CHRISTMAS ON MOUNT DESERT.
"You should have seen that long hill-range,
With gaps of brightness riven--
How through each pass and hollow streamed
The purpling light of heaven--"
WHITTIER.
Having broken the ice a little with the reader, I shall suppose him
present on the most glorious Christmas morning a New England sun ever
shone upon. "A green Christmas makes a fat church-yard," says an
Old-country proverb; this was a white _Noel_, cloudless and bright. I
saw that the peruke of my neighbor across the Sound, Sargent's Mountain,
had been freshly powdered during the night; that the rigging of the
ice-bound craft harbored between us was incased in solid ice,
reflecting the sunbeams like burnished steel. The inscription on mine
host's sign-board was blotted out by the driving sleet; the brown and
leafless trees stood transfigured into objects of wondrous beauty. I
heard the jingle of bells in the stable-yard and the stamping of feet
below stairs, and then
"I heard nae mair, for Chanticleer
Shook off the pouthery snaw,
And hail'd the morning with a cheer,
A cottage-rousing craw."
The roads from Bar Harbor and from North-east Harbor unite within a
short distance of Somesville, and enter the village together. Within
these highways is embraced a large proportion of those picturesque
features for which the island is famed. In this area are the highest
mountains, the boldest headlands, the deepest indentations of the
shores. It is not for nothing, therefore, that Bar Harbor has become a
favorite rendezvous of the throngs
"That seek the crowd they seem to fly."
On Christmas-day the road to Bar Harbor was an avenue of a winter palace
more sumptuous than that by the Neva. Every spray of the dark evergreen
trees was heavily laden with a light snow that plentifully besprinkled
us in passing beneath the often overreaching branches. The stillness was
unbroken. Blasted trees--gaunt, withered, and hung with moss like rags
on the shrunken limbs of a mendicant--were now incrusted with
ice-crystals, that glittered like lustres on gigantic candelabra. On the
top of some rounded hill there sometimes was standing the bare stem of a
blasted pine, where it shone like the spike on a grenadier's helmet. It
was a scene of enchantment.
I saw frequent tracks where the deer had come down the mountain and
crossed the road, sometimes singly, sometimes in pairs, and in search,
no doubt, of water. The foot-prints of foxes, rabbits, and grouse were
also common. During the day I met an islander who told me he had shot a
fat buck only a day or two before, and that many deer were still
haunting the mountains. Formerly, but so long ago that only tradition
preserves the fact, there were black bear and moose; and traces of
beaver are yet to be seen in their dams and houses. Red foxes and mink,
and occasionally the black fox, greatly valued for its fur, are taken by
the hunters. In order to make the roads interesting to nocturnal
travelers, rumor was talking of a panther and a wolf that had been seen
within a short time.
In the day when these coasts were stocked with beaver, its skin was the
common currency of the country, as well of the Indians as of the whites.
It was greatly prized in Europe, and constituted the wealth of the
savages of northern New England, who were wholly unacquainted with
wampum until it was introduced among them by the Plymouth trading-posts
on the Penobscot and Kennebec.
The wigwam of a rich chief would be lined with beaver-skins, and, if he
were very rich, his guests were seated on packs of it. Then, as now, a
suitor was not the less acceptable if he came to his mistress with
plenty of beaver. It was the Indians' practice to kill only two-thirds
of the beaver each season, leaving a third for increase. The English
hunters killed all they found, rapidly exterminating an animal which the
Indian believed to be possessed of preternatural sagacity.
[Illustration: VIEW OF EAGLE LAKE AND THE SEA FROM GREEN MOUNTAIN.]
Our road, after crossing a northern spur of Sargent's Mountain, which
lifts itself more than a thousand feet above the sea, led on over a
succession of hills. Beyond Sargent's, Green Mountain stood unveiled,
with what seemed the tiniest of cottages perched on its summit. Ere long
Eagle Lake lay outstretched at the right, but it was in the trance of
winter. The painter, Church, whose favorite ground lay about due south,
christened the lake, doubtless with a palmful of water from its own
baptismal font. The roadway is thrown across its outlet where the
timbers of an old mill, that some time ago had gorged itself with the
native forest, lay rotting and overthrown.
