CAMP KATAHDIN.
Our camping-place was worthy of its view. On the bank, high and dry, a
noble yellow birch had been strong enough to thrust back the forest,
making a glade for its own private abode. Other travellers had already
been received in this natural pavilion. We had had predecessors, and
they had built them a hut, a half roof of hemlock bark, resting on a
frame. Time had developed the wrinkles in this covering into cracks, and
cracks only wait to be leaks. First, then, we must mend our mansion.
Material was at hand; hemlocks, with a back-load of bark, stood ready to
be disburdened. In August they have worn their garment so long that they
yield it unwillingly. Cancut's axe, however, was insinuating, not to
say peremptory. He peeled off and brought great scales of rough
purple roofing, and we disposed them, according to the laws of
forest architecture, upon our cabin. It became a good example of the
_renaissance_. Storm, if such a traveller were approaching, was shut
out at top and sides; our blankets could become curtains in front and
completely hide us from that unwelcome vagrant, should he peer about
seeking whom he might duck and what he might damage.
Our lodge, built, must be furnished. We need a luxurious carpet, couch,
and bed; and if we have these, will be content without secondary
articles. Here, too, material was ready, and only the artist wanting, to
use it. While Cancut peeled the hemlocks, Iglesias and I stripped off
armfuls of boughs and twigs from the spruces to "bough down" our camp.
"Boughing down" is shingling the floor elaborately with evergreen
foliage; and when it is done well, the result counts among the high
luxuries of the globe. As the feathers of this bed are harsh stems
covered with leafage, the process of bed-making must be systematic, the
stems thoroughly covered, and the surface smooth and elastic. I have
slept on the various beds of the world,--in a hammock, in a pew, on
German feathers, on a bear-skin, on a mat, on a hide; all, all give but
a feeble, restless, unrecreating slumber, compared to the spruce or
hemlock bed in a forest of Maine. This is fragrant, springy, soft,
well-fitting, better than any Sybarite's coach of uncrumpled
rose-leaves. It sweetly rustles when you roll, and, by a gentle
titillation with the little javelin-leaves, keeps up a pleasant
electricity over the cuticle. Rheumatism never, after nights on such a
bed; agues never; vigor, ardor, fervor, always.
We despatched our camp-building and bed-making with speed, for we had
a purpose. The Penobscot was a very beautiful river, and the
Ayboljockameegus a very pretty stream; and if there is one place in the
world where trout, at certain seasons, are likely to be found, it is in
a beautiful river at the mouth of a pretty stream. Now we wanted trout;
it was in the programme that something more delicate than salt-pork
should grace our banquets before Katahdin. Cancut sustained our _a
priori_, that trout were waiting for us over by the Aybol. By this
time the tree-shadows, so stiff at noon, began to relax and drift down
stream, cooling the surface. The trout could leave their shy lairs
down in the chilly deeps, and come up without fear of being parboiled.
Besides, as evening came, trout thought of their supper, as we did of
ours.
Hereupon I had a new sensation. We made ready our flies and our rods,
and embarked, as I supposed, to be ferried across and fish from _terra
firma_. But no. Cancut dropped anchor very quietly opposite the Aybol's
mouth. Iglesias, the man of Maine experience, seemed nought surprised.
We were to throw our lines, as it appeared, from the birch; we were to
peril our lives on the unsteady basis of a roly-poly vessel,--to keep
our places and ballast our bowl, during the excitement of hooking
pounds. Self-poise is an acrobatic feat, when a person, not loaded at
the heels, undertakes trout-fishing from a birch.
