There were more Grand or Petty Falls
than I can remember.
I cannot tell how many times we had to walk on ac-
count of falls or rapids. We were expecting all the
while that the river would take a final leap and get to
smooth water, but there was no improvement this fore-
noon. However, the carries were an agreeable variety.
So surely as we stepped out of the canoe and stretched
our legs we found ourselves in a blueberry and raspberry
garden, each side of our rocky trail around the falls being
lined with one or both. There was not a carry on the
main East Branch where we did not find an abundance
of both these berries, for these were the rockiest places,
and partially cleared, such as these plants prefer, and
there had been none to gather the finest before us.
In our three journeys over the carries, for we were
obliged to go over the ground three times whenever the
canoe was taken out, we did full justice to the berries, and
they were just what we wanted to correct the effect of
our hard bread and pork diet. Another name for making
a portage would have been going a berrying. We also
found a few Amelanchier, or service berries, though most
were abortive, but they held on rather more generally
than they do in Concord. The Indian called them
Pemoymenuk, and said that they bore much fruit in some
places. He sometimes also ate the northern wild red
cherries, saying that they were good medicine, but they
were scarcely edible.
We bathed and dined at the foot of one of these car-
ries. It was the Indian \\dio commonly reminded us that
it was dinner-time, sometimes even by turning the prow
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 287
to the shore. He once made an indirect,- but lengthy
apology, by saying that we might think it strange, but
that one who worked hard all day was very particular to
have his dinner in good season. At the most considera-
ble fall on this stream, when I was walking over the
carry, close behind the Indian, he observed a track on
the rock, which was but slightly covered with soil, and,
stooping, muttered " caribou." When we returned, he
observed a much larger track near the same place, where
some animal's foot had sunk into a small hollow in the
rock, partly filled with grass and earth, and he exclaimed
with surprise, "What that?" "Well, what is it?" I
asked. Stooping and laying his hand in it, he answered
with a mysterious air, and in a half whisper, " Devil
[that is, Indian Devil, or cougar] lodges about here
— very bad animal — pull 'em locks all to pieces."
" How long since it was made ? " I asked. " To-day or
yesterday," said he. But when I asked him afterward
if he was sure it was the devil's track, he said he did not
know. I had been told that the scream of a cougar was
heard about Ktaadn recently, and we were not far from
that mountain.
We spent at least half the time in walking to-day, and
the walking was as bad as usual, for the Indian being
alone, commonly ran down far below the foot of the car-
ries before he waited for us. The carry-paths themselves
were more than usually indistinct, often the route being
revealed only by the countless small holes in the fallen
timber made by the tacks in the drivers' boots, or where
there was a slight trail we did not find it. It was a tan-
gled and perplexing thicket, through which we stumbled
and threaded our way, and w,hen we had finished a mile
of it, our starting-point seemed far away. We were glad
288 THE MAINE WOODS.
that we had not got to walk to Bangor along the banks
of this river, which would be a journey of more than a
hundred miles. Think of the denseness of the forest,
the fallen trees and rocks, the windings of the river, the
streams emptying in and the frequent swamps to be
crossed. It made you shudder. Yet the Indian from
time to time pointed out to us where he had thus crept
along day after day when he was a boy of ten, and in a
starving condition. He had been hunting far north of
this with two grown Indians. The winter came on un-
expectedly early, and the ice compelled them to leave
their canoe at Grand Lake, and walk down the bank.
They shouldered their furs and started for Oldtown.
The snow was not deep enough for snow-shoes, or to
cover the inequalities of the ground. Polis was soon
too weak to carry any burden ; but he managed to catch
one otter. This was the most they all had to eat on this
journey, and he remembered how good the yellow-lily
roots were, made into a soup with the otter oil. He
shared this food equally with the other two, but being
so small he suffered much more than they. He waded
through the Mattawamkeag at its mouth, when it was
freezing cold and came up to his chin, and he, being
very weak and emaciated, expected to be swept away.
The first house which they reached was at Lincoln, and
thereabouts they met a white teamster with supplies, who
seeing their condition gave them as much of his load
as they could eat. For six months after getting home
he was very low, and did not expect to live, and was
perhaps always the worse for it.
We could not find much more than half of this day's
journey on our maps (the " Map of the Public Lands of
Maine and Massachusetts," and " Colton's Railroad and
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 289
Township Map of Maine," which copies the former). By
the maps there was not more than fifteen miles between
camps, at the outside, and yet we had been busily pro-
gressing all day, and much of the time very rapidly. .
For seven or eight miles below that succession of
" Grand " falls, the aspect of the banks as well as the
character of the stream was changed. After passing a
tributary from the northeast, perhaps Bowlin Stream,
we had good swift smooth water, with a regular slope,
such as I have described. Low, grassy banks and
muddy shores began. Many elms, as well as maples,
and more ash trees overhung the stream, and supplanted
the spruce.
My lily-roots having been lost when the canoe was ta-
ken out at a carry, I landed late in the afternoon, at a
low and grassy place amid maples, to gather more. It
was slow work grubbing them up amid the sand, and the
mosquitoes were all the while feasting on me. Mosqui-
toes, black flies, &c., pursued us in mid-channel, and we
were glad sometimes to get into violent rapids, for then
we escaped them.
A red-headed woodpecker flew across the river, and
the Indian remarked that it was good to eat. As we
glided swiftly down the inclined plane of the river, a
great cat-owl launched itself away from a stump on the
bank, and flew heavily across the stream, and the Indian,
as usual, imitated its note. Soon the same bird flew back
in front of us, and we afterwards passed it perched on a
tree. Soon afterward a white-headed eagle sailed down
the stream before us. We drove him several miles,
while we were looking for a good place to camp, for we
expected to be overtaken by a shower, — and still we
could distinguish him by his white tail, sailing away
13 8
290 THE MAINE WOODS.
from time to time from some tree by the shore still
farther down the stream. Some shecorways, being sur-
prised by us, a part of them dived, and we passed directly
over them, and could trace their course here and there
by a bubble on the surface, but we did not see them come
up. Polis detected once or twice what he called a
" tow " road, an indistinct path leading into the forest.
In the mean while we passed the mouth of the Seboois
on our left. This did not look so large as our stream,
which was indeed the main one. It was some time be-
fore we found a camping-place, for the shore was either
too grassy and muddy, where mosquitoes abounded, or
too steep a hillside. The Indian said that there were but
few mosquitoes on a steep hillside. We examined a good
place, where somebody had camped a long time ; but it
seemed pitiful to occupy an old site, where there was so
much room to choose, so we continued on. We at length
found a place to our minds, on the west bank, about a mile
below the mouth of the Seboois, where, in a very dense
spruce wood above a gravelly shore, there seemed to be
but few insects. The trees were so thick that we were
obliged to clear a space to build our fire and lie down in,
and the young spruce trees that were left were like the
wall of an apartment rising around us. We were
obliged to pull ourselves up a steep bank to get there.
But the place which you have selected for your camp,
though never so rough and grim, begins at once to have
its attractions, and becomes a very centre of civilization
to you : " Home is home, be it never so homely."
It turned out that the mosquitoes were more numerous
here than we had found them before, and the Indian com-
plained a good deal, though he lay, as the night before,
between three fires and his stretched hide. As I sat on
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. " 291
a stump by the fire, with a veil and gloves on trying to
read, he observed, " I make you candle," and in a minute
he took a piece of birch bark about two inches wide
and rolled it hard, like an allumette fifteen inches long,
lit it, and fixed it by the other end horizontally in a split
stick three feet high, stuck it in the ground, turning the
blazing end to the wind, and telling me to snuff* it from
time to time. It answered the purpose of a candle pretty
well.
I noticed, as I had done before, that there was a lull
among the mosquitoes about midnight, and that they
began again in the morning. Nature is thus merciful.
But apparently they need rest as well as we. Few if
any creatures are equally active all night. As soon as it
was light I saw, through my veil, that the inside of the
tent about our heads was quite blackened with myriads,
each one of their wings when flying, as has been calcu-
lated, vibrating some three thousand times in a minute,
and their combined hum was almost as bad to endure as
their stings. I had an uncomfortable night on this ac-
count, though I am not sure that one succeeded in his
attempt to sting me. We did not suffer so much from
insects on this excursion as the statements of some who
have explored these woods in midsummer led us to an-
ticipate. Yet I have no doubt that at some seasons and
in some places they are a much more serious pest. The
Jesuit Hierome Lalemant, of Quebec, reporting the death
of Father Reni Menard, who was abandoned, lost his
way, and died in the woods, among the Ontarios near
Lake Superior, in 1661, dwells chiefly on his probable
sufferings from the attacks of mosquitoes when too weak
to defend himself, adding that there was a frightful num-
ber of them in those parts, " and so insupportable," says
292 THE MAINE WOODS.
he, " that the three Frenchmen who have made that
voyage, affirm that there was no other means of defend-
ing one's self but to run always without stopping, and it
was even necessary for two of them to be employed in
driving off these creatures while the third wanted to
drink, otherwise he could not have done it." I have no
doubt that this was said in good faith.
