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 BATTLEGROUND ADVENTURES. Illustrated. 
 A BOOK OF FAIRY-TALE FOXES. Illustrated. 
 A BOOK OF FAIRY-TALE BEARS. Illustrated. 
 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 Boston and New York 
 
CANOEING IN THE 
 WILDERNESS 
 
The Indian Guide's Evening fruyer (page 59) 
 
CANOEING IN THE 
 WILDERNESS 
 
 By henry D. THOREAU 
 
 EDITED BY 
 CLIFTON JOHNSON 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BY 
 WILL HAMMELL 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 
 1916 
 
rz7 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1906, BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 
 COPYRIGHT, I916, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 Published April iqib 
 
 iCI.A4289G4 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 The Indian Guide's Evening Prayer . . Frontispiece k 
 The Stage on the Road to Moosehead Lake . . 8 ^ 
 Making a Camp in the Streamside Woodland . .52 
 
 Fishing 72 
 
 The Red Squirrel ' 88 '^ 
 
 Coming down the Rapids 132 
 
 Shooting the Moose 154 
 
 Carrying ROUND the Falls i8o 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 THOREAU was born at Concord, 
 Massachusetts, July 12, 18 17, and at 
 the time he made this wilderness canoe 
 trip he was forty years old. The record of 
 the journey is the latter half of his The 
 Maine Woods^ which is perhaps the finest 
 idyl of the forest ever written. It is par- 
 ticularly charming in its blending of medi- 
 tative and poetic fancies with the minute 
 description of the voyager's experiences. 
 
 The chief attraction that inspired Tho- 
 reau to make the trip was the primitive- 
 ness of the region. Here was a vast tract 
 of almost virgin woodland, peopled only 
 with a few loggers and pioneer farmers, 
 Indians, and wild animals. No one could 
 have been better fitted than Thoreau to 
 enjoy such a region and to transmit his en- 
 joyment of it to others. For though he 
 was a person of culture and refinement. 
 
viii INTRODUCTION 
 
 with a college education, and had for an 
 intimate friend so rare a man as Ralph 
 Waldo Emerson, he was half wild in 
 many of his tastes and impatient of the 
 restraints and artificiality of the ordinary 
 social life of the towns and cities. 
 
 He liked especially the companionship 
 of men who were in close contact with 
 nature, and in this book we find him deeply 
 interested in his Indian guide and linger- 
 ing fondly over the man's characteristics 
 and casual remarks. The Indian retained 
 many of his aboriginal instincts and ways, 
 though his tribe was in most respects 
 civilized. His home was in an Indian vil- 
 lage on an island in the Penobscot River at 
 Oldtown, a few miles above Bangor. 
 
 Thoreau was one of the world's greatest 
 nature writers, and as the years pass, his 
 fame steadily increases. He was a careful 
 and accurate observer, more at home in the 
 fields and woods than in village and town, 
 and with a gift of piquant originality 
 in recording his impressions. The play of 
 
INTRODUCTION ix 
 
 his imagination is keen and nimble, yet 
 his fancy is so well balanced by his native 
 common sense that it does not run away 
 with him. There is never any doubt about 
 his genuineness, or that what he states is 
 free from bias and romantic exaggeration. 
 
 It is to be noted that he was no hunter. 
 His inquisitiveness into the ways of the 
 wild creatures carried with it no desire 
 to shoot them, and to his mind the 
 killing of game for mere sport was akin 
 to butchery. The kindly and sympathetic 
 spirit constantly manifest in his pages is 
 very attractive, and the fellowship one 
 gains with him through his written words 
 is both delightful and wholesome. He 
 stimulates not only a love for nature, but a 
 love for simple ways of living, and for all 
 that is sincere and unaffected in human 
 life, wherever found. 
 
 In the present volume various details and 
 digressions that are not of interest to most 
 readers have been omitted, but except for 
 such elimination Thoreau's text has been 
 
X INTRODUCTION 
 
 retained throughout. It is believed that 
 nothing essential has been sacrificed, and 
 that the narrative in this form will be found 
 lively, informing, and thoroughly enjoy- 
 able. 
 
 Clifton Johnson. 
 
 Hadley, Massachusetts. 
 
CANOEING IN THE 
 WILDERNESS 
 
CANOEING IN THE 
 WILDERNESS 
 
 MONDAY, TUESDAY, WEDNESDAY, THURSDAY 
 JULY 20-23, 1857 
 
 I STARTED on my third excursion to 
 the Maine woods Monday, July 20, 
 1857, with one companion, arriving at 
 Bangor the next day at noon. The suc- 
 ceeding morning, a relative of mine who 
 is well acquainted with the Penobscot In- 
 dians took me in his wagon to Oldtown 
 to assist me in obtaining an Indian for this 
 expedition. We were ferried across to the 
 Indian Island in a bateau. The ferryman's 
 boy had the key to it, but the father, who 
 was a blacksmith, after a little hesitation, 
 cut the chain with a cold chisel on the 
 rock. He told me that the Indians were 
 nearly all gone to the seaboard and to Mas- 
 sachusetts, partly on account of the small- 
 
4 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 pox, of which they are very much afraid, 
 having broken out in Oldtown. The old 
 chief Neptune, however, was there still. 
 
 The first man we saw on the island was 
 an Indian named Joseph Polls, whom my 
 relative addressed familiarly as "Joe." He 
 was dressing a deerskin in his yard. The 
 skin was spread over a slanting log, and 
 he was scraping it with a stick held by both 
 hands. He was stoutly built, perhaps a little 
 above the middle height, with a broad face, 
 and, as others said, perfect Indian features 
 and complexion. His house was a two- 
 story white one with blinds, the best-look- 
 ing that I noticed there, and as good as 
 an average one on a New England village 
 street. It was surrounded by a garden and 
 fruit trees, single cornstalks standing thinly 
 amid the beans. We asked him if he knew 
 any good Indian who would like to go into 
 the woods with us, that is, to the Allegash 
 Lakes by way of Moosehead, and return by 
 the East Branch of the Penobscot. 
 
 To which he answered out of that 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 5 
 
 strange remoteness in which the Indian 
 ever dwells to the white man, " Me like to 
 go myself; me want to get some moose"; 
 and kept on scraping the skin. 
 
 The ferryman had told us that all the 
 best Indians were gone except Polis, who 
 was one of the aristocracy. He, to be sure, 
 would be the best man we could have, but 
 if he went at all would want a great price. 
 Polis asked at first two dollars a day but 
 agreed to go for a dollar and a half, and 
 fifty cents a week for his canoe. He would 
 come to Bangor with his canoe by the 
 seven o'clock train that evening — we 
 might depend on him. We thought our- 
 selves lucky to secure the services of this 
 man, who was known to be particularly 
 steady and trustworthy. 
 
 I spent the afternoon with my com- 
 panion, who had remained in Bangor, 
 in preparing for our expedition, purchas- 
 ing provisions, hard-bread,' pork, coffee, 
 
 ' Hard-bread or ship-bread is a kind of hard biscuit com- 
 monly baked in large cakes and much used by sailors and soldiers. 
 
6 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 sugar, etc., and some india-rubber cloth- 
 ing. 
 
 At evening the Indian arrived in the 
 cars, and I led the way, while he followed 
 me, three quarters of a mile to my friend's 
 house, with the canoe on his head. I did 
 not know the exact route, but steered by 
 the lay of the land, as I do in Boston. I 
 tried to enter into conversation with him, 
 but as he was puffing under the weight of 
 his canoe, not having the usual apparatus 
 for carrying it, but, above all, as he was an 
 Indian, I-might as well have been thump- 
 ing on the bottom of his birch the while. 
 In answer to the various observations that 
 I made he only grunted vaguely from be- 
 neath his canoe once or twice, so that I 
 knew he was there. 
 