Green Mountain overpeers all the others. On its summit you are fifteen
hundred and thirty-five feet higher than the sea. On this account it was
selected as a landmark for the survey of the neighboring coasts. It is
not difficult of ascent, as the mountain road built by the surveyors is
considered practicable for carriages nearly or quite to the top. I had
anticipated ascending it, but the new-fallen snow rendered walking
difficult, and I was forced to content myself with viewing it from all
sides of approach.
An acquaintance with the sierras of either half of the continent
exercises a restraining influence in presence of an upheaval
comparatively slight, yet it is only in a few favored instances that one
may stand on the summits of very high mountains and look down upon the
sea. New England, indeed, boasts greater elevations at some distance
from her sea-coast, among which the Mount Desert peaks would appear
dwarfed into respectable hills. On a clear day, and under conditions
peculiarly favorable, a distant glimpse of Katahdin and of Mount
Washington may be had from the crest of Green Mountain. In summer the
little house is open for the refreshment of weary but adventurous
pilgrims.
Here I would observe that the island nomenclature is painfully at
variance with whatever is suggestive of felicitous _rapport_ with its
natural characteristics. The name of Mount Desert, it is true, is
singularly appropriate; but then it was given by a Frenchman with an eye
for truth in picturesqueness. In the year 1796, when the north half of
the island was formed into a township, it was called, with sublimated
irony, Eden. Green Mountain is not more green than its neighbors. At the
Ovens I saw plenty of yeast, but not enough to leaven the name. Schooner
Head is not more apposite.
[Illustration: CLIFFS ON BALD PORCUPINE.]
Just before coming into Bar Harbor there is an excellent opportunity of
observing the cluster of islands to which it owes existence. These are
the Porcupine group, and beyond, across a broad bay, the Gouldsborough
hills appeared in a Christmas garb of silvery whiteness. The Porcupine
Islands, four in number, lie within easy reach of the shore, Bar Island,
the nearest, being connected with the main-land at low ebb. On Bald
Porcupine General Fremont has pitched his head-quarters. It was the sea
that was fretful when I looked at the islands, though they bristled with
erected pines and cedars.
The village at Bar Harbor is the sudden outgrowth of the necessities of
a population that comes with the roses, and vanishes with the first
frosts of autumn. It has neither form nor comeliness, though it is
admirably situated for excursions to points on the eastern and southern
shores of the island as far as Great Head and Otter Creek. A new hotel
was building, notwithstanding the last season had not proved as
remunerative as usual. I saw that pure water was brought to the harbor
by a wooden aqueduct that crossed the valley on trestles, after the
manner practiced in the California mining regions, and there called a
flume. There is a beach, with good bathing on both sides of the landing,
though the low temperature of the water in summer is hardly calculated
for invalids.
From Bar Harbor, a road conducts by the shore, southerly, as far as
Great Head, some five miles distant. After following this route for a
long mile, as it seemed, it divides, the road to the right leading on
five miles to Otter Creek, and thence to North-east Harbor, seven miles
beyond. Excursions to Great Head, and to Newport Mountain and Otter
Creek, should occupy separate days, as the shores are extremely
interesting, and the scenery unsurpassed in the whole range of the
island.
In pursuing his explorations at or near low-water mark, it will be best
for the tourist to begin a ramble an hour before the tide has fully
ebbed. The tides on this coast ordinarily rise and fall about twelve
feet, and in winter, as I saw, frequently eighteen feet. Hence the
advance and retreat of the waves is not only rapid, but leaves a broader
margin uncovered than in Massachusetts Bay, where there is commonly not
more than eight feet of rise and fall. In many places along the arc of
the shore stretching between Bar Harbor and Great Head, the ascent to
higher ground is, to say the least, difficult, and, in some instances,
progress is forbidden by a beetling cliff or impassable chasm. As time
is seldom carefully noted when one is fairly engaged in such
investigations, it is always prudent first to know your ground, and next
to keep a wary eye upon the stealthy approach of the sea.