August 1.
I caught two or three large red chivin (Leuciscus pul-
chellus) early this morning, within twenty feet of the
camp, which, added to the moose-tongue, that had been
left in the kettle boiling over night, and to our other
stores, made a sumptuous breakfast. The Indian made
us some hemlock tea instead of coffee, and we were not
obliged to go as far as China for it ; indeed, not quite so
far as for the fish. This was tolerable, though he said
it was not strong enough. It was interesting to see so
simple a dish as a kettle of water with a handful of green
hemlock sprigs in it, boiling over the huge fire in the
open air, the leaves fast losing their lively green color,
and know that it was for our breakfast.
We were glad to embark once more, and leave some
of the mosquitoes behind. "We had passed the Wassata-
quoik without perceiving it. This, according to the
Indian, is the name of the main East Branch itself, and
not properly applied to this small tributary alone, as on
the maps.
We found that we had camped about a mile above
Hunt's, which is on the east bank, and is the last house
for those who ascend Ktaadn on this side.
We also had expected to ascend it from this point, but
omitted it on account of the chafed feet of one of my
companions. The Indian, however, suggested that per-
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 293
haps he might get a pair of moccasins at this place, and
that he could walk very easily in them without hurting
his feet, wearing several pairs of stockings, and he said
beside that they were so porous that when you had taken
in water it all drained out again in a little while. We
stopped to get some sugar, but found that the family had
moved away, and the house was unoccupied, except tem-
porarily by some men who were getting the hay. They
told me that the road to Ktaadn left the river eight miles
above ; also that perhaps we could get some sugar at
Fisk's, fourteen miles below. I do not remember that
we saw the mountain at all from the river. I noticed a
seine here stretched on the bank, which probably had
been used to catch salmon. Just below this, on the west
bank, we saw a moose-hide stretched, and with it a bear-
skin, which was comparatively very small. I was the
more interested in this sight, because it was near here
that a townsman of ours, then quite a lad, and alone,
killed a large bear some years ago. The Indian said
that they belonged to Joe Aitteon, my last guide, but how
he told I do not know. He was probably hunting near,
and had left them for the day. Finding that we were
going directly to Oldtown, he regretted that he had not
taken more of the moose-meat to his family, saying that
in a short time, by drying it, he could have made it so
light as to have brought away the greater part, leaving
the bones. We once or twice inquired after the lip,
which is a famous tit-bit, but he said, " That go Oldtown
for my old woman ; don't get it every day."
Maples grew more and more numerous. It was
lowering, and rained a little during the forenoon, and, as
we expected a wetting, we stopped early and dined on
the east side of a small expansion of the river, just above
294 THE MAINE WOODS.
what are probably called Whetstone Falls, about a dozen
miles below Hunt's. There were pretty fresh moose-
tracks by the water-side. There were singular long
ridges hereabouts, called "horsebacks," covered with
ferns. My companion having lost his pipe asked the
Indian if he could not make him one. " O yer," said
he, and in a minute rolled up one of birch-bark, telling
him to wet the bowl from time to time. Here also he
left his gazette on a tree.
We carried round the falls just below, on the west side.
The rocks were on their edges, and very sharp. The
distance was about three fourths of a mile. When we
had carried over one load, the Indian returned by the
shore, and I by the path ; and though I made no particu-
lar haste, I was nevertheless surprised to find him at the
other end as soon as I. It was remarkable how easily
he got along over the worst ground. He said to me, " I
take canoe and you take the rest, suppose you can keep
along with me ? " I thought that he meant, that while he
ran down the rapids I should keep along the shore, and
be ready to assist him from time to time, as I had done
before; but as the walking would be very bad, I an-
swered, " I suppose you will go too fast for me, but I
will try." But I was to go by the path, he said. This
I thought would not help the matter, I should have so far
to go to get to the river-side when he wanted me. But
neither was this what he meant. He was proposing a
race over the carry, and asked me if I thought I could
keep along with him by the same path, adding that I
must be pretty smart to do it. As his load, the canoe,
would be much the heaviest and bulkiest, though the
simplest, I thought that I ought to be able to do it, and
said that I would try. So I proceeded to gather up the
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 295
gun, axe, paddle, kettle, frying-pan, plates, dippers, car-
pets, &c., &c., and while I was thus engaged he threw me
his cow-hide boots. "What, are these in the bargain?'*
"I asked. "O yer," said he; but before I could make
a bundle of my load I saw him disappearing over a hill
with the canoe on*his head ; so, hastily scraping the vari-
ous articles together, I started on the run, and immedi-
ately went by him in the bushes, but I had no sooner
left him out of sight in a rocky hollow, than the greasy
plates, dippers, &c., took to themselves wings, and while
I was employed in gathering them up again, he went by
me ; but hastily pressing the sooty kettle to my side, I
started once more, and soon passing him again, I saw
him no more on the carry. I do not mention this as
anything of a feat, for it was but poor running on my
part, and he was obliged to move with great caution for
fear of breaking his canoe as well as his neck. When
he made his appearance, puffing and panting like myself,
in answer to my inquiries where he had been, he said,
" Rocks (locks) cut 'em feet," and laughing added, " O,
me love to play sometimes." He said that he and his
companions when they came to carries several miles
long used to try who would get over first ; each perhaps
with a canoe on his head. I bore the sign of the kettle
on my brown linen sack for the rest of the voyage.
We made a second carry on the west side, around some
falls about a mile below this. It rained hard in the
night and spoiled another box of matches for us, which
the Indian had left out, for he was very careless ; but, as
usual, we had so much the better night for the rain, since
it kept the mosquitoes down.
SUNDAY, Augiist 2, —
Was a cloudy and unpromising morning. One of us
296 THE MAINE WOODS.
observed to the Indian, " You did not stretch your moose-
hide last night, did you, Mr. Polis ? " Whereat he re-
plied, in a tone of surprise, though perhaps not of ill
humor : " What you ask me that question for? Suppose'
I stretch 'em, you see 'em. May be your way talking,
may be all right, no Indian way." I had observed that
he did not wish to answer the same question more than
once, and was often silent when it was put again for the
sake of certainty, as if he were moody. Not that he was
incommunicative, for he frequently commenced a long-
winded narrative of his own accord, — repeated at length
the tradition of some old battle, or some passage in the
recent history of his tribe in which he had acted a prom-
inent part, from time to time drawing a long breath,
and resuming the thread of his tale, with the true story-
teller's leisureliness, perhaps after shooting a rapid, —
prefacing with " we-11-by-by," &c., as he paddled along.
Especially after the day's work was over, and he had put
himself in posture for the night, he would be unexpect-
edly sociable, exhibit even the bonhommie of a French-
man, and we would fall asleep before he got through his
periods.
Nickertow is called eleven miles from Mattawamkeag
by the river. Our camp was, therefore, about nine miles
from the latter place.
The Indian was quite sick this morning with the colic.
I thought that he was the worse for the moose-meat he
had eaten.
We reached the Mattawamkeag at half past eight in
the morning, in the midst of a drizzling rain, and after
buying some sugar set out again.
The Indian growing much worse, we stopped in the
north part of Lincoln to get some brandy for him, but
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 297
failing in this, an apothecary recommended Brandreth's
pills, which he refused to take, because he was not ac-
quainted with them. He said to me, " Me doctor — first
study my case, find out what ail 'em — then I know what
to take." We dropped down a little farther, and stopped
at mid-forenoon on an island and made him a dipper of
tea. Here too we dined and did some washing and bot-
anizing, while he lay on the bank. In the afternoon we
went on a little farther, though the Indian was no better.
" JSurntibus" as he called it, was a long smooth lake-like
reach below the Five Islands. He said that he owned
a hundred acres somewhere up this way. As a thunder-
shower appeared to be coming up, we stopped opposite
a barn on the west bank, in Chester, about a mile above
Lincoln. Here at last we were obliged to spend the
rest of the day and night, on account of our patient,
whose sickness did not abate. He lay groaning under
his canoe on the bank, looking very woe-begone, yet it
was only a common case of colic. You would not have
thought, if you had seen him lying about thus, that he
was the proprietor of so many acres in that neighbor-
hood, was worth $ 6,000, and had been to Washington.
It seemed to me that, like the Irish, he made a greater ado
about his sickness than a Yankee does, and was more
alarmed about himself. We talked somewhat of leaving
him with his people in Lincoln, — for that is one of their
homes, — and taking the stage the next day, but he ob-
jected on account of the expense, saying, " Suppose me
well in morning, you and I go Oldtown by noon."
