We generally told the Indian that we would stop at the first suitable
place, so that he might be on the lookout for it. Having observed a
clear, hard, and flat beach to land on, free from mud, and from stones
which would injure the canoe, one would run up the bank to see if
there were open and level space enough for the camp between the trees,
or if it could be easily cleared, preferring at the same time a cool
place, on account of insects. Sometimes we paddled a mile or more
before finding one to our minds, for where the shore was suitable, the
bank would often be too steep, or else too low and grassy, and
therefore mosquitoey. We then took out the baggage and drew up the
canoe, sometimes turning it over on shore for safety. The Indian cut a
path to the spot we had selected, which was usually within two or
three rods of the water, and we carried up our baggage. One, perhaps,
takes canoe birch bark, always at hand, and dead dry wood or bark, and
kindles a fire five or six feet in front of where we intend to lie. It
matters not, commonly, on which side this is, because there is little
or no wind in so dense a wood at that season; and then he gets a
kettle of water from the river, and takes out the pork, bread, coffee,
etc., from their several packages.
Another, meanwhile, having the axe, cuts down the nearest dead rock
maple or other dry hard wood, collecting several large logs to last
through the night, also a green stake, with a notch or fork to it,
which is slanted over the fire, perhaps resting on a rock or forked
stake, to hang the kettle on, and two forked stakes and a pole for the
tent.
The third man pitches the tent, cuts a dozen or more pins with his
knife, usually of moose-wood, the common underwood, to fasten it down
with, and then collects an armful or two of fir twigs,[8] arbor-vitæ,
spruce, or hemlock, whichever is at hand, and makes the bed, beginning
at either end, and laying the twigs wrong side up, in regular rows,
covering the stub ends of the last row; first, however, filling the
hollows, if there are any, with coarser material. Wrangel says that
his guides in Siberia first strewed a quantity of dry brushwood on the
ground, and then cedar twigs on that.
Commonly, by the time the bed is made, or within fifteen or twenty
minutes, the water boils, the pork is fried, and supper is ready. We
eat this sitting on the ground, or a stump, if there is any, around a
large piece of birch bark for a table, each holding a dipper in one
hand and a piece of ship-bread or fried pork in the other, frequently
making a pass with his hand, or thrusting his head into the smoke, to
avoid the mosquitoes.
Next, pipes are lit by those who smoke, and veils are donned by those
who have them, and we hastily examine and dry our plants, anoint our
faces and hands, and go to bed--and--the mosquitoes.
Though you have nothing to do but see the country, there’s rarely any
time to spare, hardly enough to examine a plant, before the night or
drowsiness is upon you.
Such was the ordinary experience, but this evening we had camped
earlier on account of the rain, and had more time.
We found that our camp to-night was on an old, and now more than
usually indistinct, supply road, running along the river. What is
called a road there shows no ruts or trace of wheels, for they are not
used; nor, indeed, of runners, since they are used only in the winter
when the snow is several feet deep. It is only an indistinct vista
through the wood, which it takes an experienced eye to detect.
We had no sooner pitched our tent than the thunder-shower burst on us,
and we hastily crept under it, drawing our bags after us, curious to
see how much of a shelter our thin cotton roof was going to be in this
excursion. Though the violence of the rain forced a fine shower
through the cloth before it was fairly wetted and shrunk, with which
we were well bedewed, we managed to keep pretty dry, only a box of
matches having been left out and spoiled, and before we were aware of
it the shower was over, and only the dripping trees imprisoned us.
Wishing to see what fishes there were in the river there, we cast our
lines over the wet bushes on the shore, but they were repeatedly swept
down the swift stream in vain. So, leaving the Indian, we took the
canoe just before dark, and dropped down the river a few rods to fish
at the mouth of a sluggish brook on the opposite side. We pushed up
this a rod or two, where, perhaps, only a canoe had been before. But
though there were a few small fishes, mostly chivin, there, we were
soon driven off by the mosquitoes. While there we heard the Indian
fire his gun twice in such rapid succession that we thought it must be
double-barreled, though we observed afterward that it was single. His
object was to clean out and dry it after the rain, and he then loaded
it with ball, being now on ground where he expected to meet with large
game. This sudden, loud, crashing noise in the still aisles of the
forest, affected me like an insult to nature, or ill manners at any
rate, as if you were to fire a gun in a hall or temple. It was not
heard far, however, except along the river, the sound being rapidly
hushed up or absorbed by the damp trees and mossy ground.