 Early the next morning the stage called 
 for us. My companion and I had each a 
 large knapsack as full as it would hold, and 
 we had two large rubber bags which held 
 our provisions and utensils. As for the In- 
 dian, all the baggage he had, beside his axe 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 7 
 
 and gun, was a blanket, which he brought 
 loose in his hand. However, he had laid in 
 a store of tobacco and a new pipe for the 
 excursion. The canoe was securely lashed 
 diagonally across the top of the stage, with 
 bits of carpet tucked under the edge to pre- 
 vent its chafing. The driver appeared as 
 much accustomed to carrying canoes in 
 this way as bandboxes. 
 
 At the Bangor House we took in four 
 men bound on a hunting excursion, one of 
 the men going as cook. They had a dog, 
 a middling-sized brindled cur, which ran 
 by the side of the stage, his master show- 
 ing his head and whistling from time to 
 time. But after we had gone about three 
 miles the dog was suddenly missing, and 
 two of the party went back for him, while 
 the stage, which was full of passengers, 
 waited. At length one man came back, 
 while the other kept on. This whole party 
 of hunters declared their intention to stop 
 till the dog was found, but the very oblig- 
 ing driver was ready to wait a spell longer. 
 
8 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 He was evidently unwilling to lose so many 
 passengers, who would have taken a private 
 conveyance, or perhaps the other line of 
 stages, the next day. Such progress did we 
 make, with a journey of over sixty miles to 
 be accomplished that day, and a rainstorm 
 just setting in. We discussed the subject 
 of dogs and their instincts till it was 
 threadbare, while we waited there, and the 
 scenery of the suburbs of Bangor is still 
 distinctly impressed on my memory. 
 
 After full half an hour the man re- 
 turned, leading the dog by a rope. He 
 had overtaken him just as he was entering 
 the Bangor House. He was then tied on 
 the top of the stage, but, being wet and 
 cold, several times in the course of the 
 journey he jumped off, and I saw him 
 dangling by his neck. This dog was de- 
 pended on to stop bears. He had already 
 stopped one somewhere in New Hamp- 
 shire, and I can testify that he stopped 
 a stage in Maine. This party of four 
 probably paid nothing for the dog's ride. 
 

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 7%? Stage on the Road to Moosehead Luke 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 9 
 
 nor for his run, while our party of three 
 paid two dollars — and were charged four 
 — for the light canoe which lay still on 
 the top. 
 
 The stage was crowded all the way. If 
 you had looked inside you would have 
 thought that we were prepared to run the 
 gantlet of a band of robbers, for there 
 were four or five guns on the front seat 
 and one or two on the back one, each 
 man holding his darling in his arms. It 
 appeared that this party of hunters was 
 going our way, but much farther. Their 
 leader was a handsome man about thirty 
 years old, of good height, but not appar- 
 ently robust, of gentlemanly address and 
 faultless toilet. He had a fair white com- 
 plexion as if he had always lived in the 
 shade, and an intellectual face, and with 
 his quiet manners might have passed for 
 a divinity student who had seen something 
 of the world. I was surprised to find that 
 he was probably the chief white hunter 
 of Maine and was known all along the 
 
lo CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 road. I afterwards heard him spoken of 
 as one who could endure a great deal of 
 exposure and fatigue without showing the 
 effect of it; and he could not only use 
 guns, but make them, being himself a 
 gunsmith. In the spring he had saved a 
 stage-driver and two passengers from 
 drowning in the backwater of the Piscat- 
 aquis on this road, having swum ashore in 
 the freezing water and made a raft and 
 got them off — though the horses were 
 drowned — at great risk to himself, while 
 the only other man who could swim 
 withdrew to the nearest house to prevent 
 freezing. He knew our man, and remarked 
 that we had a good Indian there, a good 
 hunter; adding that he was said to be 
 worth six thousand dollars. The Indian 
 also knew him, and said to me, "The 
 great hunter." 
 
 The Indian sat on the front seat with 
 a stolid expression of face as if barely 
 awake to what was going on. Again I 
 was struck by the peculiar vagueness of 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH ii 
 
 his replies when addressed in the stage or 
 at the taverns. He really never said any- 
 thing on such occasions. He was merely 
 stirred up like a wild beast, and passively 
 muttered some insignificant response. His 
 answer, in such cases, was vague as a puff of 
 smoke, suggesting no responsibility ^ and if 
 you considered it you would find that you 
 had got nothing out of him. This was 
 instead of the conventional palaver and 
 smartness of the white man, and equally 
 profitable. Most get no more than this out 
 of the Indian, and pronounce him stolid 
 accordingly. I was surprised to see what a 
 foolish and impertinent style a Maine man, 
 a passenger, used in addressing him, as if 
 he were a child, which only made his 
 eyes glisten a little. A tipsy Canadian 
 asked him at a tavern, in a drawling tone, 
 if he smoked, to which he answered with 
 an indefinite " Yes." 
 
 " Won't you lend me your pipe a little 
 while?" asked the other. 
 
 He replied, looking straight by the 
 
12 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 man's head, with a face singularly vacant 
 to all neighboring interests, " Me got no 
 pipe"; yet I had seen him put a new 
 one, with a supply of tobacco, into his 
 pocket that morning. 
 
 Our little canoe, so neat and strong, 
 drew a favorable criticism from all the 
 wiseacres among the tavern loungers along 
 the road. By the roadside, close to the 
 wheels, I noticed a splendid great purple 
 fringed orchis which I would fain have 
 stopped the stage to pluck, but as this had 
 never been known to stop a bear, like the 
 cur on the stage, the driver would prob- 
 ably have thought it a waste of time. 
 
 When we reached the lake, about half 
 past eight in the evening, it was still 
 steadily raining, and in that fresh, cool 
 atmosphere the hylas were peeping and 
 the toads ringing about the lake. It was 
 as if the season had revolved backward 
 two or three months, or I had arrived at 
 the abode of perpetual spring. 
 
 We had expected to go upon the lake 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 13 
 
 at once, and, after paddling up two or 
 three miles, to camp on one of its islands, 
 but on account of the rain we decided to 
 go to one of the taverns for the night. 
 
II 
 
 FRIDAY, JULY 24 
 
 ABOUT four o'clock the next morn- 
 . ing, though it was quite cloudy, ac- 
 companied by the landlord to the water's 
 edge, in the twilight, we launched our 
 canoe from a rock on Moosehead Lake. 
 We had a rather small canoe for three 
 persons, eighteen and one fourth feet long 
 by two feet six and one half inches wide 
 in the middle, and one foot deep within. 
 I judged that it would weigh not far from 
 eighty pounds. The Indian had recently 
 made it himself, and its smallness was 
 partly compensated for by its newness, as 
 well as stanchness and solidity, it being 
 made of very thick bark and ribs. Our 
 baggage weighed about one hundred and 
 sixty-six pounds. The principal part of 
 the baggage was, as usual, placed in the 
 middle of the broadest part, while we 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 15 
 
 stowed ourselves in the chinks and cran- 
 nies that were left before and behind it, 
 where there was no room to extend our 
 legs, the loose articles being tucked into 
 the ends. The canoe was thus as closely 
 packed as a market basket. The Indian sat 
 on a crossbar in the stern, but we flat on 
 the bottom with a splint or chip behind 
 our backs to protect them from the cross- 
 bar, and one of us commonly paddled 
 with the Indian. 
 