As we were taking our tea at twilight, while he lay
groaning still under his canoe, having at length found
out " what ail him," he asked me to get him a dipper of
water. Taking the dipper in one hand, he seized his
13*
298 THE MAINE WOODS.
powder-horn with the other, and pouring into it a charge
or two of powder, stirred it up with his finger, and drank
it off. This was all he took to-day after breakfast beside
his tea.
To save the trouble of pitching our tent, when we
had secured our stores from wandering dogs, we camped
in the solitary half-open barn near the bank, with the
permission of the owner, lying on new-mown hay four
feet deep. The fragrance of the hay, in which many
ferns, &c. were mingled, was agreeable, though it was
quite alive with grasshoppers which you could hear
crawling through it. This served to graduate our ap-
proach to houses and feather-beds. In the night some
large bird, probably an owl, flitted through over our
heads, and very early in the morning we were awakened
by the twittering of swallows which had their nests there.
MONDAY, August 3.
We started early before breakfast, the Indian being
considerably better, and soon glided by Lincoln, and after
another long and handsome lake-like reach, we stopped
to breakfast on the west shore, two or three miles below
this town.
We frequently passed Indian Islands with their small
houses on them. The Governor, Aitteon, lives in one of
them, in Lincoln.
The Penobscot Indians seem to be more social, even,
than the whites. Ever and anon in the deepest wilder-
ness of Maine you come to the log-hut of a Yankee or
Canada settler, but a Penobscot never takes up his resi-
dence in such a solitude. They are not even scattered
about on their islands in the Penobscot, which are all
within the settlements, but gathered together on two or
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 299
three, — though not always on the best soil, — evidently
for the sake of society. I saw one or two houses not
now used by them, because, as our Indian Polis said,
they were too solitary.
The small river emptying in at Lincoln is the Mata-
nancook, which also, we noticed, was the name of a
steamer moored there. So we paddled and floated along,
looking into the mouths of rivers. When passing the
Mohawk Rips, or, as the Indian called them, " Mohog
lips," four or five miles below Lincoln, he told us at
length the story of a fight between his tribe and the Mo-
hawks there, anciently, — how the latter were overcome
by stratagem, the Penobscots using concealed knives, —
but they could not for a long time kill the Mohawk chief,
who was a very large and strong man, though he was
attacked by several canoes at once, when swimming alone
in the river.
From time to time we met Indians in their canoes,
going up river. Our man did not commonly approach
them, but exchanged a few words with them at a distance
in his tongue. These were the first Indians we had met
since leaving the Umbazookskus.
At Piscataquis Falls, just above the river of that name,
we walked over the wooden railroad on the eastern shore,
about one and a half miles long, while the Indian glided
down the rapids. The steamer from Oldtown stops here,
and passengers take a new boat above. Piscataquis,
whose mouth we here passed, means " branch." It is ob-
structed by falls at its mouth, but can be navigated with
bateaux or canoes above through a settled country,
even to the neighborhood of Moosehead Lake, and we
had thought at first of going that way. We were not
obliged to get out of the canoe after this on account of
300 THE MAINE WOODS.
falls or rapids, nor, indeed, was it quite necessary here.
We took less notice of the scenery to-day, because we
were in quite a settled country. The river became
broad and sluggish, and we saw a blue heron winging
its way slowly down the stream before us.
We passed the Passadumkeag River on our left and
saw the blue Olamon mountains at a distance in the south-
east. Hereabouts our Indian told us at length the story
of their contention with the priest respecting schools. He
thought a great deal of education and had recommended
it to his tribe. His argument in its favor was, that if you
had been to college and learnt to calculate, you could
" keep 'em property, — no other way." He said that his
boy was the best scholar in the school at Oldtown, to
which he went with whites. He himself is a Protestant,
and goes to church regularly in Oldtown. According to
his account, a good many of his tribe are Protestants, and
many of the Catholics also are in favor of schools. Some
years ago they had a schoolmaster, a Protestant, whom
they liked very well. The priest came and said that
they must send him away, and finally he had such influ-
ence, telling them that they would go to the bad place at
last if they retained him, that they sent him away. The
school party, though numerous, were about giving up.
Bishop Fenwick came from Boston and used his influ-
ence against them. But our Indian told his side that
they must not give up, must hold on, they were the
strongest. If they gave up, then they would have no
party. But they answered that it was " no use, priest
too strong, we 'd better give up." At length he per-
suaded them to make a stand.
The priest was going for a sign to cut down the lib-
erty-pole. So Polis and his party had a secret meeting
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 301
about it; he got ready fifteen or twenty stout young
men, " stript 'em naked, and painted 'em like old times,"
and told them that when the priest and his party went to
cut down the liberty-pole, they were to rush up, take hold
of it and prevent them, and he assured them that there
would be no war, only a noise, "no war where priest
is." He kept his men concealed in a house near by, and
when the priest's party were about to cut down the lib-
erty-pole, the fall of which would have been a death-blow
to the school party, he gave a signal, and his young men
rushed out and seized the pole. There was a great up-
roar, and they were about coming to blows, but the priest
interfered, saying, " No war, no war," and so the pole
stands, and the school goes on still.
We thought that it showed a good deal of tact in him,
to seize this occasion and take his stand on it ; proving
how well he understood those with whom he had to deal.
The Olamon River comes in from the east in Green-
bush a few miles below the Passadumkeag. When we
asked the meaning of this name, the Indian said that there
was an island opposite its mouth which was called Olar-
mon. That in old times, when visitors were coming to
Oldtown, they used to stop there to dress and fix up or
paint themselves. " What is that which ladies used ? "
he asked. Rouge ? Red vermilion ? " Yer," he said,
" that is larmon, a kind of clay or red paint, which they
used to get here."
We decided that we too would stop at this island, and
fix up our inner man, at least, by dining.
It was a large island with an abundance of hemp-net-
tle, but I did not notice any kind of red paint there.
The Olarmon River, at its mouth at least, is a dead
stream. There was another large island in that neigh-
302 THE MAINE WOODS.
borhood, which the Indian called " Soogle " (i. e. Sugar)
Island.
About a dozen miles before reaching Oldtown he in-
quired, " How you like 'em your pilot ? " JLJut we post-
poned an answer till we had got quite back again.
The Sunkhaze, another short dead stream, comes in
from the east two miles above Oldtown. There is said
to be some of the best deer ground in Maine on this
stream. Asking the meaning of this name, the Indian
said, " Suppose you are going down Penobscot, just
like we, and you see a canoe come out of bank and go
along before you, but you no see 'em stream. That is
Sunkhaze."
He had previously complimented me on my paddling,
saying that I paddled "just like anybody," giving me an
Indian name which meant " great paddler." When off
this stream he said to me, who sat in the bows, " Me
teach you paddle." So turning toward the shore he got
out, came forward and placed my hands as he wished.
He placed one of them quite outside the boat, and the
other parallel with the first, grasping the paddle near the
end, not over the flat extremity, and told me to slide it
back and forth on the side of the canoe. This, I found,
was a great improvement which I had not thought of,
saving me the labor of lifting the paddle each time, and
I wondered that he had not suggested it before. It is
true, before our baggage was reduced we had been
obliged to sit with our legs drawn up, and our knees
above the side of the canoe, which would have prevented
our paddling thus, or perhaps he was afraid of wearing
out his canoe, by constant friction on the side.
I told him that I had been accustomed to sit in the
stern, and lifting my paddle at each stroke, getting a pry
THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 303
on the side each time, and I still paddled partly as if in
the stern. He then wanted to see me paddle in the stern.
So, changing paddles, for he had the longer and better
one, and turning end for end, he sitting flat on the bot-
tom and I on the crossbar, he began to paddle very hard,
trying to turn the canoe, looking over his shoulder and
laughing, but finding it in vain he relaxed his efforts,
though we still sped along a mile or two very swiftly.
He said that he had no fault to find with my paddling in
the stern, but I cpmplained that he did not paddle accord
ing to his own directions in the bows.
Opposite the Sunkhaze is the main boom of the Pe-
nobscot, where the logs from far up the river are collected
and assorted.
As we drew near to Oldtown I asked Polls if he was
not glad to get home again ; but there was no relenting
to his wildness, and he said, " It makes no difference to
me where I am." Such is the Indian's pretence always.
We approached the Indian Island through the narrow
strait called " Cook." He said, " I 'xpect we take in
some water there, river so high, — never see it so high at
this season. Very rough water there, but short ; swamp
steamboat once. Don't you paddle till I tell you, then
you paddle right along." It was a very short rapid.
"When we were in the midst of it he shouted " paddle,"
and we shot through without taking in a drop.
Soon after the Indian houses came in sight, but I
could not at first tell my companion which of two or three
large white ones was our guide's. He said it was the one
with blinds.
We landed opposite his ctoor at about four in the after-
noon, having come some forty miles this day. From the
Piscataquis we had come remarkably and unaccountably
304 THE MAINE WOODS.
quick, probably as fast as the stage or the boat, though
the last dozen miles was dead water.