The Indian made a little smothered fire of damp leaves close to the
back of the camp, that the smoke might drive through and keep out the
mosquitoes; but just before we fell asleep this suddenly blazed up,
and came near setting fire to the tent. We were considerably molested
by mosquitoes at this camp.
* * * * *
SUNDAY, July 26.
The note of the white-throated sparrow, a very inspiriting but almost
wiry sound, was the first heard in the morning, and with this all the
woods rang. This was the prevailing bird in the northern part of
Maine. The forest generally was all alive with them at this season,
and they were proportionally numerous and musical about Bangor. They
evidently breed in that State. Though commonly unseen, their simple
_ah, te-te-te, te-te-te, te-te-te_, so sharp and piercing, was as
distinct to the ear as the passage of a spark of fire shot into the
darkest of the forest would be to the eye. I thought that they
commonly uttered it as they flew. I hear this note for a few days only
in the spring, as they go through Concord, and in the fall see them
again going southward, but then they are mute. We were commonly
aroused by their lively strain very early. What a glorious time they
must have in that wilderness, far from mankind and election day!
I told the Indian that we would go to church to Chesuncook this
(Sunday) morning, some fifteen miles. It was settled weather at last.
A few swallows flitted over the water, we heard Maryland
yellow-throats along the shore, the phebe notes of the chickadee, and,
I believe, redstarts, and moose-flies of large size pursued us in
midstream.
The Indian thought that we should lie by on Sunday. Said he, “We come
here lookum things, look all round; but come Sunday, lock up all that,
and then Monday look again.” He spoke of an Indian of his acquaintance
who had been with some ministers to Ktaadn, and had told him how they
conducted. This he described in a low and solemn voice. “They make a
long prayer every morning and night, and at every meal. Come Sunday,”
said he, “they stop ’em, no go at all that day,--keep still,--preach
all day,--first one, then another, just like church. Oh, ver good
men.” “One day,” said he, “going along a river, they came to the body
of a man in the water, drowned good while, all ready fall to pieces.
They go right ashore,--stop there, go no farther that day,--they have
meeting there, preach and pray just like Sunday. Then they get poles
and lift up the body, and they go back and carry the body with them.
Oh, they ver good men.”
I judged from this account that their every camp was a camp-meeting,
and they had mistaken their route,--they should have gone to Eastham;
that they wanted an opportunity to preach somewhere more than to see
Ktaadn. I read of another similar party that seem to have spent their
time there singing the songs of Zion. I was glad that I did not go to
that mountain with such slow coaches.
However, the Indian added, plying the paddle all the while, that if we
would go along, he must go with us, he our man, and he suppose that if
he no takum pay for what he do Sunday, then ther’s no harm, but if he
takum pay, then wrong. I told him that he was stricter than white men.
Nevertheless, I noticed that he did not forget to reckon in the
Sundays at last.
He appeared to be a very religious man, and said his prayers in a loud
voice, in Indian, kneeling before the camp, morning and
evening,--sometimes scrambling up again in haste when he had forgotten
this, and saying them with great rapidity. In the course of the day,
he remarked, not very originally, “Poor man rememberum God more than
rich.”
We soon passed the island where I had camped four years before, and I
recognized the very spot. The deadwater, a mile or two below it, the
Indian called _Beskabekukskishtuk_, from the lake _Beskabekuk_, which
empties in above. This deadwater, he said, was “a great place for
moose always.” We saw the grass bent where a moose came out the night
before, and the Indian said that he could smell one as far as he could
see him; but, he added, that if he should see five or six to-day close
by canoe, he no shoot ’em. Accordingly, as he was the only one of the
party who had a gun, or had come a-hunting, the moose were safe.