 Paddling along the eastern side of the 
 lake in the still of the morning, we soon 
 saw a few sheldrakes, which the Indian 
 called Shecorways, and some peetweets on 
 the rocky shore. We also saw and heard 
 loons. It was inspiriting to hear the reg- 
 ular dip of the paddles, as if they were 
 our fins or flippers, and to realize that we 
 were at length fairly embarked. 
 
 Having passed the small rocky isles 
 within two or three miles of the foot of 
 the lake, we had a short consultation re- 
 specting our course, and inclined to the 
 
i6 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 western shore for the sake of its lee; for 
 otherwise, if the wind should rise, it would 
 be impossible for us to reach Mount Kineo, 
 which is about midway up the lake on the 
 east side, but at its narrowest part, where 
 probably we could recross if we took the 
 western side. The wind is the chief obsta- 
 cle to crossing the lakes, especially in so 
 small a canoe. The Indian remarked sev- 
 eral times that he did not like to cross the 
 lakes " in littlum canoe," but nevertheless, 
 "just as we say, it made no odds to him." 
 Moosehead Lake is twelve miles wide 
 at the widest place, and thirty miles long 
 in a direct line, but longer as it lies. Pad- 
 dling near the shore, we frequently heard 
 the pe-pe of the olive-sided flycatcher, also 
 the wood pewee and the kingfisher. The 
 Indian reminding us that he could not 
 work without eating, we stopped to break- 
 fast on the main shore southwest of Deer 
 Island. We took out our bags, and the 
 Indian made a fire under a very large 
 bleached log, using white pine bark from 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 17 
 
 a stump, though he said that hemlock was 
 better, and kindling with canoe birch bark. 
 Our table was a large piece of freshly 
 peeled birch bark, laid wrong side up, and 
 our breakfast consisted of hard-bread, fried 
 pork, and strong coffee well sweetened, in 
 which we did not miss the milk. 
 
 While we were getting breakfast a brood 
 of twelve black dippers,^ half grown, came 
 paddling by within three or four rods, not 
 at all alarmed ; and they loitered about as 
 long as we stayed, now huddled close to- 
 gether, now moving off in a long line, very 
 cunningly. 
 
 Looking northward from this place it 
 appeared as if we were entering a large 
 bay, and we did not know whether we 
 should be obliged to diverge from our 
 course and keep outside a point which we 
 saw, or should find a passage between this 
 and the mainland. It was misty dog-day 
 weather, and we had already penetrated 
 
 ^ The name dipper is applied to several species of water- 
 birds that are notable for their skill in diving. 
 
i8 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 a smaller bay of the same kind, and 
 knocked the bottom out of it, though we 
 had been obliged to pass over a bar be- 
 tween an island and the shore, where there 
 was but just breadth and depth enough to 
 float the canoe, and the Indian had ob- 
 served, " Very easy makum bridge here," 
 but now it seemed that if we held on we 
 should be fairly embayed. Presently, how- 
 ever, the mist lifted somewhat and re- 
 vealed a break in the shore northward. 
 The Indian immediately remarked, " I 
 guess you and I go there." 
 
 This was his common expression in- 
 stead of saying " we." He never addressed 
 us by our names, though curious to know 
 how they were spelled and what they 
 meant. We called him Polis. He had al- 
 ready guessed very accurately at our ages, 
 and said that he was forty-eight. 
 
 After breakfast I emptied the melted 
 pork that was left into the lake, making 
 what the sailors call a "slick," and watch- 
 ing to see how much it spread over and 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 19 
 
 smoothed the agitated surface. The Indian 
 looked at it a moment and said, " That 
 make hard paddlum through ; hold 'em 
 canoe. So say old times." 
 
 We hastily reloaded, putting the dishes 
 loose in the bows, that they might be at 
 hand when wanted, and set out again. 
 The western shore, near which we paddled 
 along, rose gently to a considerable height 
 and was everywhere densely covered with 
 the forest, in which was a large propor- 
 tion of hard wood to enliven and relieve 
 the fir and spruce. 
 
 The Indian said that the lichen which 
 we saw hanging from the trees was called 
 chorchorque. We asked him the names of 
 several birds which we heard this morning. 
 The thrush, which was quite common, 
 and whose note he imitated, he said was 
 called Adelungquamooktum ; but sometimes 
 he could not tell the name of some small 
 bird which I heard and knew, but he said, 
 "I tell all the birds about here; can't tell 
 littlum noise, but I see 'em, then I can tell." 
 
20 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 I observed that I should like to go to 
 school to him to learn his language, living 
 on the Indian island the while; could not 
 that be done? 
 
 "Oh, yer," he replied, "good many do 
 so. 
 
 I asked how long he thought it would 
 take. He said one week. I told him that 
 in this voyage I would tell him all I knew, 
 and he should tell me all he knew, to which 
 he readily agreed. 
 
 Mount Kineo, which was generally visi- 
 ble, though occasionally concealed by is- 
 lands or the mainland in front, had a level 
 bar of cloud concealing its summit, and all 
 the mountain-tops about the lake were 
 cut off at the same height. Ducks of vari- 
 ous kinds were quite common, and ran 
 over the water before us as fast as a horse 
 trots. 
 
 The Indian asked the meaning o^ reality ^ 
 as near as I could make out the word, which 
 he said one of us had used; also oiinterrent, 
 that is, intelligent. I observed that he could 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 21 
 
 rarely sound the letter r, but used 1, as also 
 r for 1 sometimes; as load iox road, pickelel 
 for pickerel, Soog/e Island for Sugar Island. 
 He generally added the syllable urn to his 
 words, as paddluniy etc. 
 
 On a point on the mainland where we 
 landed to stretch our legs and look at the 
 vegetation, going inland a few steps, I dis- 
 covered a fire still glowing beneath its 
 ashes, where somebody had breakfasted, 
 and a bed of twigs prepared for the follow- 
 ing night. So I knew not only that they 
 had just left, but that they designed to re- 
 turn, and by the breadth of the bed that 
 there was more than one in the party. 
 You might have gone within six feet of 
 these signs without seeing them. There 
 grew the beaked hazel, rue seven feet high, 
 and red osier, whose bark the Indian said 
 was good to smoke, "tobacco before white 
 people came to this country, Indian to- 
 bacco." 
 
 The Indian was always very careful in 
 approaching the shore, lest he should in- 
 
22 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 jure his canoe on the rocks, letting it swing 
 round slowly sidewise, and was still more 
 particular that we should not step into it 
 on shore, nor till it floated free, and then 
 should step gently lest we should open its 
 seams, or make a hole in the bottom. 
 
 After passing Deer Island we saw the 
 little steamer from Greenville, far east in 
 the middle of the lake. Sometimes we 
 could hardly tell her from an island which 
 had a few trees on it. Here we were ex- 
 posed to the wind from over the whole 
 breadth of the lake, and ran a little risk 
 of being swamped. While I had my eye 
 fixed on the spot where a large fish had 
 leaped, we took in a gallon or two of water; 
 but we soon reached the shore and took 
 the canoe over the bar at Sand-bar Island, 
 a few feet wide only, and so saved a con- 
 siderable distance. 
 
