UMBAGOG.
Rain ends, as even Noah and the Arkites discovered. The new sensation of
tickling frogs could entertain us for one day; bounteous Nature provided
other novelties for the next. We were at the Umbagog chain of lakes, and
while it rained the damster had purveyed us a boat and crew. At sunrise
he despatched us on our voyage. We launched upon the Androscoggin, in a
_bateau_ of the old Canadian type. Such light, clincher-built,
high-nosed, flat-bottomed boats are in use wherever the fur-traders are
or have been. Just such boats navigate the Saskatchawan of the North, or
Frazer's River of the Northwest; and in a larger counterpart of our
Androscoggin bark I had three years before floated down the magnificent
Columbia to Vancouver, bedded on bales of beaver-skins.
As soon as sunrise wrote itself in shadows over the sparkling water, as
soon as through the river-side belt of gnarled arbor-vitae sunbeams
flickered, we pushed off, rowed up-stream by a pair of stout lumbermen.
The river was a beautiful way, admitting us into the _penetralia_ of
virgin forests. It was not a rude wilderness: all that Northern woods
have of foliage, verdurous, slender, delicate, tremulous, overhung our
shadowy path, dense as the vines that drape a tropic stream. Every giant
tree, every one of the Pinus oligarchy, had been lumbered away: refined
sylvan beauty remained. The dam checked the river's turbulence, making
it slow and mirror-like. It merited a more melodious name than harsh
Androscoggin.
Five miles of such enchanting voyage brought us to Lake Umbagog. Whiff's
of mist had met us in the outlet. Presently we opened chaos, and chaos
shut in upon us. There was no Umbagog to be seen,--nothing but a few
yards of gray water and a world of gray vapor. Therefore I cannot
criticize, nor insult, nor compliment Umbagog. Let us deem it beautiful.
The sun tried at the fog, to lift it with leverage of his early level
beams. Failing in this attempt to stir and heave away the mass, he
climbed, and began to use his beams as wedges, driving them down more
perpendicularly. Whenever this industrious craftsman made a successful
split, the fog gaped, and we could see for a moment, indefinitely, an
expanse of water, hedged with gloomy forest, and owning for its dominant
height a wild mountain, Aziscohos, or, briefer, Esquihos.
But the fog was still too dense to be riven by slanting sunbeams. It
closed again in solider phalanx. Our gray cell shut close about us.
Esquihos and the distance became nowhere. In fact, ourselves would have
been nowhere, except that a sluggish damp wind puffed sometimes, and
steering into this we could guide our way within a few points of our
course.
Any traveller knows that it is no very crushing disappointment not to
see what he came to see. Outside sights give something, but inside joys
are independent. We enjoyed our dim damp voyage heartily, on that wide
loneliness. Nor were our shouts and laughter the only sounds. Loons
would sometimes wail to us, as they dived, black dots in the mist. Then
we would wait for their bulbous reappearance, and let fly the futile
shot with its muffled report,--missing, of course.
No being has ever shot a loon, though several have legends of some one
who has. Sound has no power to express a profounder emotion of utter
loneliness than the loon's cry. Standing in piny darkness on the lake's
bank, or floating in dimness of mist or glimmer of twilight on its
surface, you hear this wailing note, and all possibility of human
tenancy by the shore or human voyaging is annihilated. You can fancy no
response to this signal of solitude disturbed, and again it comes sadly
over the water, the despairing plaint of some companionless and
incomplete existence, exiled from happiness it has never known, and
conscious only of blank and utter want. Loon-skins have a commercial
value; so it is reported. The Barabinzians of Siberia, a nation "up
beyond the River Ob," tan them into water-proof _paletots_ or
_aquascutums_. How they catch their loon, before they skin their loon,
is one of the mysteries of that unknown realm.
Og, Gog, Magog, Memphremagog, all agog, Umbagog,--certainly the American
Indians were the Lost Tribes, and conserved the old familiar syllables
in their new home.