Polis wanted to sell us his canoe, said it would last
seven or eight years, or with care, perhaps ten ; but we
were not ready to buy it.
We stopped for an hour at his house, where my com-
panion shaved with his razor, which he pronounced in
very good condition. Mrs. P. wore a hat and had a sil-
ver brooch on her breast, but she was not introduced to
us. The house was roomy and neat. A large new map
of Oldtown and the Indian Island hung on the wall, and
a clock opposite to it. "Wishing to know when the cars
left Oldtown, Polis's son brought one of the last Bangor
papers, which I saw was directed to "Joseph Polis,"
from the office.
This was the last that I saw of Joe Polis. We took
the last train, and reached Bangor that night.
APPENDIX.
APPENDIX.
I. TREES.
THE prevailing trees (I speak only of what I saw) on the east
and west branches of the Penobscot and on the upper part of the
Allegash were the fir, spruce (both black and white), and arbor-
vitse, or " cedar." The fir has the darkest foliage, and, together
with the spruce, makes a very dense " black growth," especially
on the upper parts of the rivers. A dealer in lumber with whom
I talked called the former a weed, and it is commonly regarded as
fit neither for timber nor fuel. But it is more sought after as an
ornamental tree than any other evergreen of these woods except
the arbor-vitae. The black spruce is much more common than the
white. Both are tall and slender trees. The arbor-vitae, which is
of a more cheerful hue, with its light-green fans, is also tall and
slender, though sometimes two feet in diameter. It often fills the
swamps.
Mingled with the former, and also here and there forming exten-
sive and more 'open woods by themselves, indicating, it is said, a
better soil, were canoe and yellow birches (the former was always
at hand for kindling a fire, — we saw no small white-birches in that
wilderness), and sugar and red maples.
The Aspen (Populus tremuloides) was very common on burnt
grounds. We saw many straggling white pines, commonly unsound
trees, which had therefore been skipped by the choppers; these
were the largest trees we saw ; and we occasionally passed a small
wood in which this was the prevailing tree ; but I did not notice
nearly so many of these trees as I can see in a single walk in Con-
cord. The speckled or hoary alder (Alnus incana) abounds every-
where along the muddy banks of rivers and lakes, and in swamps.
Hemlock could commonly be found for tea, but was nowhere abun-
308 APPENDIX.
dant. Yet F. A. Michaux states that in Maine, Vermont, and the
upper part of New Hampshire, &c., the hemlock forms three fourths
of the evergreen woods, the rest being black spruce. It belongs to
cold hillsides.
The elm and black ash were very common along the lower and
stiller parts of the streams, where the shores were flat and grassy
or there were low gravelly islands. They made a pleasing* variety
in the scenery, and we felt as if nearer home while gliding past
them.
The above fourteen trees made the bulk of the woods which
we saw.
The larch (Juniper), beech, and Norway pine (Pinus resinosa,
red pine), were only occasionally seen in particular places. The
Pinus Banksiana (gray or Northern scrub-pine), and a single small
red oak ( Quercus rubra) only, are on islands in Grand Lake, on the
East Branch.
The above are almost all peculiarly Northern trees, and found
chiefly, if not solely, on mountains southward.
II. FLOWEKS AND SHEUBS.
IT appears that in a forest like this the great majority of flowers,
shrubs, and grasses are confined to the banks of the rivers and
lakes, and to the meadows, more open swamps, burnt lands, and
mountain-tops ; comparatively very few indeed penetrate the woods.
There is no such dispersion even of wild-flowers as is commonly
supposed, or as exists in a cleared and settled country. Most of
our wild-flowers, so called, may be considered as naturalized in the
localities where they grow. Rivers and lakes are the great protec-
tors of such plants against the aggressions of the forest, by their
annual rise and fall keeping open a narrow strip where these more
delicate plants have light and space in which to grow. They are
the proteges of the rivers. These narrow and straggling bands
and isolated groups are, in a sense, the pioneers of civilization.
Birds, quadrupeds, insects, and man also, in the main, follow the
flowers, and the latter in his turn makes more room for them and
APPENDIX. 309
for berry-bearing shrubs, birds, and small quadrupeds. One settler
told me that not only blackberries and raspberries, but mountain-
maples came in, in the clearing and burning.
Though plants are often referred to primitive woods as their
locality, it cannot be true of very many, unless the woods are sup-
posed to include such localities as I have mentioned. Only those
which require but little light, and can bear the drip of the trees,
penetrate the woods, and these have commonly more- beauty in
their leaves than in their pale and almost colorless blossoms.
The prevailing flowers and conspicuous small plants of the
woods, which I noticed, were : Clintonia borealis, Linncea, checker-
berry (Gauliheria procumbens), Aralia nudicaulis (wild sarsaparilla),
great round-leaved orchis, Dalibarda repens, Chiogenes hispidula
(creeping snowberry), Oxalis acetosella (common wood-sorrel), As-
ter acuminatus, Pyrola secunda (one-sided pyrola), Medeola Virginica
(Indian cucumber-root), small Circcea (enchanter's nightshade),
and perhaps Cornus Canadensis (dwarf cornel).
Of these, the last of July, 1858, only the Aster acuminatus and
great round-leaved orchis were conspicuously in bloom.
The most common flowers of the river and lake shores were :
Thalictrum cornuti (meadow- rue ) , Hypericum ellipticum,mutilum, and
Canadense (St. John's-wort), horsemint, horehound, Lycopus Vir-
ginicus and Europceus, var. sinuatus (bugle-weed), Scutellaria gale-
riculata (skull-cap), Solidago lanceolata and squarrosa East Branch
(golden-rod), Diplopappus umbellatus (double-bristled aster), Aster
radula, Cicuta maculata and bulbifera (water-hemlock), meadow-
sweet, Lysimadiia stricta and ciliata (loose-strife), Galium trifidum
(small bed-straw), Lilium Canadense (wild yellow-lily), Platanthei'a,
peram<zna and psycodes (great purple orchis and small purple-
fringed orchis), Mimulus ringens (monkey-flower), dock (water),
blue flag, Hydrocotyle Americana (marsh pennywort), Sanicula Can-
adensis'? (black snake-root), Clematis Virginiana? (common vir-
gin's-bower), Nasturtium palustre (marsh cress), Ranunculus recurva-
tus (hooked crowfoot), Asclepias incarnata (swamp milkweed ), Aster
Tradescanti (Tradescant's aster), Aster miser, also longifolius, Eu-
patorium purpureum apparently, lake shores (Joe-Pye-weed), Apocy-
num Cannabinum East Branch (Indian hemp), Polygonum cilinode
(bind-weed), and others. Not to mention among inferior orders
wool-grass and the sensitive fern.
310 APPENDIX.
In the water, Nuphar advena (yellow pond-lily), some potamoge-
tons (pond- weed), Sagittaria variabilis (arrow-head), Slum lineare?
(water-parsnip).
Of these, those conspicuously in flower the last of July, 1857,
were : rue, Solidago lanceolata and squarrosa, Diplopappus umbellatus,
Aster radula, Lilium Canadense, great and small purple orchis, Mi-
mulus ringens, blue flag, virgin's-bower, &c.
The characteristic flowers in swamps were : Rubus triflorus (dwarf
raspberry), Calla palustris (water-arum), and Sarracenia purpurea
(pitcher-plant). On burnt grounds : Epilobium angustifolium, in full
bloom (great willow-herb), and Erechthites hieracifolia (fire-weed).
On cliffs: Campanula rotundifdia (harebell), Cornus Canadensis
(dwarf cornel), Arctostaphylos uva-ursi (bearberry), Potentilla tri-
dentata (mountain cinquefoil), Pteris aquilina (common brake).
At old camps, carries, and logging-paths: Cirsium arvense (Canada
thistle), Prunella vulgaris (common self-heal), clover, herds-grass,
Achillea millefolium (common yarrow), Leucanthemum vulgare (white-
weed), Aster macrophyllus, Halenia deflexa East Branch (spurred
gentian), Antennaria margaritacea (pearly everlasting), Actcea rubra
and alba, wet carries (red and white cohosh), Desmodium Canadense
(tick-trefoil), sorrel.
The handsomest and most interesting flowers were the great
purple orchises, rising ever and anon, with their great purple spikes
perfectly erect, amid the shrubs and grasses of the shore. It seemed
strange that they should be made to grow there in such profusion,
seen of moose and moose-hunters only, while they are so rare in
Concord. I have never seen this species flowering nearly so late
with us, or with the small one.
The prevailing underwoods were : Dirca palustris (moose-wood),
Acer spicatum (mountain maple), Viburnum lantanoides (hobble-
bush), and frequently Taxus baccata, var. Canadensis (American
yew).