 We crossed a broad bay and found the 
 water quite rough. A very little wind on 
 these broad lakes raises a sea which will 
 swamp a canoe. Looking off from the 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 23 
 
 shore, the surface may appear to be almost 
 smooth a mile distant, or if you see a few 
 white crests they appear nearly level with 
 the rest of the lake, but when you get out 
 so far, you may find quite a sea running, 
 and ere long, before you think of it, a wave 
 will gently creep up the side of the canoe 
 and fill your lap, like a monster deliber- 
 ately covering you with its slime before it 
 swallows you, or it will strike the canoe 
 violently and break into it. The same 
 thing may happen when the wind rises 
 suddenly, though it were perfectly calm 
 and smooth there a few minutes before; so 
 that nothing can save you, unless you can 
 swim ashore, for it is impossible to get 
 into a canoe when it is upset. Since you 
 sit flat on the bottom, though the danger 
 should not be imminent, a little water is 
 a great inconvenience, not to mention the 
 wetting of your provisions. We rarely 
 crossed even a bay directly, from point to 
 point, when there was wind, but made a 
 slight curve corresponding somewhat to the 
 
24 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 shore, that we might the sooner reach it 
 if the wind increased. 
 
 When the wind is aft, and not too strong, 
 the Indian makes a spritsail of his blanket. 
 He thus easily skims over the whole length 
 of this lake in a dav. 
 
 The Indian paddled on one side, and 
 one of us on the other, to keep the canoe 
 steady, and when he wanted to change 
 hands he would say, "T'other side." He 
 asserted, in answer to our questions, that he 
 had never upset a canoe himself, though 
 he may have been upset by others. 
 
 Think of our little eggshell of a canoe 
 tossing across that great lake, a mere black 
 speck to the eagle soaring above it! 
 
 My companion trailed for trout as we 
 paddled along, but, the Indian warning him 
 that a big fish might upset us, for there are 
 some very large ones there, he agreed to 
 pass the line quickly to the stern if he had 
 a bite. 
 
 While we were crossing this bay, where 
 Mount Kineo rose dark before us within 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 25 
 
 two or three miles, the Indian repeated 
 the tradition respecting this mountain's 
 having anciently been a cow moose — how 
 a mighty Indian hunter succeeded in kill- 
 ing this queen of the moose tribe with 
 great difficulty, while her calf was killed 
 somewhere among the islands in Penob- 
 scot Bay, and, to his eyes, this mountain 
 had still the form of the moose in a reclin- 
 ing posture. He told this at some length 
 and with apparent good faith, and asked 
 us how we supposed the hunter could have 
 killed such a mighty moose as that. An 
 Indian tells such a story as if he thought 
 it deserved to have a good deal said about 
 it, only he has not got it to say, and so he 
 makes up for the deficiency by a drawling 
 tone, long-windedness, and a dumb won- 
 der which he hopes will be contagious. 
 
 We approached the land again through 
 pretty rough water, and then steered di- 
 rectly across the lake at its narrowest part 
 to the eastern side, and were soon partly 
 under the lee of the mountain, having 
 
26 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 paddled about twenty miles. It was now 
 about noon. 
 
 We designed to stop there that afternoon 
 and night, and spent half an hour looking 
 along the shore northward for a suitable 
 place to camp. At length, by going half 
 a dozen rods into the dense spruce and fir 
 wood on the side of the mountain almost 
 as dark as a cellar, we found a place suf- 
 ficiently clear and level to lie down on, 
 after cutting away a few bushes. The In- 
 dian cleared a path to it from the shore 
 with his axe, and we then carried up all our 
 baggage, pitched our tent, and made our 
 bed, in order to be ready for foul weather, 
 which then threatened us, and for the night. 
 He gathered a large armful of fir twigs, 
 breaking them off, which he said were the 
 best for our bed, partly, I thought, because 
 they were the largest and could be most 
 rapidly collected. It had been raining more 
 or less for four or five days, and the wood 
 was even damper than usual, but he got 
 dry bark from the under side of a dead 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 27 
 
 leaning hemlock, which he said he could 
 always do. 
 
 This noon his mind was occupied with 
 a law question, and I referred him to my 
 companion, who was a lawyer. It appeared 
 that he had been buying land lately — I 
 think it was a hundred acres — but there was 
 probably an incumbrance to it, somebody 
 else claiming to have bought some grass on 
 it for this year. He wished to know to 
 whom the grass belonged, and was told 
 that if the other man could prove that he 
 bought the grass before he. Polls, bought 
 the land, the former could take it whether 
 the latter knew it or not. To which he 
 only answered, " Strange ! " He went over 
 this several times, fairly sat down to it, 
 with his back to a tree, as if he meant to 
 confine us to this topic henceforth ; but as 
 he made no headway, only reached the 
 jumping-off place of his wonder at white 
 men's institutions after each explanation, 
 we let the subject die. 
 
 He said that he had fifty acres of grass. 
 
28 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 potatoes, etc., somewhere above Oldtown, 
 besides some about his house; that he hired 
 a good deal of his work, hoeing, etc., and 
 preferred white men to Indians because 
 " they keep steady and know how." 
 
 After dinner we returned southward 
 along the shore, in the canoe, on account 
 of the difficulty of climbing over the rocks 
 and fallen trees, and began to ascend the 
 mountain along the edge of the precipice. 
 But, a smart shower coming up just then, 
 the Indian crept under his canoe, while 
 we, protected by our rubber coats, pro- 
 ceeded to botanize. So we sent him back 
 to the camp for shelter, agreeing that he 
 should come for us with his canoe toward 
 night. It had rained a little in the fore- 
 noon, and we trusted that this would be 
 the clearing-up shower, which it proved; 
 but our feet and legs were thoroughly wet 
 by the bushes. The clouds breaking away 
 a little, we had a glorious wild view, as we 
 ascended, of the broad lake with its nu- 
 merous forest-clad islands extending be- 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 29 
 
 yond our sight both north and south, and 
 the boundless forest undulating away from 
 its shores on every side, as densely packed 
 as a rye-field and enveloping nameless 
 mountains in succession. It was a perfect 
 lake of the woods. 
 
 Looking southward, the heavens were 
 completely overcast, the mountains capped 
 with clouds, and the lake generally wore 
 a dark and stormy appearance, but from 
 its surface six or eight miles distant there 
 was reflected upward through the misty 
 air a bright blue tinge from the unseen 
 sky of another latitude beyond. They prob- 
 ably had a clear sky then at the south end 
 of the lake. 
 
 Again we mistook a little rocky islet 
 seen through the "drisk," with some taller 
 bare trunks or stumps on it, for the 
 steamer with its smoke-pipes, but as it 
 had not changed its position after half an 
 hour we were undeceived. So much do the 
 works of man resemble the works of na- 
 ture. A moose might mistake a steamer 
 
30 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 for a floating isle, and not be scared till 
 he heard its puffing or its whistle. 
 
 If I wished to see a mountain or other 
 scenery under the most favorable auspices, 
 I would go to it in foul weather so as to 
 be there when it cleared up. We are then 
 in the most suitable mood, and nature is 
 most fresh and inspiring. There is no seren- 
 ity so fair as that which is just established 
 in a tearful eye. 
 
 Jackson, in his " Report on the Geology 
 of Maine," says : " Hornstone, which will 
 answer for flints, occurs in various parts of 
 the State. The largest mass of this stone 
 known in the world is Mount Kineo, 
 upon Moosehead Lake, which appears to 
 be entirely composed of it, and rises seven 
 hundred feet above the lake level. This 
 variety of hornstone I have seen in every 
 part of New England in the form of In- 
 dian arrow-heads, hatchets, chisels, etc., 
 which were probably obtained from this 
 mountain by the aboriginal inhabitants of 
 the country." 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 31 
 
 I have myself found hundreds of arrow- 
 heads made of the same material. It is 
 generally slate-colored, with white specks, 
 becoming a uniform white where exposed 
 to the light and air. I picked up a small 
 thin piece which had so sharp an edge 
 that I used it as a knife, and, to see what 
 I could do, fairly cut off an aspen one 
 inch thick with it, by bending it and 
 making many cuts; though I cut my 
 fingers badly with the back of it in the 
 meanwhile. 
 