There is a pleasant ramble by the shore to Cromwell's Cove; but here
onward movement is arrested by a cliff that turns you homeward by a
cross-path through the fields to the road, after having whetted the
appetite for what is yet in reserve.
[Illustration: SOUTHERLY END OF NEWPORT MOUNTAIN, NEAR THE SAND BEACH.]
Schooner Head is reached by this road in about four miles from Bar
Harbor, and three from the junction of the Otter Creek road. I walked it
easily in an hour. The way is walled in on the landward side by the
abrupt precipices of Newport Mountain, in the sheer face of which
stunted firs are niched here and there. Very much they soften the hard,
unyielding lines and cold gray of the crags; the eye lingers kindly on
their green chaplets cast about the frowning brows of wintry mountains.
This morning all were Christmas-trees, and the ancients of the isle hung
out their banners to greet the day.
Emerging from the woods at a farm-house at the head of a cove, a
foot-path leads to the promontory at its hither side. It is thrust a
little out from the land, sheltering the cove while itself receiving the
full onset of the sea. An intrusion of white rock in the seaward face is
supposed by those of an imaginative turn to bear some resemblance to a
schooner; and, in order to complete the similitude, two flag-staffs had
been erected on the top of the cliff. At best, I fancy it will be found
a phantom ship to lure the mariner to destruction.
[Illustration: CAVE OF THE SEA, SCHOONER HEAD.]
I did not find Schooner Head so remarkable for its height as in the
evidences everywhere of the crushing blows it has received while
battling with storms. "Hard pounding this, gentlemen; but we shall see
who can pound longest," said the Iron Duke at Waterloo. Here are the
rents and ruins of ceaseless assault and repulse. The ocean is slowly
but steadily advancing on both sides of the continent; perchance it is,
after all, susceptible of calculation how long the land shall endure.
[Illustration: CLIFFS AT SCHOONER HEAD.]
I clambered among the huge blocks of granite that nothing less than
steam could now have stirred, although they had once been displaced by a
few drops of water acting together. A terrible rent in the east side of
the cliff is locally known as the Spouting Horn. Down at its base the
sea has worn through the rock, leaving a low arch. At the flood, with
sufficient sea on, and an off-shore wind, a wave rolls in through the
cavity, mounts the escarpment, and leaps high above the opening with a
roar like the booming of heavy ordnance. These natural curiosities are
not unfrequent along the coast. There is one of considerable power at
Cape Arundel, Maine, that I have heard when two miles from the spot.
Unfortunately for the tourist, these grand displays are usually in
storms, when few care to be abroad; undoubtedly, the outward man may be
protected and the inward exalted at such times. Some of the more
adventurous go through the Horn: I went around it.
I saw here a few ruminant sheep gazing off upon the sea. What should a
sheep see in the ocean?
On the farther side of the cove is a sea-cavern that has the reputation
of being the finest on the island. Within its gloomy recesses are rock
pools of rare interest to the naturalist. In proper season they will be
found inhabited by the sea-anemone and other and more debatable forms of
animal life. Some of these aquaria I have seen are of marvelous beauty,
recalling the lines,
"Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear."
Lined with mother-of-pearl and scarlet mussels, resting on beds of soft
sponge or purple moss-tufts, these fairy grottoes are the favorite
retreat of King Crab and his myrmidons, of the star-fish and sea-urchin.
Twice in every twenty-four hours the basins are refilled with pure
sea-water, than which nothing can be more transparent. Strange that
these rugged crags, where the grasp of man would be loosened by the
first wave, should be instinct with life! It required some force to
detach a mussel from its bed, and you must have recourse to your knife
to remove the barnacles with which the smoother rocks are incrusted.
John Adams, when he first saw the sea-anemone, compared it, in figure
and feeling, to a young girl's breast.