Rowing into the damp breeze, we by-and-by traversed the lake. We had
gained nothing but a fact of distance. But here was to be an interlude
of interest. The "thoro'fare" linking Umbagog to its next neighbor is no
thoro'fare for a _bateau_, since a _bateau_ cannot climb through
breakers over boulders. We must make a "carry," an actual portage, such
as in all chronicles of pioneer voyages strike like the excitement of
rapids into the monotonous course of easy descent. Another boat was
ready on the next lake, but our chattels must go three miles through the
woods. Yes, we now were to achieve a portage. Consider it, _blasé_
friend,--was not this sensation alone worth the trip?
The worthy lumbermen, and our supernumerary, the damster's son,
staggered along slowly with our traps. Iglesias and I, having nothing to
carry, enjoyed the carry. We lounged along through the glades, now sunny
for the moment, and dallied with raspberries and blueberries, finer than
any ever seen. The latter henceforth began to impurple our blood. Maine
is lusciously carpeted with them.
As we oozed along the overgrown trail, dripping still with last night's
rain, drops would alight upon our necks and trickle down our backs. A
wet spine excites hunger,--if a pedestrian on a portage, after voyaging
from sunrise, needs any appetizer when his shadow marks noon. We halted,
fired up, and lunched vigorously on toasted pork and trimmings. As pork
must be the Omega in forest-fare, it is well to make it the Alpha. Fate
thus becomes choice. Citizens uneducated to forest-life with much pains
transport into the woods sealed cans of what they deem will dainties be,
and scoff at woodsmen frizzling slices of pork on a pointed stick. But
Experience does not disdain a Cockney. She broods over him, and will
by-and-by hatch him into a full-fledged forester. After such incubation,
he will recognize his natural food, and compactest fuel for the lamp of
life. He will take to his pork like mother's milk.
Our dessert of raspberries grew all along the path, and lured us on to a
log-station by the water, where we found another _bateau_ ready to
transport us over Lakes Weelocksebacook, Allegundabagog, and
Mollychunkamug. Doubters may smile and smile at these names, but they
are geography.
We do not commit ourselves to further judgment upon the first than that
it is doubtless worthy of its name. My own opinion is, that the scenery
felt that it was dullish, and was ashamed to "exhibit" to Iglesias; if
he pronounced a condemnation, Umbagog and its sisters feared that they
would be degraded to fish-ponds merely. Therefore they veiled
themselves. Mists hung low over the leaden waters, and blacker clouds
crushed the pine-dark hills.
A fair curve of sandy beach separates Weelocksebacook from its neighbor.
There is buried one Melattach, an Indian chief. Of course there has been
found in Maine some one irreverent enough to trot a lame Pegasus over
this grave, and accuse the frowzy old red-skin of Christian virtues and
delicate romance.
There were no portages this afternoon. We took the three lakes at easy
speed, persuading ourselves that scenes fog would not let us see were
unscenic. It is well that a man should think what he cannot get unworthy
of his getting. As evening came, the sun made another effort, with the
aid of west winds, at the mist. The sun cleft, the breeze drove.
Suddenly the battle was done, victory easily gained. We were cheered by
a gush of level sunlight. Even the dull, gray vapor became a
transfigured and beautiful essence. Dull and uniform it had hung over
the land; now the plastic winds quarried it, and shaped the whole mass
into individuals, each with its character. To the cloud-forms modelled
out of formlessness the winds gave life of motion, sunshine gave life of
light, and they hastened through the lower atmosphere, or sailed
lingering across the blue breadths of mid-heaven, or dwelt peacefully
aloft in the region of the _cirri_; and whether trailing gauzy robes in
flight, or moving stately, or dwelling on high where scope of vision
makes travel needless, they were still the brightest, the gracefullest,
the purest beings that Earth creates for man's most delicate pleasure.