 From the summit of the precipice 
 which forms the southern and eastern 
 sides of this mountain peninsula, five or 
 six hundred feet high, we probably might 
 have jumped down to the water, or to the 
 seemingly dwarfish trees on the narrow 
 neck of land which connects it with the 
 main. It is a dangerous place to try the 
 steadiness of your nerves. 
 
 The plants which attracted our atten- 
 tion on this mountain were the moun- 
 tain cinquefoil, abundant and in bloom 
 
32 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 still at the very base by the waterside, 
 very beautiful harebells overhanging the 
 precipice, bearberry, the Canada blue- 
 berry, wild holly, the great round-leafed 
 orchis, bunchberry, reddening as we as- 
 cended, green at the base of the moun- 
 tain, red at the top, and the small fern 
 Woodsia ihensh, growing in tufts, now in 
 fruit. Having explored the wonders of 
 the mountain, and the weather being now 
 cleared up, we commenced the descent. 
 We met the Indian, puffing and panting, 
 about one third of the way up, but think- 
 ing that he must be near the top. On 
 reaching the canoe we found that he had 
 caught a lake trout weighing about three 
 pounds, while we were on the mountain. 
 When we got to the camp, the canoe 
 was taken out and turned over, and a log 
 laid across it to prevent its being blown 
 away. The Indian cut some large logs of 
 damp and rotten wood to smoulder and 
 keep fire through the night. The trout 
 was fried for supper. 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 33 
 
 Our tent was of thin cotton cloth and 
 quite small, forming with the ground a 
 triangular prism closed at the rear end, 
 six feet long, seven wide, and four high, 
 so that we could barely sit up in the mid- 
 dle. It required two forked stakes, a 
 smooth ridgepole, and a dozen or more 
 pins to pitch it. It kept off dew and wind 
 and an ordinary rain, and answered our 
 purpose well enough. We reclined within 
 it till bedtime, each with his baggage at 
 his head, or else sat about the fire, having 
 hung our wet clothes on a pole before 
 the fire for the night. 
 
 As we sat there, just before night, look- 
 ing out through the dusky wood, the In- 
 dian heard a noise which he said was 
 made by a snake. He imitated it at my 
 request, making a low whistling note — 
 pheet — pheet — two or three times re- 
 peated, somewhat like the peep of the 
 hyla, but not so loud. He said that he 
 had never seen them while making it, but 
 going to the spot he finds the snake. This, 
 
34 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 he said, was a sign of rain. When I had 
 selected this place for our camp he had 
 remarked that there were snakes there. 
 " But they won't do any hurt," I said. 
 
 "Oh, no," he answered, "just as you 
 say; it makes no difference to me." 
 
 He lay on the right side of the tent, 
 because, as he said, he was partly deaf in 
 one ear, and he wanted to lie with his 
 good ear up. As we lay there he inquired 
 if I ever heard "Indian sing." I replied 
 that I had not often, and asked him if 
 he would not favor us with a song. He 
 readily assented, and, lying on his back, 
 with his blanket wrapped around him, he 
 commenced a slow, somewhat nasal, yet 
 musical chant, in his own language, which 
 probably was taught his tribe long ago 
 by the Catholic missionaries. He trans- 
 lated it to us, sentence by sentence, after- 
 ward. It proved to be a very simple 
 religious exercise or hymn, the burden of 
 which was that there was only one God 
 who ruled all the world. 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 35 
 
 His singing carried me back to the pe- 
 riod of the discovery of America, when 
 Europeans first encountered the simple 
 faith of the Indian. There was, indeed, a 
 beautiful simplicity about it; nothing of 
 the dark and savage, only the mild and 
 infantile. The sentiments of humility and 
 reverence chiefly were expressed. 
 
 It was a dense and damp spruce and fir 
 wood in which we lay, and, except for our 
 fire, perfectly dark ; and when I awoke in 
 the night, I either heard an owl from 
 deeper in the forest behind us, or a loon 
 from a distance over the lake. Getting up 
 some time after midnight to collect the 
 scattered brands together, while my com- 
 panions were sound asleep, I observed, 
 partly in the fire, which had ceased to 
 blaze, a perfectly regular elliptical ring of 
 light, about five inches in its shortest diam- 
 eter, six or seven in its longer, and from 
 one eighth to one quarter of an inch wide. 
 It was fully as bright as the fire, but not 
 reddish or scarlet like a coal, but a white 
 
36 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 and slumbering light, like the glowworm's. 
 I saw at once that it must be phosphor- 
 escent wood, which I had often heard of, 
 but never chanced to see. Putting my fin- 
 ger on it, with a little hesitation, I found 
 that it was a piece of dead moosewood 
 which the Indian had cut off in a slanting 
 direction the evening before. 
 
 Using my knife, I discovered that the 
 light proceeded from that portion of the 
 sapwood immediately under the bark, and 
 thus presented a regular ring at the end, 
 and when I pared off the bark and cut into 
 the sap, it was all aglow along the log. I 
 was surprised to find the wood quite hard 
 and apparently sound, though probably 
 decay had commenced in the sap, and I 
 cut out some little triangular chips, and, 
 placing them in the hollow of my hand, car- 
 ried them into the camp, waked my com- 
 panion, and showed them to him. They 
 lit up the inside of my hand, revealing the 
 lines and wrinkles, and appearing exactly 
 like coals of fire raised to a white heat. 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 37 
 
 I noticed that part of a decayed stump 
 within four or five feet of the fire, an inch 
 wide and six inches long, soft and shaking 
 wood, shone with equal brightness. 
 
 I neglected to ascertain whether our fire 
 had anything to do with this, but the pre- 
 vious day's rain and long-continued wet 
 weather undoubtedly had. 
 
 I was exceedingly interested by this 
 phenomenon. It could hardly have thrilled 
 me more if it had taken the form of let- 
 ters, or of the human face. I little thought 
 that there was such a light shining in the 
 darkness of the wilderness for me. 
 
 The next day the Indian told me their 
 name for the light — artoosoqu* — and on 
 my inquiring concerning the will-o'-the- 
 wisp he said that his " folks " sometimes 
 saw fires passing along at various heights, 
 even as high as the trees, and making a 
 noise. I was prepared after this to hear of 
 the most startling and unimagined phe- 
 nemona witnessed by " his folks," they are 
 abroad at all hours and seasons in scenes 
 
38 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 so unfrequented by white men. Nature 
 must have made a thousand revelations to 
 them which are still secrets to us. 
 
 I did not regret my not having seen 
 this before, since I now saw it under cir- 
 cumstances so favorable. I was in just the 
 frame of mind to see something wonder- 
 ful, and this was a phenomenon adequate 
 to my circumstances and expectation, and 
 it put me on the alert to see more like it. 
 I let science slide, and rejoiced in that 
 light as if it had been a fellow creature. 
 A scientific explanation, as it is called, would 
 have been altogether out of place there. 
 That is for pale daylight. Science with its 
 retorts would have put me to sleep ; it was 
 the opportunity to be ignorant that I im- 
 proved. It made a believer of me more 
 than before. I believed that the woods 
 were not tenantless, but choke-full of hon- 
 est spirits as good as myself any day — not 
 an empty chamber in which chemistry was 
 left to work alone, but an inhabited house. 
 It suggested, too, that the same experience 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 39 
 
 always gives birth to the same sort of be- 
 lief or religion. One revelation has been 
 made to the Indian, another to the white 
 man. I have much to learn of the Indian, 
 nothing of the missionary. I am not sure 
 but all that would tempt me to teach the 
 Indian my religion would be his promise 
 to teach me his. Long enough I had heard 
 of irrelevant things ; now at length I was 
 glad to make acquaintance with the light 
 that dwells in rotten wood. 
 
