We now proceeded to get our dinner, which always turned out

Produced by Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders

THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY

A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS

CONTENTS

American Tract Society, The

Ann Potter's Lesson

Asirvadam the Brahmin

Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, The

Autocrat's Landlady, A Visit to the

Autocrat, The, gives a Breakfast to the Public

Birds of the Garden and Orchard, The

Birds of the Pasture and Forest, The

Bulls and Bears

Bundle of Irish Pennants, A

Catacombs of Rome, The

Catacombs of Rome, Note to the

Chesuncook

Colin Clout and the Faëry Queen

Crawford and Sculpture

Daphnaïdes,

Denslow Palace, The

Dot and Line Alphabet, The

Eloquence

Evening with the Telegraph-Wires, An

Farming Life in New England

Faustus, Doctor, The German Popular Legend of

Gaucho, The

Great Event of the Century, The

Her Grace, the Drummer's Daughter

Hour before Dawn, The

Ideal Tendency, The

Illinois in Spring-time

Jefferson, Thomas

Kinloch Estate, The

Language of the Sea, The

Leibnitz, Gottfried Wilhelm von

Letter-Writing

Loo Loo

Mademoiselle's Campaigns

Metempsychosis

Minister's Wooing, The

Miss Wimple's Hoop

New World, The, and the New Man

Obituary

Old Well, The

Our Talks with Uncle John

Perilous Bivouac, A

Physical Courage

Pintal

Pocket-Celebration of the Fourth, The

President's Prophecy of Peace, The

Prisoner of War, A

Punch

Railway-Engineering in the United States

Rambles in Aquidneck

Romance of a Glove, The

Salons de Paris, Les

Sample of Consistency, A

Singing-Birds and their Songs, The

Songs of the Sea

Subjective of it, The

Suggestions

Three of Us

Water-Lilies

What are we going to make?

Whirligig of Time, The

Youth

POETRY

All's Well

Beatrice

Birth-Mark, The

"Bringing our Sheaves with us"

Cantatrice, La

Cup, The

Dead House, The

Discoverer of the North Cape, The

Evening Melody, An

Fifty and Fifteen

House that was just like its Neighbors, The

Jolly Mariner, The

Keats, the Poet

Last Look, The

Marais du Cygne, Le

My Children

Myrtle Flowers

Nature and the Philosopher

November

November.--April

Shipwreck

Skater, The

Spirits in Prison

Swan-Song of Parson Avery, The

Telegraph, The

To -----

Trustee's Lament, The

Waldeinsamkeit

"Washing of the Feet," The, on Holy Thursday, in St. Peter's

What a Wretched Woman said to me

Work and Rest

LITERARY NOTICES.

American Cyclopedia, The New

Annual Obituary Notices, by N. Crosby

Aquarium, The, by P. H. Gosse

Belle Brittan on a Tour

Bigelow, Jacob, Brief Expositions of Rational Medicine by

Black's Atlas of North America

Chapman's American Drawing-Book

Church and Congregation, The, by C. A. Bartel

Crosby's Annual Obituary, for 1857

Curiosities of Literature, by Disraeli

Cyclopedia of Drawing, The, by W. E. Worthen

Cyclopaedia, The New American

Dana's Household Book of Poetry

Disraeli's Curiosities of Literature

Drawing-Book, The American, by J.G. Chapman

Drawing, The Cyclopedia of

Ewbank, Thomas, Thoughts on Matter and Force by

Exiles of Florida, The, by J. E. Giddings

Fitch, John, Westcott's Life of

Giddings, Joshua R., The Exiles of Florida by

Goadby, Henry, A Text-Book of Animal and Vegetable Physiology by

Gray's Botanical Series

Household Book of Poetry, by C. A. Dana

Inductive Sciences, History of the, by Whewell

Journey due North, A, by G. A. Sala

Kingsley, Charles, Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time, with other Papers by

Library of Old Authors

Life beneath the Waters

New Priest in Conception Bay, The

Pascal, Études sur, par M. Victor Cousin

Pellico, Silvio, Lettres de

Physiology, Animal and Vegetable, by Henry Goadby

Poe's Poetical Works

Raleigh, Sir Walter, and his Time, with other Papers, by C. Kingsley

Rational Medicine, Brief Expositions of, by Jacob Bigelow

Robertson, Rev. F. W., Sermons by

Sea-Shore, Common Objects of the, by J. G. Wood

Stephenson, George, Smiles's Life of

Summer Time in the Country

Thoughts on Matter and Force, by Thomas Ewbank

Vocabularies, A Volume of, by T. Wright

Webster, John, Dramatic Works of

Whewell's History of the Inductive Sciences

Wright, Thomas, A Volume of Vocabularies by

THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

VOL. II.--JUNE, 1858.--NO. VIII.

CHESUNCOOK.

At 5 P.M., September 13th, 185-, I 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 get 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

seasickness, and may have something 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 voyage

so well, and was not in the least digested. We 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 chronometer. At length an African prince rushed by, observing,

"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 Manheigan 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 at Bangor

that evening, with his canoe and a companion, 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 Chesuncook,

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 Indians.