[Illustration: DEVIL'S DEN AND SCHOONER HEAD.]
Mount Desert has been familiar to two of the greatest of American
naturalists. When Audubon was preparing his magnificent "Birds of
America," he visited the island, and I have no doubt the report of his
rifle was often heard echoing among the mountains or along the shores.
Agassiz was also here, interrogating the rocks, rapping their stony
knuckles with his hammer, or pressing their gaunt ribs with playful
familiarity. Audubon died in 1851. Agassiz is more freshly remembered by
the present generation, to whom he made the pathway of Natural Science
bright by his genius, and pleasant, by his genuine, whole-hearted
_bonhomie_.
In 1858 the French Government devoted itself, with extreme solicitude,
to the reorganization of the administration of the Museum of Natural
History of the _Jardin des Plantes_ at Paris. It appears that, in spite
of a first refusal, several times repeated, Agassiz at length consented
to accept the direction of the museum. The Emperor, who had formed a
personal acquaintance with the celebrated naturalist during his sojourn
in Switzerland, pursued with customary pertinacity his favorite idea of
alluring M. Agassiz to Paris. He was offered a salary of twenty-five
thousand francs; and it was understood he was promised, besides,
elevation to the dignity of senator, of which the appointments were
worth twenty-five thousand francs more.
I have thought it fitting to give Agassiz's own report of his first
introduction to an American public:
"When I came to Boston," said he, "the first course which I gave had
five thousand auditors, and I was obliged to divide them into two
sections of twenty-five hundred each, and to repeat each lesson. This
course was given in the large hall of the Tremont Temple."
"Do you think," he was asked, "that in such a crowd it was the fashion
or the desire for instruction which dominated?"
"No doubt," he replied, "it was a serious desire for instruction. I have
plenty of proofs of it coming from persons belonging to the lower
classes. For instance, it is usual here to accord to persons who go out
to service full liberty after a certain hour in the evening, solely to
go to the course of lectures; that is made a part of the agreement. A
lady who had a very strong desire to hear me, told me that it was
impossible for her to do so. Her cook was the first informed of my
announcement, took the initiative, and obtained her promise of liberty
for the hour of the evening when I taught, and left her mistress to take
care of the house alone. On her return she explained very clearly what I
had said."
The slow sale of Agassiz's works in Europe decided him to pass fifteen
months in the United States; and the revolution of 1848 changed this
intention into a purpose of permanent residence. Agassiz was tall,
corpulent, bent, rather by continual study than with age. His forehead
was broad, high, and a little retreating; his countenance conspicuously
Swiss, by the largeness of his features, the gravity and benevolence of
his expression. His hair was gray, and little abundant. He spoke German
and English with facility, but had to some extent unlearned his French.
Although his conversation was without volubility, when he grew animated
in talking upon great questions his expression became noble and
majestic. "There was in him a remarkable force of thought and will. He
appeared like a man who makes haste slowly; but notwithstanding the
adage, no one can withhold an involuntary astonishment at the great
works he has been able to achieve." Agassiz belonged to the _noblesse_
of science and of literature. When such men die they can not be said to
leave legitimate successors.
Mount Desert has itself produced a man of marked usefulness in David
Wasgatt Clark, D.D., a Wesleyan divine, who was elected bishop in 1864.
He accomplished extensive literary labors, was intrusted with high and
responsible positions, and although a puny boy, the jest of his
companions of a more robust mould, completed nearly three-score years of
a laborious and eventful life.
From Schooner Head I pursued my way by the road to Great Head. And while
_en route_ I should not forget the Lynam Homestead, to which Cole,
Church, Gifford, Hart, Parsons, Warren, Bierstadt, and others renowned
in American art have from time to time resorted to enrich their studios
from the abounding wealth of the neighborhood.
One of the first artists to come to the island was Fisher. Church, whose
name is associated with its rediscovery, did not always come for work.