Just below this, a cat owl flew heavily over the stream, and he,
asking if I knew what it was, imitated very well the common _hoo, hoo,
hoo, hoorer, hoo_, of our woods; making a hard, guttural sound, “Ugh,
ugh, ugh,--ugh, ugh.” When we passed the Moose-horn, he said that it
had no name. What Joe Aitteon had called Ragmuff, he called
_Paytaytequick_, and said that it meant Burnt Ground Stream. We
stopped there, where I had stopped before, and I bathed in this
tributary. It was shallow but cold, apparently too cold for the
Indian, who stood looking on. As we were pushing away again, a
white-headed eagle sailed over our heads. A reach some miles above
Pine Stream, where there were several islands, the Indian said was
_Nonglangyis_ Deadwater. Pine Stream he called Black River, and said
that its Indian name was _Karsaootuk_. He could go to Caribou Lake
that way.
We carried a part of the baggage about Pine Stream Falls, while the
Indian went down in the canoe. A Bangor merchant had told us that two
men in his employ were drowned some time ago while passing these falls
in a batteau, and a third clung to a rock all night, and was taken off
in the morning. There were magnificent great purple fringed orchises
on this carry and the neighboring shores. I measured the largest canoe
birch which I saw in this journey near the end of the carry. It was
14½ feet in circumference at two feet from the ground, but at five
feet divided into three parts. The canoe birches thereabouts were
commonly marked by conspicuous dark spiral ridges, with a groove
between, so that I thought at first that they had been struck by
lightning, but, as the Indian said, it was evidently caused by the
grain of the tree. He cut a small, woody knob, as big as a filbert,
from the trunk of a fir, apparently an old balsam vesicle filled with
wood, which he said was good medicine.
After we had embarked and gone half a mile, my companion remembered
that he had left his knife, and we paddled back to get it, against the
strong and swift current. This taught us the difference between going
up and down the stream, for while we were working our way back a
quarter of a mile, we should have gone down a mile and a half at
least. So we landed, and while he and the Indian were gone back for
it, I watched the motions of the foam, a kind of white water-fowl near
the shore, forty or fifty rods below. It alternately appeared and
disappeared behind the rock, being carried round by an eddy. Even this
semblance of life was interesting on that lonely river.
Immediately below these falls was the Chesuncook Deadwater, caused by
the flowing back of the lake. As we paddled slowly over this, the
Indian told us a story of his hunting thereabouts, and something more
interesting about himself. It appeared that he had represented his
tribe at Augusta, and also once at Washington, where he had met some
Western chiefs. He had been consulted at Augusta, and gave advice,
which he said was followed, respecting the eastern boundary of Maine,
as determined by highlands and streams, at the time of the
difficulties on that side. He was employed with the surveyors on the
line. Also he had called on Daniel Webster in Boston, at the time of
his Bunker Hill oration.
I was surprised to hear him say that he liked to go to Boston, New
York, Philadelphia, etc., etc.; that he would like to live there. But
then, as if relenting a little, when he thought what a poor figure he
would make there, he added, “I suppose, I live in New York, I be
poorest hunter, I expect.” He understood very well both his superiority
and his inferiority to the whites. He criticised the people of the
United States as compared with other nations, but the only distinct
idea with which he labored was, that they were “very strong,” but,
like some individuals, “too fast.” He must have the credit of saying
this just before the general breaking down of railroads and banks. He
had a great idea of education, and would occasionally break out into
such expressions as this, “Kademy--a-cad-e-my--good thing--I suppose
they usum Fifth Reader there.... You been college?”
From this deadwater the outlines of the mountains about Ktaadn were
visible. The top of Ktaadn was concealed by a cloud, but the Souneunk
Mountains were nearer, and quite visible. We steered across the
northwest end of the lake, from which we looked down south-southeast,
the whole length to Joe Merry Mountain, seen over its extremity. It is
an agreeable change to cross a lake, after you have been shut up in
the woods, not only on account of the greater expanse of water, but
also of sky. It is one of the surprises which Nature has in store for
the traveler in the forest. To look down, in this case, over eighteen
miles of water, was liberating and civilizing even. No doubt, the
short distance to which you can see in the woods, and the general
twilight, would at length react on the inhabitants, and make them
salvages. The lakes also reveal the mountains, and give ample scope
and range to our thought. The very gulls which we saw sitting on the
rocks, like white specks, or circling about, reminded me of
custom-house officers. Already there were half a dozen log huts about
this end of the lake, though so far from a road. I perceive that in
these woods the earliest settlements are, for various reasons,
clustering about the lakes, but partly, I think, for the sake of the
neighborhood as the oldest clearings. They are forest schools already
established,--great centres of light. Water is a pioneer which the
settler follows, taking advantage of its improvements.