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 almost every one

its academy,--not one of which, however, 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

shoulders 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 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 transverse horizontal

beam lying on the surface. Afterwards, the prevailing fences were

log ones, with sometimes 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 prospect in clear weather, with frequent views of Katadin,--

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 frequently 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 commonly 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 Massachusetts,--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 Garland, Sangerville,

and onwards, twenty-five or thirty miles from Bangor. At Sangerville,

where we stopped at mid-afternoon to warm and dry ourselves, the

landlord 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 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 gallows for the pupils to practise 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 nothing to hinder

their living an outdoor 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 _repaired_, having just

been whittled into 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.

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 mountains 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 considerable extent, of the

Penobscot Indian. When, afterward, he had occasion to take off his

shoes and stockings, I was struck with the smallness of his feet. He

had worked a good deal as a lumberman, and appeared 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 beside 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, 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 explorers had a fine new birch on

board, larger than ours, in which they had come up the Piscataquis

from Howland, 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 north-west, 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 unbroken 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 former being smooth,

round-topped, and light green, with a bowery and cultivated look.

Mount Kineo, at which the boat touched, is a peninsula with a narrow

neck, about midway the lake on the east side. The celebrated

precipice is on the east or land side of this, and is so high and

perpendicular that 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 fathoms at its base before

reaching bottom! Probably it will be discovered ere long 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

mean while cleared up, though the mountains were still capped with

clouds. Seen from this point, Mount Kineo, and two other allied

mountains ranging with it north-easterly, 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-vitae, 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 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 occupied 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 companion went ahead to be ready

for partridges, while I followed, looking at the plants.

This was an interesting botanical locality for one coming 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 Linnæa Borealis, which last a

lumberer called _moxon_, creeping snowberry, painted trillium,

large-flowered bell-wort, etc. I fancied that the aster radula,

diplopappus umbellatus, solidago lanceolatus, red trumpetweed, 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-vitæ with its changing leaves prompted us to

make haste, and the sight of the canoe-birch gave us spirits to do so.

Sometimes 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 country appearing

like, and perhaps being, partly a swamp,--and at length a gradual

descent to the Penobscot, 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 Portland harbor. It is

higher than Chesuncook, for the lumberers 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 clearing 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 family 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, bateaux, and birches, locked up.

We now proceeded to get our dinner, which always turned out to be tea,

and to pitch canoes, for which purpose a large iron pot lay

permanently on the bank. This we did in company with the explorers.

Both Indians 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 his 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 accomplishment 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 within, 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 himself sat upon a cross-bar in the

stern. The baggage occupied the middle or widest part of the canoe.

We 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 endurable, 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 lumberers 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-vitæ, 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 with the explorers,

and turned up Lobster Stream, which comes in on the right, from the

south-east. 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

advised 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

chickadees close at hand. Joe said that they called the chickadee

_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

perfectly still on the shore, with feathers puffed up, as if sick.

This, Joe said, they called _nipsquecohossus_. The kingfisher was

_skuscumonsuck_; bear was _wassus_; Indian 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 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 numerous

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

distinguishable 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 Moosehorn Dead-water, (the Moosehorn, in which

he was going 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 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 chaplain 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 whenever 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, however, 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'll bet that was moose!

They make a noise 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 impression of solitude and

wildness.

At starlight we dropped down the stream, which was a dead-water for

three miles, or as far as the Moosehorn; 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 discovered the camp of the two explorers; they

standing 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 by without speaking, close under the bank, within

a couple of rods of them; and Joe, taking his horn, imitated 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. Experienced 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 _oo-oo-oo-oo_, and then a prolonged _oo-o-o-o-o-o-o-o_, and

listened attentively 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 riverside 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 half 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, forming a

perpendicular forest-edge of great height, like the 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 stillness 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 luxuriant 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. When we asked Joe in a whisper what it was, he answered,--

"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-constrictor, and more effectively then than even in a windy day.

If there is any such difference, perhaps it is because trees with

the dews of the night on them are heavier than by day.

Having reached the camp, about ten o'clock, we kindled our fire and

went to bed. Each of us had a blanket, in which he lay on the

fir-twigs, with his extremities 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 shelter, roll himself in a blanket, and sleep before a fire,

in 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 before 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, September 17,) there was

considerable frost whitening the leaves. We heard the sound of the

chickadee, 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 undershrub. 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

comparatively 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 no

hills near the river nor within sight, except one or two distant

mountains seen in a few places. The banks 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 conspicuous

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 hobble-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 comparison 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 Concord. 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 raspberries. 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 dinner here, not to

lose time. Some dark reddish birds, with grayer females, (perhaps

purple finches,) and myrtle-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 wilderness 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 chickadee, 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 complain of him

afterwards. As we continued down the stream, I was surprised to hear

him whistling "O Susanna," 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 fastened 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 answered, that he had been brought up in

such a way that 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, perhaps, prove the germ of a town.