We threw our flies. Instantly at the lucky hackle something darted,
seized it, and whirled to fly, with the unwholesome bit in its mouth, up
the peaceful Ayboljockameegus. But the lucky man, and he happened to be
the novice, forgot, while giving the capturing jerk of his hook, that
his fulcrum was not solid rock. The slight shell tilted, turned--over
not quite, over enough to give everybody a start. One lesson teaches the
docile. Caution thereafter presided over our fishing. She told us to sit
low, keep cool, cast gently, strike firmly, play lightly, and pull in
steadily. So we did. As the spotted sparklers were rapidly translated
from water to a lighter element, a well-fed cheerfulness developed in
our trio. We could not speak, for fear of breaking the spell; we smiled
at each other. Twenty-three times the smile went round. Twenty-three
trout, and not a pigmy among them, lay at our feet. More fish for one
dinner and breakfast would be waste and wanton self-indulgence. We
stopped. And I must avow, not to claim too much heroism, that the fish
had also stopped. So we paddled home contented.
Then, O Walton! O Davy! O Scrope! ye fishers hard by taverns! luxury was
ours of which ye know no more than a Chinaman does of music. Under
the noble yellow birch we cooked our own fish. We used our scanty
kitchen-battery with skill. We cooked with the high art of simplicity.
Where Nature has done her best, only fools rush in to improve: on the
salmonids, fresh and salt, she has lavished her creative refinements;
cookery should only ripen and develop. From our silver gleaming pile
of pounders, we chose the larger and the smaller for appropriate
experiments. Then we tested our experiments; we tasted our examples.
Success. And success in science proves knowledge and skill. We feasted.
The delicacy of our food made each feaster a finer essence.
So we supped, reclined upon our couch of spruce-twigs. In our good cheer
we pitied the Eft of Katahdin: he might sneer, but he was supperless. We
were grateful to Nature for the grand mountain, for the fair and sylvan
woods, for the lovely river and what it had yielded us.
By the time we had finished our flaky fare and sipped our chocolate from
the Magdalena, Night announced herself,--Night, a jealous, dark lady,
eclipsed and made invisible all her rivals, that she might solely
possess us. Night's whispers lulled us. The rippling river, the rustling
leaves, the hum of insects grew more audible; and these are gentle
sounds that prove wide quietude in Nature, and tell man that the burr
and buzz in his day-laboring brain have ceased, and he had better be
breathing deep in harmony. So we disposed ourselves upon the fragrant
couch of spruce-boughs, and sank slowly and deeper into sleep, as divers
sink into the thick waters down below, into the dreamy waters far below
the plunge of sunshine.
By-and-by, as the time came for rising to the surface again, and the
mind began to be half conscious of facts without it, as the diver may
half perceive light through thinning strata of sea, there penetrated
through my last layers of slumber a pungent odor of wetted embers. It
was raining quietly. Drip was the pervading sound, as if the rain-drops
were counting aloud the leaves of the forest. Evidently a resolute and
permanent wetting impended. On rainy days one does not climb Katahdin.
Instead of rising by starlight, breakfasting by gray, and starting by
rosy dawn, it would be policy to persuade night to linger long into the
hours of a dull day. When daylight finally came, dim and sulky, there
was no rivalry among us which should light the fire. We did not leap,
but trickled slowly forth into the inhospitable morning, all forlorn.
Wet days in camp try "grit." "Clear grit" brightens more crystalline,
the more it is rained upon; sham grit dissolves into mud and water.
Yankees, who take in pulverized granite with every breath of their
native dust, are not likely to melt in a drizzle. We three certainly
did not. We reacted stoutly against the forlorn weather, unpacking our
internal stores of sunshine, as a camel in a desert draws water from his
inner tank when outer water fails. We made the best of it. A breakfast
of trout and trimmings looks nearly as well and tastes nearly as well in
a fog as in a glare: that we proved by experience at Camp Katahdin.
We could not climb the mountain dark and dim; we would not be idle: what
was to be done? Much. Much for sport and for use. We shouldered the
axe and sallied into the dripping forest. Only a faint smoke from the
smouldering logs curled up among the branches of the yellow birch over
camp. We wanted a big smoke, and chopped at the woods for fuel. Speaking
for myself, I should say that our wood-work was ill done. Iglesias
smiled at my axe-handling, and Cancut at his, as chopping we sent chips
far and wide.
