One day we visited a cave some two miles down the stream, which had
recently been discovered. We squeezed and wriggled through a big crack
or cleft in the side of the mountain, for about one hundred feet, when
we emerged into a large dome-shaped passage, the abode, during certain
seasons of the year, of innumerable bats, and at all times of primeval
darkness. There were various other crannies and pit-holes opening into
it, some of which we explored. The voice of running water was heard
everywhere, betraying the proximity of the little stream by whose
ceaseless corroding the cave and its entrance had been worn. This
streamlet flowed out of the mouth of the cave, and came from a lake on
the top of the mountain; this accounted for its warmth to the hand,
which surprised us all.
Birds of any kind were rare in these woods. A pigeon-hawk came prowling
by our camp, and the faint piping call of the nuthatches, leading their
young through the high trees, was often heard.
On the third day our guide proposed to conduct us to a lake in the
mountains where we could float for deer.
Our journey commenced in a steep and rugged ascent, which brought us,
after an hour's heavy climbing, to an elevated region of pine-forest,
years before ravished by lumbermen, and presenting all manner of
obstacles to our awkward and incumbered pedestrianism. The woods were
largely pine, though yellow birch, beech and maple were common. The
satisfaction of having a gun, should any game show itself, was the chief
compensation to those of us who were thus burdened. A partridge would
occasionally whir up before us, or a red squirrel snicker and hasten to
his den; else the woods appeared quite tenantless. The most noted object
was a mammoth pine, apparently the last of a great race, which presided
over a cluster of yellow birches, on the side of the mountain.
About noon we came out upon a long, shallow sheet of water which the
guide called Bloody Moose Pond, from the tradition that a moose had been
slaughtered there many years before. Looking out over the silent and
lovely scene, his eye was the first to detect an object, apparently
feeding upon lily-pads, which our willing fancies readily shaped into a
deer. As we were eagerly waiting some movement to confirm this
impression, it lifted up its head, and lo! a great blue heron. Seeing us
approach, it spread its long wings and flew solemnly across to a dead
tree on the other side of the lake, enhancing rather than relieving the
loneliness and desolation that brooded over the scene. As we proceeded
it flew from tree to tree in advance of us, apparently loth to be
disturbed in its ancient and solitary domain. In the margin of the pond
we found the pitcher-plant growing, and here and there in the sand the
closed gentian lifted up its blue head.
In traversing the shores of this wild, desolate lake, I was conscious of
a slight thrill of expectation, as if some secret of Nature might here
be revealed, or some rare and unheard-of game disturbed. There is ever a
lurking suspicion that the beginning of things is in some way associated
with water, and one may notice that in his private walks he is led by a
curious attraction to fetch all the springs and ponds in his route, as
if by them was the place for wonders and miracles to happen. Once, while
in advance of my companions, I saw, from a high rock, a commotion in the
water near the shore, but on reaching the point found only the marks of
musquash [Footnote: Musquash: muskrat.] degrees.
Passing on through the forest, after many adventures with the pine
knots, we reached, about the middle of the afternoon, our destination,
Nate's Pond--a pretty sheet of water, lying like a silver mirror in the
lap of the mountain, about a mile long and half a mile wide, surrounded
by dark forests of balsam, hemlock, and pine, and, like the one we had
just passed, a very picture of unbroken solitude.
It is not in the woods alone to give one this impression of utter
loneliness. In the woods are sounds and voices, and a dumb kind of
companionship; one is little more than a walking tree himself; but come
upon one of these mountain lakes, and the wildness stands revealed and
meets you face to face. Water is thus facile and adaptive, that it makes
the wild more wild, while it enhances culture and art.
The end of the pond which we approached was quite shoal, the stones
rising above the surface as in a summer brook, and everywhere showing
marks of the noble game we were in quest of,--footprints, dung, and
cropped and uprooted lily-pads. After resting for a half hour, and
replenishing our game-pouches at the expense of the most respectable
frogs of the locality, we filed on through the soft, resinous pinewoods,
intending to camp near the other end of the lake, where, the guide
assured us, we should find a hunter's cabin ready built. A half hour's
march brought us to the locality, and a most delightful one it was, so
hospitable and inviting that all the kindly and beneficent influences of
the woods must have abided there. In a slight depression in the woods,
about one hundred yards from the lake, though hidden from it for a
hunter's reasons, surrounded by a heavy growth of birch, hemlock, and
pine, with a lining of balsam and fir, the rude cabin welcomed us. It
was of the approved style, three sides inclosed, with a roof of bark and
a bed of boughs, and a rock in front that afforded a permanent back-log
to all fires. A faint voice of running water was heard near by, and,
following the sound, a delicious spring rivulet was disclosed, hidden by
the moss and debris as by a new fall of snow, but here and there rising
in little well-like openings, as if for our special convenience.
--JOHN BURROUGHS.
[Footnote: What does this power of minute observation tell you about the
writer? What other qualities of the naturalist does Burroughs show in
this account? What things in nature seem most to attract his attention?
Do you know what science now says about "the beginning of things" being
"associated with water"? What do you imagine were the "adventures with
the pine knots" that Burroughs speaks of?]