 I kept those little chips and wet them 
 again the next night, but they emitted no 
 light. 
 
Ill 
 
 SATURDAY, JULY 25 
 
 AT breakfast, the Indian, evidently 
 curious to know what would be ex- 
 pected of him the next day, asked me how 
 I spent the Sunday when at home. I told 
 him that I commonly sat in my chamber 
 reading, etc., in the forenoon, and went 
 to walk in the afternoon. At which he 
 shook his head and said, " Er, that is ver' 
 bad." 
 
 "How do you spend it?" I asked. 
 
 He said that he did no work, that he 
 went to church at Oldtown when he was 
 at home ; in short, he did as he had been 
 taught by the whites. 
 
 When we were washing the dishes in 
 the lakes, many fishes came close up to us 
 to get the particles of grease. 
 
 The weather seemed to be more settled 
 this morning, and we set out early in order 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 41 
 
 to finish our voyage up the lake before the 
 wind arose. Soon after starting, the Indian 
 directed our attention to the Northeast 
 Carry, which we could plainly see, about 
 thirteen miles distant. This carry is a rude 
 wooden railroad running north and south 
 about two miles, perfectly straight, from 
 the lake to the Penobscot through a low 
 tract, with a clearing three or four rods 
 wide. This opening appeared as a clear 
 bright, or light, point in the horizon, rest- 
 ing on the edge of the lake. We should 
 not have suspected it to be visible if the 
 Indian had not drawn our attention to it. 
 It was a remarkable kind of light to steer 
 for — daylight seen through a vista in the 
 forest — but visible as far as an ordinary 
 beacon by night. 
 
 We crossed a deep wide bay north of 
 Kineo, leaving an island on our left and 
 keeping up the eastern side of the lake. 
 We then crossed another broad bay, which, 
 as we could no longer observe the shore 
 particularly, afforded ample time for con- 
 
42 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 versation. The Indian said that he had got 
 his money by hunting, mostly high up the 
 West Branch of the Penobscot, and toward 
 the head of the St, John. He had hunted 
 there from a boy, and knew all about that 
 region. His game had been beaver, otter, 
 black cat (or fisher), sable, moose, etc. 
 Canada lynx were plenty yet in burnt 
 grounds. For food in the woods he uses 
 partridges, ducks, dried moose meat, hedge- 
 hog, etc. Loons, too, were good, only " bile 
 'em good." 
 
 Pointing into the bay he said that it 
 was the way to various lakes which he 
 knew. Only solemn bear-haunted moun- 
 tains with their great wooded slopes were 
 visible. The Indian said that he had been 
 along there several times. I asked him 
 how he guided himself in the woods. 
 
 " Oh," said he, " I can tell good many 
 ways." 
 
 When I pressed him further he an- 
 swered, *' Sometimes I lookum sidehill," 
 and he glanced toward a high hill or 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 43 
 
 mountain on the eastern shore; "great 
 difference between the north and south; 
 see where the sun has shone most. So 
 trees — the large limbs bend toward south. 
 Sometimes I lookum locks" (rocks). 
 
 I asked what he saw on the rocks, but 
 he did not describe anything in particu- 
 lar, answering vaguely, in a mysterious or 
 drawling tone, " Bare locks on lake shore 
 — great difference between north, south, 
 east, west side — can tell what the sun has 
 shone on." 
 
 "Suppose," said I, "that I should take 
 you in a dark night right up here into the 
 middle of the woods a hundred miles, set 
 you down, and turn you round quickly 
 twenty times, could you steer straight to 
 Oldtown?" 
 
 " Oh, yer," said he, " have done pretty 
 much same thing. I will tell you. Some 
 years ago I met an old white hunter at 
 Millinocket ; very good hunter. He said 
 he could go anywhere in the woods. He 
 wanted to hunt with me that day, so we 
 
44 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 start. We chase a moose all the forenoon, 
 round and round, till middle of afternoon, 
 when we kill him. Then I said to him, 
 *Now you go straight to camp.' 
 
 " He said, * I can't do that. I don't 
 know where I am.' 
 
 " * Where you think camp ?' I asked. 
 
 " He pointed so. Then I laugh at him. 
 I take the lead and go right off the other 
 way, cross our tracks many times, straight 
 camp.'' 
 
 "How do you do that?*' asked I. 
 
 " Oh, I can't tell you^ he replied. 
 ** Great difference between me and white 
 man." 
 
 It appeared as if the sources of infor- 
 mation were so various that he did not 
 give a distinct conscious attention to any 
 one, and so could not readily refer to any 
 when questioned about it, but he found 
 his way very much as an animal does. 
 Perhaps what is commonly called instinct 
 in the animal in this case is merely a sharp- 
 ened and educated sense. Often, when an 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 45 
 
 Indian says, " I don't know," in regard to 
 the route he is to take, he does not mean 
 what a white man would by those words, 
 for his Indian instinct may tell him still 
 as much as the most confident white man 
 knows. He does not carry things in his 
 head, nor remember the route exactly, like 
 a white man, but relies on himself at the 
 moment. Not having experienced the 
 need of the other sort of knowledge — 
 all labeled and arranged — he has not 
 acquired it. 
 
 The hunter with whom I talked in 
 the stage knew some of the resources of 
 the Indian. He said that he steered by the 
 wind, or by the limbs of the hemlocks, 
 which were largest on the south side; also 
 sometimes, when he knew that there was a 
 lake near, by firing his gun and listening 
 to hear the direction and distance of the 
 echo from over it. 
 
 As the forenoon advanced the wind in- 
 creased. The last bay which we crossed 
 before reaching the desolate pier at the 
 
46 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 Northeast Carry, was two or three miles 
 over, and the wind was southwesterly. After 
 going a third of the way, the waves had 
 increased so as occasionally to wash into 
 the canoe, and we saw that it was worse 
 ahead. At first we might have turned 
 about, but were not willing to. It would 
 have been of no use to follow the course 
 of the shore, for the waves ran still higher 
 there on account of the greater sweep the 
 wind had. At any rate it would have been 
 dangerous now to alter our course, because 
 the waves would have struck us at an ad- 
 vantage. It will not do to meet them at 
 right angles, for then they will wash in 
 both sides, but you must take them quar- 
 tering. So the Indian stood up in the 
 canoe and exerted all his skill and strength 
 for a mile or two, while I paddled right 
 along in order to give him more steerage- 
 way. For more than a mile he did not 
 allow a single wave to strike the canoe as 
 it would, but turned it quickly from this 
 side to that, so that it would always be on 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 47 
 
 or near the crest of a wave when it broke, 
 where all its force was spent, and we merely 
 settled down with it. At length I jumped 
 out onto the end of the pier against which 
 the waves were dashing violently, in order 
 to lighten the canoe and catch it at the 
 landing, which was not much sheltered, 
 but just as I jumped we took in two or 
 three gallons of water. I remarked to the 
 Indian, "You managed that well," to 
 which he replied: " Ver' few men do that. 
 Great many waves; when I look out for 
 one, another come quick." 
 