The busy, keen, short strokes of the axe resounded through the forest.
When these had done their work, and the bungler paused amid his wasteful
_debris_ to watch his toil's result, first was heard a rustle of leaves,
as if a passing whirlwind had alighted there; next came the crack of
bursting sinews; then the groan of a great riving spasm, and the tree,
decapitated at its foot, crashed to earth, with a vain attempt to clutch
for support at the stiff, unpitying arms of its woodland brotherhood.
Down was the tree,--fallen, but so it should not lie. This tree we
proposed to promote from brute matter, mere lumber, downcast and
dejected, into finer essence: fuel was to be made into fire.
First, however, the fuel must be put into portable shape. We top-sawyers
went at our prostrate and vanquished non-resistant, and without mercy
mangled and dismembered him, until he was merely a bare trunk, a torso
incapable of restoration.
While we were thus busy, useful, and happy, the dripping rain, like a
clepsydra, told off the morning moments. The dinner-hour drew nigh. We
had determined on a feast, and trout were to be its daintiest dainty.
But before we cooked our trout, we must, according to sage Kitchener's
advice, catch our trout. They were, we felt confident, awaiting us in
the refrigerate larder at hand. We waited until the confusing pepper of
a shower had passed away and left the water calm. Then softly and deftly
we propelled our bark across to the Ayboljockameegus. We tossed to the
fish humbugs of wool, silk, and feathers, gauds such as captivate the
greedy or the guileless. Again the "gobemouches" trout, the fellows
on the look-out for novelty, dashed up and swallowed disappointing
juiceless morsels, and with them swallowed hooks.
We caught an apostolic boat-load of beauties fresh and blooming
as Aurora, silver as the morning star, gemmy with eye-spots as a
tiger-lily.
O feast most festal! Iglesias, of course, was the great artist who
devised and mainly executed it. As well as he could, he covered his pot
and pan from the rain, admitting only enough to season each dish with
gravy direct from the skies. As day had ripened, the banquet grew ripe.
Then as day declined, we reclined on our triclinium of hemlock and
spruce boughs, and made high festival, toasting each other in the
uninebriating flow of our beverages. Jollity reigned. Cancut fattened,
and visibly broadened. Toward the veriest end of the banquet, we seemed
to feel that there had been a slight sameness in its courses. The Bill
of Fare, however, proved the freest variety. And at the close we sat and
sipped our chocolate with uttermost content. No _garçon_, cringing, but
firm, would here intrude with the unhandsome bill. Nothing to pay is the
rarest of pleasures. This dinner we had caught ourselves, we had cooked
ourselves, and had eaten for the benefit of ourselves and no other.
There was nothing to repent of afterwards in the way of extravagance,
and certainly nothing of indigestion. Indigestion in the forest
primeval, in the shadow of Katahdin, is impossible.
While we dined, we talked of our to-morrow's climb of Katahdin. We were
hopeful. We disbelieved in obstacles. To-morrow would be fine. We would
spring early from our elastic bed and stride topwards. Iglesias nerved
himself and me with a history of his ascent some years before, up the
eastern side of the mountain. He had left the house of Mr. Hunt, the
outsider at that time of Eastern Maine, with a squad of lumbermen, and
with them tramped up the furrow of a land-avalanche to the top, spending
wet and ineffective days in the dripping woods, and vowing then to
return and study the mountain from our present camping-spot. I recalled
also the first recorded ascent of the Natardin or Catardin Mountain by
Mr. Turner in 1804, printed in the Massachusetts Historical Society's
Collections, and identified the stream up whose valley he climbed with
the Ayboljockameegus. Cancut offered valuable contributions to our
knowledge from his recent ascent with our Boston predecessors. To-morrow
we would verify our recollections and our fancies.
And so good-night, and to our spruce bed.