The prevailing shrubs and small trees along the shore were :
osier rouge and alders (before mentioned) ; sallows, or small wil-
lows, of two or three kinds, as Salix humilis, rostrata, and discolor ?,
Sambucus Canadensis (black elder), rose, Viburnum opulus and nu-
dum (cranberry-tree and withe-rod), Pyrus Americana (American
mountain-ash), Corylus rostrata (beaked hazel-nut), Diervilla trifida
(bush-honeysuckle), Prunus Virginiana (choke-cherry), Myrica gale
APPENDIX. 311
(sweet-gale), Nemopanthes Canadensis (mountain holly), Cephalan-
thus occidentalis (button-bush), Ribes prostratum, in some places
(fetid currant).
More particularly of shrubs and small trees in swamps: some
willows, Kalmia glauca (pale laurel), Ledum latifolium zndpalustre
(Labrador tea), Ribes lacustre (swamp gooseberry), and in one place
Betula pumila (low birch). At camps and carries: raspberry, Vac-
cinium Canadense (Canada blueberry), Prunus Pennsylvanica also
along shore (wild red cherry), Amdanchier Canadensis (shad-bush),
Sambucus pubens (red-berried elder). Among those peculiar to the
mountains would be the Vaccinium vitis-idcea (cow-berry).
Of plants commonly regarded as introduced from Europe, I
observed at Ansel Smith's clearing, Chesuncook, abundant in
1857 : Ranunculus acris (buttercups), Plantago major (common
plantain), Chenopodium album (lamb's-quarters), Capsella bursa-pas-
toris, 1853 (shepherd 's-purse), Spergula arvensis, also, north shore
of Moosehead, in 1853, and elsewhere, 1857 (corn-spurrey),
Taraxacum dens-leonis — regarded as indigenous by Gray, but evi-
dently introduced there — (common dandelion), Polygonum Persica-
ria and liydropiper, by a logging-path in woods at Smith's (lady's-
thumb and smart-weed), Rumex acetosella, common at carries (sheep-
sorrel), Trifolium pratense, 1853, and carries frequent (red clover),
Leucanthemumvulgare, carries (white weed ), Phleum pratense, carries,
1853-7 (herd's-grass), Verbena hastata (blue vervain), Cirsium ar-
vense, abundant at camps 1857 (Canada thistle), Rumex crispus?,
West Branch, 1853 ? (curled dock), Verbascum thapsus, between
Bangor and lake, 1853 (common mullein).
It appears that I saw about a dozen plants which had accom-
panied man as far into the woods as Chesuncook, and had natu-
ralized themselves there, in 1853. Plants begin thus early to spring
by the side of a logging-path, — a mere vista through the woods,
which can only be used in the winter, on account of the stumps
and fallen trees, — which at length are the roadside plants in old
settlements. The pioneers of such are planted in part by the first
cattle, which cannot be summered in the woods.
312 APPENDIX.
m. LIST OF PLANTS.
THE following is a list of the plants which I noticed in the
Maine woods, in the years 1853 and 1857. (Those marked *
not in woods.)
1. THOSE WHICH ATTAINED THE HEIGHT or TREES.
Alnus incana (speckled or hoary alder), abundant along streams,
&c.
Thuja occidentalis (American arbor- vitas), one of the prevailing.
Fraxinus sambucifolia (black ash), very common, especially near
dead water. The Indian spoke of "yellow ash" as also found
there.
Populus tremuloides (American aspen), very common, especially
on burnt lands, almost as white as birches.
Populus grandidentata (large-toothed aspen), perhaps two or
three.
Fagus ferruginea (American beech), not uncommon, 'at least on
the West Branch (saw more in 1846).
Betula papyracea (canoe-birch), prevailing everywhere and about
Bangor.
Betula excelsa (yellow birch), very common.
Betula lento, (black birch), on the West Branch, in 1853.
Betula alba (American white birch), about Bangor only.
Ulmus Americana (American or white elm), West Branch and
low down the East Branch, i. e. on the lower and alluvial part of
the river, very common.
Larix Americana (American or black larch), very common on
the Umbazookskus, some elsewhere.
Abies Canadensis (hemlock-spruce), not abundant, some on the
West Branch, and a little everywhere.
Acer saccharinum (sugar maple), very common.
Acer rubrum (red or swamp maple), very common.
Acer dasycarpum (white or silver maple), a little low on East
Branch and in Chesuncook woods.
Quercus rubra (red oak), one on an island in Grand Lake, East
Branch, and, according to a settler, a few on the east side of Che-
suncook Lake; a few also about Bangor in 1853.
APPENDIX. 313
Pinus strobus (white pine), scattered along, most abundant at
Heron Lake.
Pinus resinosa (red pine), Telos and Grand Lake, a little after-
wards here and .there.
Abies balsamea (balsam fir), perhaps the most common tree, es-
pecially in the upper parts of rivers.
Abies nigra (black or double spruce), next to the last the most
common, if not equally common, and on mountains.
Abies alba (white or single spruce), common with the last along
the rivers.
Pinus Banksiana (gray or Northern scrub-pine), a few on an
island in Grand Lake.
Twenty-three in all (23).
2. SMALL TREES AND SHRUBS.
Prunus depressa (dwarf-cherry), on gravel bars, East Branch, near
Hunt's, with green fruit, obviously distinct from the pumila of river
and meadows.
Vaccinium corymbosum (common swamp blueberry), Bucksport.
Vacdnium Canadense (Canada blueberry), carries and rocky hills
everywhere as far south as Bucksport.
Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum (dwarf-blueberry ?), Whetstone Falls.
Betula pumila (low birch), Mud Pond Swamp.
Prinos vertidllata (black alder, '57), now placed with Hex by
Gray, 2d ed.
Cephalanthus occidentalis (button-bush).
Prunus Pennsylvania (wild red cherry), very common at camps,
carries, &c., along rivers ; fruit ripe August 1, 1857.
Prunus Virginiana (choke-cherry), river-side, common.
Cornus alternifolia (alternate-leaved cornel), West Branch, 1853.
Ribes prostratum (fetid currant), common along streams, on Web-
ster Stream.
Sambucus Canadensis (common elder), common along river-
sides.
Sambucus pubens (red-berried elder), not quite so common, road-
sides toward Moosehead, and on carries afterward, fruit beautiful.
Ribes lacustre (swamp-gooseberry), swamps, common, Mud Pond
Swamp and Webster Stream; not ripe July 29, 1857.
14
314: APPENDIX.
Corylus rostrata (beaked hazel-nut), common.
Taxus baccata, var. Canadensis (American yew), a common un-
der-shrub at an island in West Branch and Chesuncook woods.
Viburnum lantanoides (hobble-bush), common, especially in Che-
suncook woods ; fruit ripe in September, 1853, not in July, 1857.
Viburnum opulus (cranberry-tree), on West Branch ; one in flower
still, July 25, 1857.
Viburnum nudum (withe-rod), common along rivers.
Kalmia ylauca (pale laurel), swamps, common, as at Moosehead
carry and Chamberlain swamp.
Kalmia angustifolia (lamb-kill), with Kalmia glauca.
Acer spicatum (mountain maple), a prevailing underwood.
Acer striatum (striped maple), in fruit July 30, 1857 ; green the
first year ; green, striped with white, the second; darker, the third,
with dark blotches.
Cornus stolonifera (red-osier dogwood), prevailing shrub on shore
of West Branch; fruit still white in August, 1857.
Pyrus Americana (American mountain ash), common along
shores.
Amelanchier Canadensis (shad-bush), rocky carries, &c. 5 consider-
able fruit in 1857.
Rubus strigosus (wild red raspberry), very abundant, burnt
grounds, camps, and carries, but not ripe till we got to Cham
berlain dam and on East Branch.
Rosa Carolina (swamp-rose), common on the shores of lakes, &c.
Rhus typhina* (stag-horn sumac).
Myrica gale (sweet-gale), common.
Nemopanthes Canadensis (mountain holly), common in low
ground, Moosehead carry, and on Mount Kineo.
Cratcegus (coccinea? scarlet-fruited thorn), not uncommon; with
hard fruit in September, 1 853.
Salix (near to petiolaris, petioled willow), very common in Um-
bazookskus meadows.
Salix rostrata (long-beaked willow), common.
Salix humilis (low bush-willow), common.
Salix discolor (glaucous willow/?).
Salix lucida (shining willow), at island in Heron lake.
Dirca palustris (moose-wood), common.
In all, 38.
APPENDIX. 315
3. SMALL SHRUBS AND HERBACEOUS PLANTS.
Agrimonia Eupatoria (common agrimony), not uncommon.
Circcea Alpina (enchanter's nightshade), very common in woods.
Nasturtium palustre (marsh cress), var. hispidum, common as at
A. Smith's.
Aralia hispida (bristly sarsaparilla), on West Branch, both years.
Aralia nudicaulis (wild sarsaparilla), Chesuncook woods.
Sagittaria variabilis (arrow-head), common at Moosehead and
afterward.