On one occasion, as leader of a merry party, he was lost on Beech
Mountain, and passed the night there. With rare prevision he had
provided an axe, with plenty of robes and wraps. At the foot of the
mountain the carriage was sent back to the village. Church was too good
a woodman not to use his axe to make a shanty of boughs, while the
robes, when spread upon fragrant heaps of spruce, made excellent couches
for the laughing girls that were under his protection. Meanwhile
consternation reigned at Somesville. Messengers were sent hither and
thither in haste; but no tidings arrived of the absent ones until the
next morning, when they entered the village as if nothing unusual had
happened.
Great Head is easily found. The road we have been pursuing comes to an
abrupt ending at a house within a short half-mile of it. Follow the
shore backward toward Schooner Head, and you will stand in presence of
the boldest headland in all New England. I saw that no foot-print but my
own had lately passed that way. There was something in thus having it
all to one's self.
To appreciate Great Head one must stand underneath it; but the descent,
always difficult, was rendered perilous by the newly-formed ice. By dint
of perseverance I at last stood upon the ledge beneath, that extends out
like a platform for some distance toward deep water. It was the right
stage of the tide. I looked up at the face of the cliff. It was bearded
with icicles, like the Genius of Winter. Along the upper edge appeared
the interlacing roots of old trees grasping the scanty soil like monster
talons. Stunted birches, bent by storms, skirted its brow, and at sea
add to its height. From top to bottom the face of the cliff is a mass of
hard granite, overhanging its foundations in impending ruin, shivered
and splintered as if torn by some tremendous explosion. I could only
think of the last sketch of Delaroche.
The sea rolls in great waves that overwhelm every thing within their
reach. More than once I started back at the approach of one of them.
Just outside the first line of breakers rode a flock of wild fowl, and
occasionally the mournful cry of a loon, or shriller scream of a
sea-gull, mingled with the roar of the surf. Farther out, at the
distance of a mile, a wicked-looking rock and ledge was flinging off the
seas, flecking its tawny flanks with foam, like a war-horse impatiently
champing at his bit.
[Illustration: GREAT HEAD.]
Looking off from Great Head to the eastward, the main-land is perceived
trending away until it loses itself in the ocean. At the extremity of
this land is Schoodic Point and Mountain, with Mosquito Harbor indenting
it. The water between is not the true "Baye Francoise" of Champlain,
Lescarbot, and others. The appellation belongs of right to the Bay of
Fundy, perpetuating as it does the misadventure of Nicolas Aubri, one of
the company of De Monts, who was lost in the woods there. As this is not
the only historic anachronism by many that may be met with on our
coasts, I do not propose to quarrel with it, the less that a Frenchman
was the first white here. The name has been current for about a century,
though on old French maps it is found to lie farther east.
The north wind was beating down yesterday's sea, sweeping over the
billows, and whirling their crests far away to leeward. Along the rocks
the foam lay like wool-fleeces, or was whisked about, dabbling the grim
face of the cliff with creamy spots. Other headlands were mailed in ice.
Mount Desert Rock is about twenty miles south-south-east of the island
and from fourteen to eighteen from the nearest land. It has a
light-house, built upon naked, shapeless ledges. There is another on
Baker's Island, off the entrance to Somes's Sound.
Natural sea-marks, like Great Head Cliff, are preferred by mariners to
artificial buoys or beacons. No one that has seen them will be likely to
forget the Pan of Matanzas, or the Cabanas of Havana. Before the
excellent system inaugurated by the United States Coast Survey, trees,
standing singly or in groups, often gave direction how to steer on a
dangerous coast. Sometimes they were lopped on one side, or made to take
some peculiarity of shape that would distinguish them from all others.
Thus some solitary old cedar becomes a guide-board known to all who
travel on ocean highways.
The next point of interest will be found at Otter Creek, which may be
reached in good weather by sailing, by the direct road from Bar Harbor,
already mentioned, or by crossing the lower ridge of Newport Mountain
from Great Head.
After a last look at the sea, which was of a dingy green, and broke
angrily as far as the eye could reach in the offing, I entered the trail
that was to bring me to Otter Creek.