Thus far only I had been before. About noon we turned northward, up a
broad kind of estuary, and at its northeast corner found the
Caucomgomoc River, and after going about a mile from the lake, reached
the Umbazookskus, which comes in on the right at a point where the
former river, coming from the west, turns short to the south. Our
course was up the Umbazookskus, but as the Indian knew of a good
camping-place, that is, a cool place where there were few mosquitoes
about half a mile farther up the Caucomgomoc, we went thither. The
latter river, judging from the map, is the longer and principal
stream, and, therefore, its name must prevail below the junction. So
quickly we changed the civilizing sky of Chesuncook for the dark wood
of the Caucomgomoc. On reaching the Indian’s camping-ground, on the
south side, where the bank was about a dozen feet high, I read on the
trunk of a fir tree, blazed by an axe, an inscription in charcoal
which had been left by him. It was surmounted by a drawing of a bear
paddling a canoe, which he said was the sign which had been used by
his family always. The drawing, though rude, could not be mistaken for
anything but a bear, and he doubted my ability to copy it. The
inscription ran thus, _verbatim et literatim_. I interline the English
of his Indian as he gave it to me.
[The figure of a bear in a boat.]
July 26
1853
-----------
_niasoseb_
We alone Joseph
_Polis elioi_
Polis start
_sia olta_
for Oldtown
_onke ni_
right away
_quambi_
------------
July 15
1855
_niasoseb_
He added now below:--
1857
July 26
Jo. Polis
This was one of his homes. I saw where he had sometimes stretched his
moose-hides on the opposite or sunny north side of the river, where
there was a narrow meadow.
After we had selected a place for our camp, and kindled our fire,
almost exactly on the site of the Indian’s last camp here, he, looking
up, observed, “That tree danger.” It was a dead part, more than a foot
in diameter, of a large canoe birch, which branched at the ground.
This branch, rising thirty feet or more, slanted directly over the
spot which we had chosen for our bed. I told him to try it with his
axe; but he could not shake it perceptibly, and therefore seemed
inclined to disregard it, and my companion expressed his willingness
to run the risk. But it seemed to me that we should be fools to lie
under it, for though the lower part was firm, the top, for aught we
knew, might be just ready to fall, and we should at any rate be very
uneasy if the wind arose in the night. It is a common accident for men
camping in the woods to be killed by a falling tree. So the camp was
moved to the other side of the fire.
It was, as usual, a damp and shaggy forest, that Caucomgomoc one, and
the most you knew about it was, that on this side it stretched toward
the settlements, and on that to still more unfrequented regions. You
carried so much topography in your mind always,--and sometimes it
seemed to make a considerable difference whether you sat or lay nearer
the settlements, or farther off, than your companions,--were the rear
or frontier man of the camp. But there is really the same difference
between our positions wherever we may be camped, and some are nearer
the frontiers on feather-beds in the towns than others on fir twigs in
the backwoods.
The Indian said that the Umbazookskus, being a dead stream with broad
meadows, was a good place for moose, and he frequently came a-hunting
here, being out alone three weeks or more from Oldtown. He sometimes,
also, went a-hunting to the Seboois Lakes, taking the stage, with his
gun and ammunition, axe and blankets, hard-bread and pork, perhaps for
a hundred miles of the way, and jumped off at the wildest place on the
road, where he was at once at home, and every rod was a tavern-site
for him. Then, after a short journey through the woods, he would build
a spruce-bark canoe in one day, putting but few ribs into it, that it
might be light, and, after doing his hunting with it on the lakes,
would return with his furs the same way he had come. Thus you have an
Indian availing himself cunningly of the advantages of civilization,
without losing any of his woodcraft, but proving himself the more
successful hunter for it.