Arum triphyllum (Indian turnip), now amcema, Moosehead carry
in 1853.
Asclepias incarnata (swamp milk-weed), Umbazookskus River
and after, redder than ours, and a different variety from our var.
pulchra.
Aster acuminatus (pointed-leaved aster), the prevailing aster in
woods, not long open on South Branch July 31st; two or more feet
high.
Aster macrophyttus (large-leaved aster), common, and the whole
plant surprisingly fragrant, like a medicinal herb, just out at Telos
Dam July 29, 1857, and after to Bangor and Bucksport ; bluish
flower (in woods on Pine Stream and at Chesuncook in 1853).
Aster radula (rough-leaved aster), common, Moosehead carry
and after.
Aster miser (petty aster), in 1853 on West Branch, and common
on Chesuncook shore.
Aster longifolius (willow-leaved blue aster), 1853, Moosehead and
Chesuncook shores.
Aster cordifolius (heart-leaved aster), 1853, West Branch.
Aster Tradescanti (Tradescant's aster), 1857. A narrow-leaved
one Chesuncook shore, 1853.
. Aster, longifolius like, with small flowers, West Branch, 1853.
Aster puniceus (rough-stemmed aster), Pine Stream.
Diplopappus umbettatus (large diplopappus aster), common along
river.
Arctostaphylos uva-ursi (bear-berry), Kineo, &c., 1857.
Polygonum cilinode (fringe-jointed false buckwheat), common.
Bidens cernua (bur-marigold), 1853, West Branch.
Ranunculus acre's (buttercups), abundant at Smith's dam, Che-
suncook, 1853.
316 APPENDIX.
Rubus triflorus (dwarf-raspberry), low grounds and swamps, com-
mon.
Utricularia vulgaris* (greater bladder- wort), Pushaw.
Iris versicolor (larger blue-flag), common Moosehead, West
Branch, Umbazookskus, &c.
Sparganium (bur-reed ) .
Calla palustris (water-arum), in bloom July 27, 1857, Mud Pond
Swamp.
Lobelia cardinalis (cardinal-flower), apparently common, but out
of bloom August, 1857.
Cerastium nutans (clammy wild duckweed?).
Gauhheria procumbens (checkerberry), prevailing everywhere in
woods along banks of rivers.
Stellaria media* (common chickweed), Bangor.
Chiogenes hispidula (creeping snowberry), very common in woods.
Cicuta maculata (water-hemlock).
Oicuta bulbifera (bulb-bearing water-hemlock), Penobscot and
Chesuncook shore, 1 853.
Calium trifidum (small bed-straw), common.
Galium Aparine (cleavers?), Chesuncook, 1853.
Galium, one kind on Pine Stream, 1853.
Trifolium pratense (red-clover), on carries, &c.
Actcea spicata, var. alba (white cohosh), Chesuncook woods 1853,
and East Branch 1857.
Actcea var. rubra (red cohosh), East Branch 1857.
Vaccinium vitis-idcea (cow-berry), Ktaadn, very abundant.
Cornus Canadensis (dwarf-cornel), in woods Chesuncook 1853;
just ripe at Kineo July 24, 1857, common ; still in bloom, Moose-
head carry September 16, 1853.
Medeola Virginica (Indian cucumber-root), West Branch and
Chesuncook woods.
Dalibarda repens (Dalibarda), Moosehead carry and after, com-
mon. ( In flower still, August 1, 1857.
Taraxacum dens-leonis (common dandelion), Smith's 1853, only
there. Is it not foreign ?
Diervilla trifida (bush -honey suckle), very common.
Rumex hydrolapathum ? (great water-dock), in 1857; noticed it
was large seeded in 1853, common.
Rumex crispus? (curled-dock), West Branch 1853.
APPENDIX. . 317
Apocynum cannabinum (Indian hemp), Kineo, Bradford, and East
Branch 1857, at Whetstone Falls.
Apocynum androsoemifolium (spreading dogbane), Kineo, Bradford.
Clintonia borealis (Clintonia), all over woods; fruit just ripening
July 25, 1857.
A lemna (duckweed), Pushaw 1857.
Elodea Viryinica (marsh St. JohnVwort), Moosehead 1853.
Epilobium angustifolium (great willow-herb), great fields on burnt
lands ; some white at Webster Stream.
Epilobium coloratum (purple-veined willow-herb), once in 1857.
Eupatorium purpureum (Joe-Pye-weed), Heron, Moosehead, and
Chesuncook lake-shores, common.
Allium (onion), a new kind to me in bloom, without bulbs above,
on rocks near Whetstone Falls ? East Branch.
Halenia deflexa (spurred gentian), carries on East Branch, com-
mon. .
Geranium Robertianum (Herb Robert).
Solidago lanceolata (bushy golden-rod), very common.
Solidago, one of the three-ribbed, in both years.
Solidago thyrsoidea (large mountain golden-rod), one on Webster
Stream.
Solidago squarrosa (large-spiked golden-rod), the most common
on East Branch.
Solidago altissima (rough hairy golden-rod), not uncommon both
years.
Coptis trifolia (three-leaved gold-thread).
Smilax herbacea (carrion -flower), not uncommon both years.
Spircea tomentosa* (hardback), Bangor.
Campanula rotundifolia (harebell), cliffs Kineo, Grand Lake, &c.
Hieracium (hawk-weed), not uncommon.
Veratrum viride (American white hellebore).
Lycopus Virginicus (bugle-weed), 1857.
Lycopus Europceus (water-horehound), var. sinuatus, Heron Lake
shore.
Chenopodium album (lamb's-quarters), Smith's-
Mentha Canadensis (wild mint), very common.
Galeopsis tetrahit (common hemp-nettle), Olarmonlsle, abundant,
and below, in prime August 3, 1857.
Houstonia cceruka (bluets), now Oldenlandia (Gray, 2d ed.), 1857.
318 APPENDIX.
Hydrocotyle Americana (marsh pennywort), common.
Hypericum ellipticum (elliptical-leaved St. John's-wort), com-
mon.
Hypericum mutilum (small St. John's-wort), both years, common.
Hypericum Canadense (Canadian St. John's-wort), Moosehead
Lake and Chesuncook shores, 1853.
Trientalis Americana (star-flower), Pine Stream, 1853.
Lobelia inftata (Indian tobacco).
Spiranthes cernuus (ladies' tresses), Kineo and after.
Nabalus (rattlesnake root), 1857 ; altissimus (tall white lettuce),
Chesuncook woods, 1853.
Antennaria margaritacea (pearly everlasting), common, Moose-
head, Smith's, &c.
Lilium Canadense (wild yellow lily), very common and large,
West and East Branch ; one on East Branch, 1857, with strongly
revolute petals, and leaves perfectly smooth beneath, but not larger
than the last, and apparently only a variety.
Linncea borealis (Linnsea), almost everywhere in woods.
Lobelia Dortmanna (water-lobelia), pond in Bucksport..
Lysimachia ciliata (hairy-stalked loosestrife), very common, Che-
suncook shore and East Branch.
Lysimachia stricta (upright loosestrife), very common.
Microstylis ophioglossoides (adder's-mouth), Kineo.
Spiraea salicifolia (common meadow-sweet), common.
Mimulus ringens (monkey -flower), common, lake-shores, &c.
Scutellaria galericulata (skullcap), very common.
Scutellaria lateriflora (mad-dog skullcap), Heron Lake, 1857,
Chesuncook, 1853.
Platanthera psycodes (small purple-fringed orchis), very common,
East Branch and Chesuncook, 1853.
Platanthera jimbriata (large purple-fringed orchis), very common,
West Branch and Umbazookskus, 1857.
Platanthera orbiculata (large round-leaved orchis), very common
in woods, Moosehead and Chamberlain carries, Caucomgomoc, &c.
Amphicarpoza monocea (hog peanut).
Aralia racemosa (spikenard), common, Moosehead carry, Telos
Lake, &c., and after; out about August 1, 1857.
Plantago major (common plantain), common in open land at
Smith's in 1853.
APPENDIX. 319
Pontederia cordata* (pickerel- weed), only near Oldtown, 1857.
Potamogeton (pond-weed), not common.
Potentilla tridentata (mountain cinquefoil), Kineo.
Potentilla Norvegica (cinquefoil), Heron Lake shore and Smith's.
Polygonum amphibium (water-persicaria), var. aquaticum, Second
Lake.
Polygonum Persicaria (lady's-thumb), log-path Chesuncook, 1853.
Nuphar advena (yellow pond-lily), not abundant.
Nymphcea odorata (sweet water-lily), a few in West Branch, 1853.
Polygonum kydropiper (smart- weed), log-path, Chesuncook.
Pyrola secunda (one-sided pyrola), very common, Caucomgomoc.
Pyrola elliptica (shin-leaf), Caucomgomoc River.
Ranunculus Flammula (spearwort, var. reptans).