Newport's southern peak was just overhead, its sharp protuberances made
smooth by knobs of ice that resembled the bosses of a target. There
reached me occasional rapid glimpses of the sea in ascending, but I
walked chiefly in a dense growth that excluded all light, except when
the glint of the sun through the tree-tops fell in golden bars across my
way. Prostrate and uselessly rotting was wood enough to have kept a
good-sized village through the winter. The air was light and elastic. I
do not think a pleasanter ramble is to be had on the island than this
forest-walk.
"O'er windy hill, through clogged ravine,
And woodland paths that wound between
Low drooping pine-boughs winter-weighed."
At Otter Creek is a scattered settlement and an inlet of the sea, into
which the creek empties. The island traditions say the place was once
the favorite retreat of the otter. There are cliffs to admire or study
on the sea-shore, and Thunder Cave is there to explore.
In this pocket-edition of Somes's Sound we find ourselves once more
under the shadow of Green Mountain, and upon looking back up the valley
a pass opens between it and Newport, through which the road finds its
way to Bar Harbor.
The dwellings here, as elsewhere on the island, are humble, and bespeak,
in many instances, a near approach to poverty. In the larger villages
there are comfortable and even substantial residences, but the
impression of unthrift is associated with the proper population. The
reasons are obvious. The first inhabitants got their livelihood by
fishing, and formerly many vessels were fitted out from the Sound.
Perhaps not a few went for the Government bounty. With the failure of
this industry little was left on which to depend. A scanty subsistence
at most could be wrung from the soil, though Williamson, the historian
of Maine, avers this was once strong and fertile in the valleys. The
land, by the removal of crops without restoring the elements essential
to it, has been growing poorer year by year. A little hay is cut on the
uplands, and at Pretty Marsh are some hundreds of acres of salt meadow.
The mountains have been stripped of their wood to the last merchantable
tree. At this unpromising juncture the island became suddenly famous,
and is now among the most frequented of American summer resorts. None
could be more astonished at their own prosperity than these islanders,
who, being, as a whole and in a marked degree, incapable of appreciating
the grandeur of the scenes with which they have from infancy been
familiar, look with scarce concealed disdain upon the admiration they
inspire in others.
Some handsome cottages have already sprung out of the prevailing
ugliness at Bar Harbor. At Great Head a tract of considerable extent has
been inclosed. The star of Mount Desert is clearly in the ascendant, as,
however prudent the city man may be at home, all purse-strings are
loosened at the sea-side. The French proverb, "_Il faut faire ou se
taire_" is usually construed into the modern barbaric "play or pay" at
the shore. Not one of these worthy landlords was ever known to fall,
like Vatel, on his own sword because there was not enough roast meat.
Nevertheless, at the risk of forfeiting the reader's good opinion, I
will say that there are landlords with consciences, and I have both seen
and spoken with such on Mount Desert.
Another of my excursions, which afforded new entertainment with new
scenes, was a pedestrian jaunt from Otter Creek to North-east Harbor.
This route commands fine ocean views in the direction of the entrance to
the Sound and of the outlying islands. You first open Seal Cove, and,
crossing the shingle road at its head, in two miles and a half of
farther progress skirting the eastern shore of the Sound, arrive at the
head of North-east Harbor, an inconsiderable village, in which
Williamson conjectures La Saussaye finally landed.
Seven miles more along the eastern base of Brown's Mountain, in the
sombre shadows of which the road nestles, brings us back to the tavern
door at Somesville. This road crosses a limb of Hadlock's Pond, and is
skirted for some distance by a fine grove of beeches. In summer-time
this part of the route is traversed under a canopy of overarching
branches, whose dense foliage excludes all but a few straggling rays
that let fall a shimmer of delicious sunlight, for the moment glorifying
all that pass beneath.
[Illustration: THE OVENS, SAULSBURY'S COVE.]
It may chance that the visitor will first pass over the section already
traversed in these pages; or it may so fall out that he will decide to
undertake a run by the shore north of Bar Harbor in advance of other
excursions. In this case Salisbury's Cove and the "Ovens" become his
objective.
