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 Champdoré, 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 chaudière sur le feu ils en avoient pris suffisamment pour
eux disner avant que l’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 lopped off the
smallest twigs of the flat-leaved cedar, the arbor-vitæ 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 six it was about ten feet long by six in breadth. This
time we lay under our tent, having pitched it more prudently 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-vitæ or cedar tea, which the
lumberer sometimes uses when other herbs fail,--
“A quart of arbor-vitæ,
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 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
companions 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 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 Aboljacknagesic, or “open-land stream,” we fastened our
batteau to a tree, and traveled 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 presented 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 anciently bounded the earth in that direction. Setting the
compass for a northeast course, which was the bearing 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 literally, covered every square rod on the sides of
the mountain; and these animals are probably more numerous there now
than ever before, being driven into this wilderness, 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 ourselves traveling 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 everywhere the twigs had been browsed by them,
clipped as smoothly as if by a knife. The bark of trees was stripped
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 unskillful 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 thousand pounds; and it is said that they can step over a
five-foot 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 our 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 boatmen 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 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 regard 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 the clouds. 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 traveling; 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 grateful
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 find any water near our camping-ground,
we gradually swerved to the west, till, at four o’clock, we struck
again the torrent 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, ascending 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 anciently 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 tops flat and
spreading, and their foliage blue, and nipped 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 leveled 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 traveled.
“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
arrived 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 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 selected 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 neighborhood of those wild trees, and of the
torrent. Some more aërial 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 midnight, one of my bed-fellows, 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 condensed cloud or waterspout, we all
together began to 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 before 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 aggregation 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 accomplish, 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
sunshine; 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. Occasionally,
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 reminded 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. Æschylus had no
doubt visited such scenery as this. It was vast, Titanic, and such as
man never inhabits. 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
forever 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.
“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, perchance, 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 geological surveyor of
the State, has accurately measured it, the altitude of Ktaadn is 5300
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 semicircular 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 forests, 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 traveler had
cut so much as a walking-stick there. Countless 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 “mirror broken into a thousand fragments, and
wildly scattered over the grass, reflecting the full blaze of the
sun.” It was a large farm for somebody, when cleared. According to the
Gazetteer, which was printed before the boundary question 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, however,
about natural, not political limits. We were about eighty miles, as
the bird flies, from Bangor, or one hundred and fifteen, as we had
ridden, and walked, and paddled. 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 without its attendant
clouds and mists? Like ourselves, neither Bailey nor Jackson had
obtained a clear view from the summit.