This man was very clever and quick to learn anything in his line. Our
tent was of a kind new to him; but when he had once seen it pitched,
it was surprising how quickly he would find and prepare the pole and
forked stakes to pitch it with, cutting and placing them right the
first time, though I am sure that the majority of white men would have
blundered several times.
This river came from Caucomgomoc Lake, about ten miles farther up.
Though it was sluggish here, there were falls not far above us, and we
saw the foam from them go by from time to time. The Indian said that
_Caucomgomoc_ meant Big-Gull Lake (_i. e._, herring gull, I suppose),
gomoc meaning lake. Hence this was _Caucomgomoctook_, or the river
from that lake. This was the Penobscot _Caucomgomoctook_; there was
another St. John one not far north. He finds the eggs of this gull,
sometimes twenty together, as big as hen’s eggs, on rocky ledges on
the west side of Millinocket River, for instance, and eats them.
Now I thought I would observe how he spent his Sunday. While I and my
companion were looking about at the trees and river, he went to sleep.
Indeed, he improved every opportunity to get a nap, whatever the day.
Rambling about the woods at this camp, I noticed that they consisted
chiefly of firs, black spruce, and some white, red maple, canoe birch,
and, along the river, the hoary alder (_Alnus incana_). I name them in
the order of their abundance. The _Viburnum nudum_ was a common shrub,
and of smaller plants, there were the dwarf cornel, great round-leaved
orchis, abundant and in bloom (a greenish-white flower growing in
little communities), _Uvularia grandiflora_, whose stem tasted like a
cucumber, _Pyrola secunda_, apparently the commonest pyrola in those
woods, now out of bloom, _Pyrola elliptica_, and _Chiogenes
hispidula_. The _Clintonia borealis_, with ripe berries, was very
abundant, and perfectly at home there. Its leaves, disposed commonly
in triangles about its stem, were just as handsomely formed and green,
and its berries as blue and glossy, as if it grew by some botanist’s
favorite path.
I could trace the outlines of large birches that had fallen long ago,
collapsed and rotted and turned to soil, by faint yellowish-green
lines of feather-like moss, eighteen inches wide and twenty or thirty
feet long, crossed by other similar lines.
I heard a night-warbler, wood thrush, kingfisher, tweezer-bird or
parti-colored warbler, and a nighthawk. I also heard and saw red
squirrels, and heard a bullfrog. The Indian said that he heard a
snake.
Wild as it was, it was hard for me to get rid of the associations of
the settlements. Any steady and monotonous sound, to which I did not
distinctly attend, passed for a sound of human industry. The
waterfalls which I heard were not without their dams and mills to my
imagination; and several times I found that I had been regarding the
steady rushing sound of the wind from over the woods beyond the rivers
as that of a train of cars,--the cars at Quebec. Our minds anywhere,
when left to themselves, are always thus busily drawing conclusions
from false premises.
I asked the Indian to make us a sugar-bowl of birch bark, which he
did, using the great knife which dangled in a sheath from his belt;
but the bark broke at the corners when he bent it up, and he said it
was not good; that there was a great difference in this respect
between the bark of one canoe birch and that of another, _i. e._, one
cracked more easily than another. I used some thin and delicate sheets
of this bark which he split and cut, in my flower-book; thinking it
would be good to separate the dried specimens from the green.
My companion, wishing to distinguish between the black and white
spruce, asked Polis to show him a twig of the latter, which he did at
once, together with the black; indeed, he could distinguish them about
as far as he could see them; but as the two twigs appeared very much
alike, my companion asked the Indian to point out the difference;
whereupon the latter, taking the twigs, instantly remarked, as he
passed his hand over them successively in a stroking manner, that the
white was rough (_i. e._, the needles stood up nearly perpendicular),
but the black smooth (_i. e._, as if bent or combed down). This was an
obvious difference, both to sight and touch. However, if I remember
rightly, this would not serve to distinguish the white spruce from the
light-colored variety of the black.