I have already fore-warned the reader that it is six or seven miles from
any initial point to any other given point on Mount Desert Island. This
equality of distance sometimes makes a choice embarrassing, since in
selecting from two routes the preference is usually given to the
shorter. But it will sometimes happen that he will find these longer
than statute miles, or that when pursuing his way with all imaginable
confidence, it is suddenly blocked by a mountain or a precipice. These
contingencies make walking preferable. A horse is no doubt a very useful
animal where there are roads.
It is practicable at low tide to reach the Ovens by the beach, but as
this involves many difficulties, it is better to take the road beyond
Hull's Cove, two miles from Bar Harbor. The cove is said to have been
named for a brother of General William Hull. It was resorted to quite
early in the settlement of the island. Here was the dwelling-place of
the Gregoires, to whom Massachusetts ceded the whole island upon proof,
exhibited in 1787, that Madame Gregoire was the lineal descendant of
Cadillac, who claimed under his grant from Louis XIV. in 1688.[18] The
meditative reader may ponder upon this resumption under a French title
as an evidence that time at last makes all things even. It would not
seem inappropriate, inasmuch as two women have had so prominent a share
in the history of Mount Desert, to perpetuate the names of Guercheville
and Gregoire. The graves of the Gregoires may be seen near the
north-east corner of the burial-ground. Monsieur is asserted to have
been a _bon-vivant_.
The Ovens are caverns hollowed out by the waves in the softer masses of
the cliffs. When the tide is completely down a pebbly beach shelves away
to low-water mark. The feldspar and porphyry of which the rocks are
composed impart a cheerfulness to the walls of these grottoes more
pleasing after descending into the gloomy recesses of the south shore.
Near the Ovens is a passage driven through a projecting cliff, known as
_Via Mala_.
In passing, the reader will give me leave to mention another woman whose
influence was felt in the affairs of Acadia. It was Henrietta, Duchesse
d'Orleans, and aunt of Louis XIV., who obtained the relinquishment of
Acadia by her husband, Charles I. of unfortunate memory, under the peace
of 1632. The fate of the widowed queen is involved in one of the most
repulsive chapters of history. According to contemporary accounts, she
fell a victim to the reign of the poisoners in the time of Louis. By the
testimony of the Marquis Dangeau and other annalists of the times, the
poison had been sent by the Chevalier De Lorraine, her lover, then in
England.
The reader may now complete the circuit of the island at leisure. In
taking leave of these hills, I would observe that although not every one
is possessed of a knowledge of woodcraft, or of the muscles of a
mountaineer, it is far better to depart the beaten paths and to seek out
new conquests. For my own part, I may safely guarantee that in finding
himself for the first time on Mount Desert, the visitor will be as
thoroughly surprised as impressed in the presence of natural scenes so
pronounced in character, and so unique in their relation to and
environment by the sea.
In my way to and from this remote corner of New England, it was my
fortune to encounter a single instance of that inquisitorial propensity
known the world over as Yankee curiosity. On arriving at a late hour at
Ellsworth, the landlord, a great burly fellow, drew a chair close to
mine, pushed his hat back from his brows--every body here wears his hat
in the house--spat in the grate, smote his knees with his big palms, and
said,
"Look a here, mister! I know 'tan't none o' my business; but what might
you be agoin' to Mount Desart arter?" And in the same breath, "I'm from
Mount Desart."
"Certes," thought I, "if it's none of your business, why do you ask?"
The same publican afterward let a fellow-wayfarer and myself a sick
horse that proved unfit to travel when we were well upon our journey. I
forgave him all but the making me the unwilling instrument of his
cruelty to a dumb beast.
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[18] See Williamson, vol. i., p. 79; "Resolves of Massachusetts," July
and November, 1787; "New York Colonial Documents," vol. ix., p. 594. Mr.
De Costa has given a summary of these in his pleasant little book.
[Illustration: CASTINE, APPROACHING FROM ISLESBORO.]