When it cleared,--when it purveyed us a broadening zone of blue sky and
a heavenful of brilliant cloud-creatures, we were sailing over Lake
Mollychunkamug. Fair Mollychunkamug had not smiled for us until
now;--now a sunny grin spread over her smooth cheeks. She was all
smiling, and presently, as the breeze dimpled her, all a "snicker" up
into the roots of her hair, up among her forest-tresses. Mollychunkamug!
Who could be aught but gay, gay even to the farcical, when on such a
name? Is it Indian? Bewildered Indian we deem it,--transmogrified
somewhat from aboriginal sound by the fond imagination of some
lumberman, finding in it a sweet memorial of his Mary far away in the
kitchens of the Kennebec, his Mary so rotund of blooming cheek, his
Molly of the chunky mug. To him who truly loves, all Nature is filled
with Amaryllidian echoes. Every sight and every sound recalls her who
need not be recalled, to a heart that has never dislodged her.
We lingered over our interview with Mollychunkamug. She may not be
numbered among the great beauties of the world; nevertheless, she is an
attractive squaw,--a very honest bit of flat-faced prettiness in the
wilderness.
Above Mollychunkamug is Moosetocmaguntic Lake. Another innavigable
thoro'fare unites them. A dam of Titanic crib-work, fifteen hundred feet
long, confines the upper waters. Near this we disembarked. We balanced
ourselves along the timbers of the dam, and reached a huge log-cabin at
its farther end.
Mr. Killgrove, the damster, came forth and offered us the freedom of his
settlement in a tobacco-box. Tobacco is hospitality in the compactest
form. Civilization has determined that tobacco, especially in the shape
of smoke, is essential as food, water, or air. The pipe is everywhere
the pipe of peace. Peace, then, and anodyne-repose, after a day of
travel, were offered us by the friendly damster.
A squad of lumbermen were our new fellow-citizens. These soldiers of the
outermost outpost were in the regulation-uniform,--red-flannel shirts,
impurpled by wetting, big boots, and old felt-hats. Blood-red is the
true soldierly color. All the residents of Damville dwelt in a great
log-barrack, the Hôtel-de-Ville. Its architecture was of the early
American style, and possessed the high art of simplicity. It was solid,
not gingerbreadesque. Primeval American art has a rude dignity, far
better than the sham splendors of our mediaeval and transition period.
Our new friends, luxurious fellows, had been favored by Fate with a
French-Canadian cook, himself a Three of Frères Provinciaux. Such was
his reputation. We saw by the eye of him, and by his nose, formed for
comprehending fragrances, and by the lines of refined taste converging
from his whole face toward his mouth, that he was one to detect and
sniff gastronomic possibilities in the humblest materials. Joseph
Bourgogne looked the cook. His phiz gave us faith in him; eyes small and
discriminating; nose upturned, nostrils expanded and receptive; mouth
saucy in the literal sense. His voice, moreover, was a cook's,--thick in
articulation, dulcet in tone. He spoke as if he deemed that a throat was
created for better uses than laboriously manufacturing words,--as if the
object of a mouth were to receive tribute, not to give commands,--as if
that pink stalactite, his palate, were more used by delicacies entering
than by rough words or sorry sighs going out of the inner caverns.
When we find the right man in the right place, our minds are at ease.
The future becomes satisfactory as the past. Anticipation is glad
certainty, not anxious doubt. Trusting our gastronomic welfare fully to
this great artist, we tried for fish below the dam. Only petty
fishlings, weighing ounces, took the bit between their teeth. We
therefore doffed the fisherman and donned the artist and poet, and
chased our own fancies down the dark whirlpooling river, along its dell
of evergreens, now lurid with the last glows of twilight. Iglesias and I
continued dreamily gazing down the thoro'fare toward Mollychunkamug only
a certain length of time. Man keeps up to his highest elations hardly
longer than a _danseuse_ can poise in a _pose_. To be conscious of the
highest beauty demands an involuntary intentness of observation so
fanatically eager that presently we are prostrated and need stimulants.