Ranunculus recurvatus (hooked crowfoot), Umbazookskus land-
ing, &c.
Typha latifolia* (common cat-tail or reed-mace), extremely
abundant between Bangor and Portland.
Sanicula Marylandica (black snake-root), Moosehead carry and
after.
Aralia nudicaulis (wild sarsaparilla).
Capsdla bursa-pastoris (shepherd's-purse), Smith's, 1853.
Prunella vulgaris (self-heal), very common everywhere.
Erechthites hieracifolia (fireweed), 1857, and Smith's open land,
1853.
Sarracenia purpurea (pitcher-plant), Mud Pond swamp.
Smilacina bifolia (false Solomon's-seal), 1857, and Chesuncook
woods, 1853.
Smilacina racemosa (false spikenard?), Umbazookskus carry
(July 27, 1853).
Veronica scutellata (marsh speedwell).
Spergula arvensis (corn spurrey), 1857, not uncommon, 1853,
Moosehead and Smith's.
Fragaria (strawberry), 1853 Smith's, 1857 Bucksport.
Thalicirum Cornuti (meadow-rue), very common, especially along
rivers, tall, and conspicuously in bloom in July, 18"57.
Cirsium arvense (Canada thistle), abundant at camps and high-
, way sides in the north of Maine.
Cirsium muticum (swamp-thistle), well in bloom Webster Stream,
August 31.
320 APPENDIX.
Rumex acetosella (sheep-sorrel), common by river and log-paths,
as Chesuncook log-path.
Impatiens fulva (spotted touch-me-not).
Tritium ei-yihrocarpum (painted trillium), common West Branch
and Moosehead carry.
Verbena hastata (blue vervain).
Clematis Virginiana (common virgin's-bower), common on river
banks, feathered in September, 1853, in bloom July, 1857.
Leucanthemum vulgare (white-weed).
Sium line/are (water-parsnip), 1857, and Chesuncook shore, 1853.
Achillea millefolium (common yarrow), by river and log-paths,
and Smith's.
Desmodium Canadense (Canadian tick- trefoil), not uncommon.
Oxcdis acetosella (common wood-sorrel), still out July 25, 1853,
at Moosehead carry and after.
Oxalis stricta (yellow wood-sorrel), 1853, at Smith's and his wood-
path.
Liparis liliifolia (tway-blade), Kineo, Bradford.
Uvularia grandiflora (large-flowered bell wort), woods, common.
Uvularia sessilifolia (sessile-leaved bellwort), Chesuncook woods,
1853.
In all, 145.
4. OF LOWER ORDER.
Scirpus Eriophorum (wool-grass), very common, especially on
low islands. A coarse grass, four or five feet high, along the river.
Phleum pratense (herd's-grass), on carries, at camps and clearings.
Equisetum sylvaticum (sylvatic horse-tail).
Pteris aquilina (brake), Kineo and after.
Onoclea sensibilis (sensitive-fern), very common along the river
sides ; some on the gravelly shore of Heron Lake Island.
Polypodium Dryopteris (brittle polypody).
Woodsia Ilvensis (rusty Woodsia), Kineo.
Lycopodium lucidulum (toothed club-moss).
Usnea (a parmeliaceous lichen), common on various trees.
% APPENDIX. . 321
IV. LIST OF BIEDS
WHICH I SAW IN MAINE BETWEEN JULY 24 AND AUGUST
3, 1857.
A very small hawk at Great Falls, on Webster Stream.
Halicetus leucocephalus (white-headed or bald-eagle), at Kagmuff,
and above and below Hunt's, and on pond below Mattawamkeag.
Pandion halicetus f fish-hawk or osprey), heard, also seen on East
Branch.
Bubo Virginianus (cat-owl), near Camp Island, also above mouth
of Schoonis, from a stump back and forth, also near Hunt's on
a tree.
Icterus phceniceus (red-winged blackbird), Umbazookskus River.
Corvus Americanus (American crow), a few, as at outlet of Grand
Lake ; a peculiar cawing.
Fringilla Canadensis (tree-sparrow), think I saw one on Mount
Kineo July 24, which behaved as if it had a nest there.
Garrulus cristatus (blue-jay).
Par us atricapillus (chicadee), a few.
Muscicapa tyrannus (king-bird).
Muscicapa Cooperii (olive-sided fly-catcher), everywhere a pre-
vailing bird.
Muscicapa virens (wood pewee), Moosehead, and I think be-
yond.
Muscicapa ruticilla (American redstart), Moosehead.
Vireo olivaceus (red-eyed vireo), everywhere common.
Turdus migratorius (red-breasted robin), some everywhere.
Turdus melodus (wood- thrush), common in all the woods.
Turdus Wilsonii (Wilson's thrush), Moosehead and beyond.
Turdus aurocapillus (golden-crowned thrush or oven-bird), Moose-
head.
Fringilla albicollis (white-throated sparrow), Kineo and after, ap-
parently nesting ; the prevailing bird early and late.
Fringilla melodia (song-sparrow), at Moosehead or beyond.
Sylvia pinus (pine warbler), one part of voyage.
Muscicapa acadica (small pewee,, common.
Trichas Marylandica (Maryland yellow-throat), everywhere.
Coccyzus Americanus? (yellow-billed cuckoo), common.
14* U
322 APPENDIX.
Picus erythrocephalus (red-headed woodpecker), heard and saw ;
and good to eat.
Sitta Carolinensis ? (white-breasted American nuthatch), heard.
Alcedo alcyon (belted kingfisher), very common.
Caprimulgus Americanus (night-hawk).
Tetrao umbellus (partridge), Moosehead carry, &c.
Tetrao cupido? (pinnated grouse), Webster Stream.
Ardea coerulea (blue heron), lower part of Penobscot.
Totanus macularius (spotted sandpiper or peetweet), everywhere.
Larus argentatus? (herring-gull), Heron Lake on rocks, and
Chamberlain. Smaller gull on Second Lake.
Anas obscura (dusky or black duck), once in East Branch.
Anas sponsa (summer or wood duck), everywhere.
Fuligula albicola (spirit duck or dipper), common.
Colymbus glacialis (great Northern diver or loon), in all the lakes.
A swallow ; the night-warbler ? once or twice.
Mergus Merganser (buff-breasted merganser or sheldrake), com-
mon on lakes and rivers.
V. QUADRUPEDS.
A bat on West Branch; beaver skull at Grand Lake; Mr.
Thatcher ate beaver with moose on the Caucomgomoc. A musk-
rat on the last stream ; the red squirrel is common in the depths
of the woods; a dead porcupine on Chamberlain road; a cow
moose and tracks of calf; skin of a bear, just killed.
VI. OUTFIT FOR AN EXCURSION.
The following will be a good outfit for one who wishes to make
an excursion of twelve days into the Maine woods in July, with a
companion, and one Indian for the same purposes that I did.
Wear, — a check shirt, stout old shoes, thick socks, a neck rib-
bon, thick waistcoat, thick pants, old Kossuth hat, a linen sack.
Carry, — in an India-rubber knapsack, with a large flap, two
APPENDIX. 323
shirts (check), one pair thick socks, one pair drawers, one flannel
shirt, two pocket-handkerchiefs, a light India-rubber coat or a thick
woollen one, two bosoms and collars to go and come with, one
napkin, pins, needles, thread, one blanket, best gray, seven feet
long.
Tent, — six by seven feet, and four feet high in middle, will do ;
veil and gloves and insect-wash, or, better, mosquito-bars to cover
all at night ; best pocket-map, and perhaps description of the route ;
compass ; plant-book and red blotting-paper ; paper and stamps,
botany, small pocket spy-glass for birds, pocket microscope, tape-
measure, insect-boxes.
Axe, full size if possible, jackknife, fish-lines, two only apiece,
with a few hooks and corks ready, and with pork for bait in a
packet, rigged ; matches (some also in a small vial in the waist-
coat pocket) ; soap, two pieces ; large knife and iron spoon (for
all) ; three or four old newspapers, much twine, and several rags
for dishcloths ; twenty feet of strong cord, four-quart tin pail for
kettle, two tin dippers, three tin plates, a fry-pan.
Provisions. — Soft hardbread, twenty-eight pounds ; pork, six-
teen pounds; sugar, twelve pounds; one pound black tea or three
pounds coffee, one box or a pint of salt, one quart Indian meal, to
fry fish in ; six lemons, good to correct the pork and warm water ;
perhaps two or three pounds of rice, for variety. You will prob-
ably get some berries, fish, &c., beside.
A gun is not worth the carriage, unless you go as hunters. The
pork should be in an open keg, sawed to fit ; the sugar, tea or cof-
fee, meal, salt, &c., should be put in separate water-tight India-
rubber bags, tied with a leather string ; and all the provisions, and
part of the rest of the baggage, put into two large India-rubber
bags, which have been proved to be water-tight and durable. Ex-
pense of preceding outfit is twenty-four dollars.