 While the Indian went to get cedar 
 bark, etc., to carry his canoe with, we 
 cooked the dinner on the shore in the 
 midst of a sprinkling rain. He prepared 
 his canoe for carrying in this wise. He 
 took a cedar shingle or splint eighteen 
 inches long and four or five wide, rounded 
 at one end, that the corners might not be 
 in the way, and tied it with cedar bark by 
 two holes made midway, near the edge on 
 each side, to the middle crossbar of the 
 
48 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 canoe. When the canoe was Hfted upon 
 his head bottom up, this shingle, with its 
 rounded end uppermost, distributed the 
 weight over his shoulders and head, while 
 a band of cedar bark, tied to the crossbar 
 on each side of the shingle, passed round 
 his breast, and another longer one, outside 
 of the last, round his forehead ; also a hand 
 on each side rail served to steer the canoe 
 and keep it from rocking. He thus carried 
 it with his shoulders, head, breast, fore- 
 head, and both hands, as if the upper part 
 of his body were all one hand to clasp and 
 hold it. A cedar tree furnished all the gear 
 in this case, as it had the woodwork of the 
 canoe. One of the paddles rested on the 
 crossbars in the bows. I took the canoe 
 upon my head and found that I could 
 carry it with ease, but I let him carry it, 
 not caring to establish a different precedent. 
 This shingle remained tied to the crossbar 
 throughout the voyage, was always ready 
 for the carries, and also served to protect 
 the back of one passenger. 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 49 
 
 We were obliged to go over this carry 
 twice, our load was so great. But the 
 carries were an agreeable variety, and we 
 improved the opportunity to gather the 
 rare plants which we had seen, when we 
 returned empty-handed. 
 
 We reached the Penobscot about four 
 o'clock, and found there some St. Francis 
 Indians encamped on the bank. They were 
 making a canoe and drying moose meat. 
 Their camp was covered with spruce bark. 
 They had a young moose, taken in the 
 river a fortnight before, confined in a sort 
 of cage of logs piled up cob-fashion, seven 
 or eight feet high. It was quite tame, 
 about four feet high, and covered with 
 moose flies. There was a large quantity of 
 cornel, red maple, and also willow and 
 aspen boughs, stuck through between the 
 logs on all sides, butt ends out, and on their 
 leaves it was browsing. It looked at first 
 as if it were in a bower rather than a 
 pen. 
 
 Our Indian said that he used black spruce 
 
so CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 roots to sew canoes with, obtaining it from 
 high lands or mountains. The St. Francis 
 Indians thought that white spruce roots 
 might be best. But the former said, "No 
 good, break, can't split 'em." 
 
 I told him I thought that I could make 
 a canoe, but he expressed great doubt of it ; 
 at any rate he thought that my work would 
 not be "neat" the first time. 
 
 Having reloaded, we paddled down the 
 Penobscot. We saw a splendid yellow lily 
 by the shore, which I plucked. It was six 
 feet high and had twelve flowers, in two 
 whorls, forming a pyramid. We afterward 
 saw many more thus tall along this stream, 
 and on the East Branch. The Indian said 
 that the roots were good for soup, that is, 
 to cook with meat, to thicken it, taking 
 the place of flour. They get them in the 
 fall. I dug some, and found a mass of bulbs 
 pretty deep in the earth, two inches in 
 diameter, looking, and even tasting, some- 
 what like raw green corn on the ear. 
 
 When we had gone about three miles 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 51 
 
 down the Penobscot, we saw through the 
 tree-tops a thunder-shower coming up in 
 the west, and we looked out a camping- 
 place in good season, about five o'clock. 
 
 I will describe the routine of camping. 
 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 be- 
 tween 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 there- 
 fore mosquitoey. We then took out the 
 baggage and drew up the canoe. The In- 
 dian cut a path to the spot we had selected, 
 which was usually within two or three 
 
52 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 rods of the water, and we carried up our 
 baggage. 
 
 One, perhaps, takes birch bark, always 
 at hand, and dead dry wood, 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 pack- 
 ages. 
 
 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 to fasten 
 it down with, and then collects an armful 
 or two of fir twigs, arbor-vits, spruce, or 
 
Making a Camp in the Streamside yVoodland 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 53 
 
 hemlock, whichever is at hand, and makes 
 the bed, beginning at either end, and lay- 
 ing 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. 
 
 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, 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. 
 
 Though you have nothing to do but 
 see the country, there 's rarely any time to 
 spare, hardly enough to examine a plant. 
 
54 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 before the night or drowsiness is upon 
 you. 
 
 Such was the ordinary experience, but 
 this evening we had camped earlier on ac- 
 count of the rain, and had more time. We 
 found that our camp was on an old indis- 
 tinct 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 sev- 
 eral feet deep. It is only an indistinct vista 
 through the wood, which it takes an ex- 
 perienced 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 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 55 
 
 box of matches having been left out and 
 spoiled, and before we were aware of it 
 the shower was over, and only the drip- 
 ping trees imprisoned us. 
 
 Wishing to see what fishes were in the 
 river there, we cast our lines over the wet 
 bushes on the shore, but they were repeat- 
 edly 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. We pushed up this a rod 
 or two, but were soon driven off by the 
 mosquitoes. While there we heard the 
 Indian fire his gun twice in rapid succes- 
 sion. 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 ex- 
 pected 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 
 
56 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 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 be- 
 fore we fell asleep this suddenly blazed up 
 and came near setting fire to the tent. 
 
IV 
 
 SUNDAY, JULY 26 
 
 THE note of the white-throated spar- \ 
 row was the first heard in the morn- 
 ing, and with this all the woods rang. 
 Though commonly unseen, their simple 
 a&y 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. 
 We were commonly aroused by their lively 
 strain very early. What a glorious time they 
 must have in that wilderness, far from man- 
 kind ! 
 
 I told the Indian that we would go to 
 church to Chesuncook this 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 notes of the chickadee, and. 
 
58 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 I believe, redstarts. 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 look up all that, and then Monday 
 look again." 
 
 He spoke of an Indian of his acquaint- 
 ance who had been with some ministers 
 to Katahdin 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, 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 go- 
 ing along a river, they came to the body 
 of a man in the water, drowned good 
 while. They go right ashore — stop there, 
 go no farther that day — they have meet- 
 ing there, preach and pray just like Sun- 
 day. Then they go back and carry the 
 body with them. Oh, they ver' good men." 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 59 
 
 I judged from this account that their 
 every camp was a camp-meeting, and that 
 they wanted an opportunity to preach 
 somewhere more than to see Katahdin. 
 
 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 In- 
 dian, kneeling before the camp, morning 
 and evening — sometimes scrambling up 
 in haste when he had forgotten this, and 
 saying them with great rapidity. In the 
 course of the day he remarked, "Poor 
 man rememberum God more than rich." 
 
 We soon passed the island where I had 
 camped four years before. The deadwater, 
 a mile or two below it, the Indian said 
 
6o CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 was "a great place for moose." 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 com- 
 mon hoo, boo, hoo, hoorer, hoo, of our woods. 
 
 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 pass- 
 ing these falls in a bateau, 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 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 6i 
 
 journey near the end of the carry. It was 
 fourteen and one half feet in circumfer- 
 ence at two feet from the ground, but at 
 five feet divided into three parts. The In- 
 dian 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 cur- 
 rent. This taught us the difference be- 
 tween 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 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 waterfowl 
 near the shore, forty or fifty rods below. 
 It alternately appeared and disappeared 
 behind the rock, being carried round by 
 an eddy. 
 
62 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 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 ap- 
 peared that he had represented his tribe 
 at Augusta, and once at Washington. He 
 had a great idea of education, and would 
 occasionally break out into such expressions 
 as this, " Kademy — good thing — I sup- 
 pose they usum Fifth Reader there. You 
 been college?" 
 