And just as we sensitively felt this exhaustion and this need, we heard
a suggestive voice calling us from the front-door of the mansion-house
of Damville, and "Supper" was the cry.
A call to the table may quell and may awaken romance. When, in some
abode of poetized luxury, the "silver knell" sounds musically six, and a
door opens toward a glitter that is not pewter and Wedgewood, and, with
a being fair and changeful as a sunset cloud upon my arm, I move under
the archway of blue curtains toward the asphodel and the nectar, then, O
Reader! Friend! romance crowds into my heart, as color and fragrance
crowd into a rose-bud. Joseph Bourgogne, cook at Damville on
Moosetocmaguntic, could not offer us such substitute for aesthetic
emotions. But his voice of an artist created a winning picture half
veiled with mists, evanescent and affectionate, such as linger fondly
over Pork-and-Beans.
Fancied joy soon to become fact. We entered the barrack. Beneath its
smoky roof-tree was a pervading aroma; near the centre of that aroma, a
table dim with wefts of incense; at the innermost centre of that aroma
and that incense, and whence those visible and viewless fountains
streamed, was their source,--a Dish of Pork-and-Beans.
Topmostly this. There were lesser viands, buttresses to this towering
triumph. Minor smokes from minor censers. A circle of little craterlings
about the great crater,--of little fiery cones about that great volcanic
dome in the midst, unopened, but bursting with bounty. We sat down, and
one of the red-shirted boldly crushed the smoking dome. The brave fellow
plunged in with a spoon and heaped our plates.
_A priori_ we had deduced Joseph Bourgogne's results from inspection of
Joseph. Now we could reason back from one _experimentum crucis_ cooked
by him. Effect and cause were worthy of each other.
The average world must be revenged upon Genius. Greatness must be
punished by itself or another. Joseph Bourgogne was no exception to the
laws of the misery of Genius. He had a distressing trait, whose
exhibition tickled the _dura ilia_ of the reapers of the forest. Joseph,
poet-cook, was sensitive to new ideas. This sensitiveness to the
peremptory thought made him the slave of the wags of Damville. Whenever
he had anything in his hands, at a stern, quick command he would drop it
nervously. Did he approach the table with a second dish of
pork-and-beans, a yellow dish of beans, browned delicately as a Sèvres
vase, then would some full-fed rogue, waiting until Joseph was bending
over some devoted head, say sharply, "Drop that, Joseph!"--whereupon
down went dish and contents, emporridging the poll and person of the
luckless wight beneath. Always, were his burden pitcher of water, armful
of wood, axe dangerous to toes, mirror, or pudding, still followed the
same result. And when the poet-cook had done the mischief, he would
stand shuddering at his work of ruin, and sigh, and curse his too
sensitive nature.
In honor of us, the damster kept order. Joseph disturbed the banquet
only by entering with new triumphs of Art. Last came a climax-pie,
--contents unknown. And when that dish, fit to set before a
king, was opened, the poem of our supper was complete. J. B. sailed to
the Parnassus where Ude and Vattel feast, forever cooking immortal
banquets in star-lighted spheres.
Then we sat in the picturesque dimness of the lofty cabin, under the
void where the roof shut off the stars, and talked of the pine-woods, of
logging, measuring, and spring-drives, and of moose-hunting on
snow-shoes, until our mouths had a wild flavor more spicy than if we had
chewed spruce-gum by the hour. Spruce-gum is the aboriginal quid of
these regions. Foresters chew this tenacious morsel as tars nibble at a
bit of oakum, grooms at a straw, Southerns at tobacco, or school-girls
at a slate-pencil.
The barrack was fitted up with bunks. Iglesias rolled into one of these.
I mummied myself in my blankets and did penance upon a bench. Pine-knots
in my pallet sought out my tenderest spots. The softer wood was worn
away about these projections. Hillocky was the surface, so that I beat
about uneasily and awoke often, ready to envy Iglesias. But from him,
also, I heard sounds of struggling.