An Indian may be hired for about one dollar and fifty cents per
day, and perhaps fifty cents a week for his canoe (this depends on
the demand). The canoe should be a strong and tight one. This
expense will be nineteen dollars.
Such an excursion need not cost more than twenty-five dollars
apiece, starting at the foot of Moosehead, if you already possess
or can borrow a reasonable part of the outfit. If yon take an In-
dian and canoe at Oldtown, it will cost seven or eight dollars more
to transport them to the lake.
324 APPENDIX.
VII. A LIST OF INDIAN WORDS.
1. Katadn, said to mean Highest Land, Rale puts for Mt. Pema-
dene ; for Grai, pierre a aiguiser, Kitadaiigan. (v. Potter.)
Mattawamkeag, place where two rivers meet. (Indian of carry.)
(v. Williamson's History of Maine, and Willis.)
Molunkus.
Ebeeme, rock.
Noliseemack ; other name, Shad Pond.
Kecunnilessu, chicadee.
Nipsquecohossus, woodcock.
Skuscumonsuk, kingfisher. Has it not the pi. termination
uk here, or suk ? \. joe>
Wassus, bear, aouessous. Rale.
Lunxus, Indian-devil.
Upahsis, mountain-ash.
Moose, (is it called, or does it mean, wood-eater?) mous, Rale.
Katahdinauguoh, said to mean mountains about Ktaadn.
Ebemena, tree-cranberry. Ibibimin, nar, red, bad fruit. ) T
Rale.
Wighiggin, a bill or writing, aouixigan, " Litre, lettre, i Il^'n
peinture, ceinture." Rale. * carry.
Sebamook, Large-bay Lake, Peqouasebem ; add ar for plu-
ral, lac or etang. Rale. Ouaiirinaugamek, anse dans un
lac. Rale. Mspame, large water. Polis. J
Sebago and Sebec, large open water.
Chesuncook, place where many streams empty in. (v. "] «
Willis and Potter.)
Caucomgomoc, Gull Lake. ( Caucomgomoc, the lake ; can- \ Q
comgomoc-took, the river, Polis.) j ^
Kenduskieg, Little Eel River, (v. Willis.) Nicholai.
Penobscot, Rocky River. Puapeskou, stone. (Rale v. i In(J'n
Springer.) ' carry.
Umbazookskus, meadow stream. (Much-meadow river,
Polis.)
Mittinocket, place of Islands.
Souneunk, that runs between Mountains.
Aboljacarmegus, Smooth-ledge Falls and Dead-water.
APPENDIX. . 325
Aboljacarmeguscook, the river there.
Muskiticook, Dead Stream. (Indian of cany.) Meskikou, or
Meskikouikou, a place where there is grass. (Rale.) Musk&ticook,
Dead water. (Polis.)
Mattahumkeag, Sand-creek Pond. ) Nicho-
Piscataquis, branch of a river. ; lai-
Shecorways, sheldrakes. -\
Naramekechus, peetweet. > Polis.
Medawisla, loon. )
Orignal, Moosehead Lake. (Montresor.)
Chor-chor-gue, usnea.
Adelungquamooktum, wood-thrush.
Bematruichtik, high land generally. (Mi. Pemadent, [.Polis.
Rale.)
Maquoxigil, bark of red osier, Indian tobacco.
Kineo, flint (Williamson; old Indian hunter). (Hodge/
Artoosoqu', phosphorescence.
Subekoondark, white spruce.
Skusk, black spruce.
Beskabekuk, the " Lobster Lake " of maps.
Beskabekuk shishtook, the dead water below the island.
Paytaytequick, Burnt-Ground Stream, what Joe called }• Polls.
Ragmuff.
Nonlangyis, the name of a dead-water between the last
and Pine Stream.
Karsaootuk, Black River (or Pine Stream). Mkazeou-
ighen, black. Rale.
Michigan, fimus. Polis applied it to a sucker, or a poor,
good-for-nothing fish. Fiante (?) mitsegan, Rale. (Picker-
ing puts the ? after the first word.)
Cowosnebagosar, Chiogenes hispidula, means, grows where
trees have rotted.
Pockadunkquaywayle, echo. Pagadaukoueou€rr€, Rale.
Bororquasis, moose-fly.
Nerlumskeechtcook (or quoik?), (or skeetcook], Dead water,
and applied to the mountains near.
Apmoojeuegamook, lake that is crossed.
Allegash, hemlock-bark, (v. Willis.)
Paytaywecongomec, Burnt- Ground Lake, Telos.
326 APPENDIX.
Madunkehunk, Height-of-land Stream (Webster Stream).
Madunkehunk-gamooc, Height-of-land Lake.
Matungamooc, Grand Lake.
Uncardnerheese, Trout Stream.
Wassataquoik (or -cook), Salmon River, East Branch,
(v. Willis.)
Pemoymenuk, Amelanchier berries, " Pemouaimin, nak,
a black fruit. Rale." Has it not here the plural end- '
ing?
Sheepnoc, Lilium Canadense bulbs. " Sipen, nak, white,
larger than penak." Rale.
Paytgumkiss, Petticoat (where a small river comes into
the Penobscot below Nickatow).
Burntibus, a lake-like reach in the Penobscot.
Passadumkeag, " where the water falls into the Penobscot above
the falls." (Williamson.) Pausidaukioui is, aw dessus de la mon-
tagne. Rale.
Olarmon, or larmon, (Polis) red paint. " Vermilion, paint,
Ouramaii" Rale.
Sunkhaze, " See canoe come out; ho, see 'em stream." (Polis.)
The mouth of a river, according to Rale, is Saughedetegoue. The
place where one stream empties into another, thus £ , is sauktaiioui.
(v. Willis.)
Tomhegan Br. (at Moosehead). "Hatchet, temahigan." Rale.
Nickatow, " Nicketaoutegue, or Niketoutegoue, riviere qui fourche."
Rale.
2. From WILLIAM WILLIS, on the Language of the Abnaquies.
Maine Hist, Coll., Vol. IV.
Abalajako-megus (river near Ktaadn).
Aitteon (name of a pond and sachem).
Apmogenegamook (name of a lake).
Allagash (a bark camp). Sockbasin, a Penobscot, told him,
" The Indians gave this name to the lake from the fact of their
keeping a hunting-camp there."
Bamonewengamock, head of Allagash, Cross Lake. (Sock-
basin.)
Chesuncook, Big Lake. (Sockbasin.)
APPENDIX. 327
Caucongamock (a lake).
Ebeeme, mountains that have plums on them. (Sockbasin.)
Ktaadn. Sockbasin pronounces this Ka-tah-din, and said it
meant "large mountain or large thing."
Kenduskeag (the place of Eels).
Kineo (flint), mountain on the border, &c.
Metawamkeag, a river with a smooth gravelly bottom. (Sock-
basin.)
MetanawcooJc.
Millinoket, a lake with many islands in it. (Sockbasin.)
Matakeunk (river).
Molunkus (river).
Nicketow, Neccotoh, where two streams meet ("Forks of the
Penobscot").
Negas (Indian village on the Kenduskeag).
Orignal (Montresor's name for Moosehead Lake).
Ponguongamook, Allagash, name of a Mohawk Indian killed
there. (Sockbasin.)
Penobscot, Penobskeag, French Pentagoet, &c.
Pougohwaken (Heron Lake).
Pemadumcook (lake).
Passadumkeag, where water goes into the river above falls.
(Williamson.)
Ripogenus (river).
Sunkhaze (river), Dead water.
Souneunk,
Seboomook. Sockbasin says this word means " the shape of a
Moose's head, and was given to the lake," &c. Howard says
differently.
Seboois, a brook, a small river. (Sockbasin.)
Sebec (river).
Sebago (great water).
Telos (lake).
Tdasiuis (lake).
Umbagog (lake), doubled up; so called from its form. (Sock-
basin.)
Umbazookskus (lake).
Wassatiquoik, a mountain river. (Sockbasin.)
328 APPENDIX.
Judge C. E. Potter of Manchester, New Hampshire, adds in
November, 1855 : —
" Chesuncook. This is formed from Chesunk, or SchunJc (a goose),
and Auke (a place), and means ' The Goose Place.' Chesunk, or
Schunk, is the sound nrnde by the wild geese when flying."
Ktaadn. This is doubtless a corruption of Kees (high), and
Auke (a place).
Penobscot, Penapse (stone, rock-place), and Auke (place).
Suncook, Goose-place, Schunk-auke.
The Judge says that schoot means to rush, and hence schoodic
from this and auke (a place where water rushes), and that schoon
means the same ; and that the Marblehead people and others have
derived the words scoon and scoot from the Indians, and hence
schooner; refers to a Mr. Chute.
THE END.
Cambridge : Stereotyped and Printed by Welch, Bigelow, & Co.
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