 We steered across the northwest end of 
 the lake. 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. The 
 lakes also reveal the mountains, and give 
 ample scope and range to our thought. 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 63 
 
 Already there were half a dozen log huts 
 about this end of the lake, though so far 
 from a road. In these woods the earliest 
 settlements are clustering about the lakes, 
 partly, I think, for the sake of the neigh- 
 borhood as the oldest clearings. Water is 
 a pioneer which the settler follows, taking 
 advantage of its improvements. 
 
 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. Our course 
 was up the Umbazookskus, but as the In- 
 dian knew of a good camping-place, that 
 is, a cool place where there were few mos- 
 quitoes, about half a mile farther up the 
 Caucomgomoc, we went thither. 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 
 
64 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 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 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. I interline the 
 English of his Indian as he gave it to 
 me. 
 
 (The figure of a bear in a boat.) 
 July 26 
 
 1853 
 
 ntasoseb 
 We alone Joseph 
 PoHs elioi 
 Polls start 
 sia olta 
 for Oldtown 
 onke ni 
 right away 
 quambi 
 
 July 15 
 
 1855 
 
 niasoseb 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 65 
 He added now below: — 
 
 1857 
 
 July 26 
 Jo. Polls 
 
 This was one of his homes. I saw 
 where he had sometimes stretched his 
 moose-hides on the 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 willing- 
 ness to run the risk. But it seemed to me 
 that we should be fools to lie under it, for 
 
66 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 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. 
 
 The Indian said that the Umbazooks- 
 kus, being a dead stream with broad mead- 
 ows, was a good place for moose, and he 
 frequently came a-hunting here, being 
 out alone three weeks or more from Old- 
 town. He sometimes, also, went a-hunt- 
 ing 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 
 ofFat 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, put- 
 ting but few ribs into it, that it might be 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 67 
 
 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 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 sev- 
 eral times. 
 
 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 
 
68 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 camp, I noticed that they consisted chiefly 
 of firs, spruce, red maple, birch, and, 
 along the river, the hoary alder. 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 featherlike moss, eighteen inches 
 wide and twenty or thirty feet long, 
 crossed by other similar lines. 
 
 Wild as it was, it was hard for me to 
 get rid of the associations of the settle- 
 ments. Any steady and monotonous sound, 
 to which I did not distinctly attend, passed 
 for a sound of human industry. The water- 
 falls which I heard were not without their 
 dams and mills to my imagination ; and 
 several times I found that I had been re- 
 garding the steady rushing sound of the 
 wind from over the woods beyond the 
 rivers as that of a train of cars. Our minds 
 anywhere, when left to themselves, are al- 
 ways thus busily drawing conclusions from 
 false premises. 
 
 I asked the Indian to make us a sugar- 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 69 
 
 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. 
 
 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. As the 
 two twigs appeared very much alike, my 
 companion asked the Indian to point out 
 the difference ; whereupon the latter, tak- 
 ing the twigs, instantly remarked, as he 
 passed his hand over them successively in 
 a stroking manner, that the white was 
 rough, that is, the needles stood up nearly 
 perpendicular, but the black smooth, that 
 is, as if bent down. This was an obvious 
 difference, both to sight and touch. 
 
 I asked him to get some black spruce 
 
70 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 root and make some thread. Whereupon, 
 without looking up at the trees overhead, 
 he began to grub in the ground, instantly 
 distinguishing the black spruce roots, and 
 cutting off a slender one, three or four 
 feet long, and as big as a pipestem, he 
 split the end with his knife, and taking a 
 half between the thumb and forefinger of 
 each hand, rapidly separated its whole 
 length into two equal semi-cylindrical 
 halves. Then, giving me another root, he 
 said, " You try." 
 
 But in my hands it immediately ran off 
 one side, and I got only a very short 
 piece. Though it looked easy, I found 
 that there was a great art in splitting 
 these roots. The split is skillfully hu- 
 mored by bending short with this hand 
 or that, and so kept in the middle. He 
 then took off the bark from each half, 
 pressing a short piece of cedar bark 
 against the convex side with both hands, 
 while he drew the root upward with his 
 teeth. An Indian's teeth are strong, and 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 71 
 
 I noticed that he used his often where we 
 should have used a hand. They amounted 
 to a third hand. He thus obtained in a 
 moment a very neat, tough, and flexible 
 string, which he could tie into a knot, or 
 make into a fishline even. He said that 
 you would be obliged to give half a dollar 
 for spruce root enough for a canoe, thus 
 prepared. 
 
 He had discovered the day before that 
 his canoe leaked a little, and said that it 
 was owing to stepping into it violently. I 
 asked him where he would get pitch to 
 mend it with, for they commonly use 
 hard pitch, obtained of the whites at 
 Oldtown. He said that he could make 
 something very similar, and equally good, 
 of material which we had with us; and 
 he wished me to guess what. But I could 
 not, and he would not tell me, though he 
 showed me a ball of it when made, as 
 big as a pea and like black pitch, saying, 
 at last, that there were some things which 
 a man did not tell even his wife. 
 
72 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 Being curious to see what kind of 
 fishes there were in this dark, deep, slug- 
 gish river, I cast in my line just before 
 night, and caught several small sucker-like 
 fishes, which the Indian at once rejected, 
 saying that they were good for nothing. 
 Also, he would not touch a pout, which 
 I caught, and said that neither Indians 
 nor whites thereabouts ever ate them. 
 But he said that some small silvery fishes, 
 which I called white chivin, were the best 
 fish in the Penobscot waters, and if I 
 would toss them up the bank to him, 
 he would cook them for me. After clean- 
 ing them, not very carefully, leaving the 
 heads on, he laid them on the coals and 
 so broiled them. 
 
 Returning from a short walk, he 
 brought a vine in his hand, saying that it 
 made the best tea of anything in the woods. 
 It was the creeping snowberry, which 
 was quite common there, its berries just 
 grown. So we determined to have some 
 tea made of this. It had a slight checker- 
 

 lishing 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 73 
 
 berry flavor, and we both agreed that it 
 was really better than the black tea which 
 we had brought. We thought it quite a 
 discovery, and that it might well be dried 
 and sold in the shops. I for one, how- 
 ever, am not an old tea-drinker and can- 
 not speak with authority to others. The 
 Indian said that they also used for tea a 
 certain herb which grew in low ground, 
 which he did not find there, and Labra- 
 dor tea; also hemlock leaves, the last 
 especially in winter when the other plants 
 were covered with snow; and various 
 other things. We could have had a new 
 kind of tea every night. 
 
 Just before night we saw a musquash^ 
 the only one we saw in this voyage, 
 swimming downward on the opposite side 
 of the stream. The Indian, wishing to 
 get one to eat, hushed us, saying, " Stop, 
 me call 'em"; and, sitting flat on the 
 bank, he began to make a curious squeak- 
 ing, wiry sound with his lips, exerting 
 himself considerably. I was greatly sur- 
 
74 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 prised — thought that I had at last got 
 into the wilderness, and that he was a wild 
 man indeed, to be talking to a musquash ! 
 I did not know which of the two was the 
 strangest to me. He seemed suddenly to 
 have quite forsaken humanity, and gone 
 over to the musquash side. The mus- 
 quash, however, as near as I could see, did 
 not turn aside, and the Indian said that he 
 saw our fire ; but it was evident that he 
 was in the habit of calling the musquash 
 to him, as he said. An acquaintance of 
 mine who was hunting moose in these 
 woods a month after this, tells me that his 
 Indian in this way repeatedly called the 
 musquash within reach of his paddle in 
 the moonlight, and struck at them. 
 
 The Indian said a particularly long 
 prayer this Sunday evening, as if to atone 
 for working in the morning. 
 
MONDAY, JULY 27 
 
 HAVING rapidly loaded the canoe, 
 which the Indian always carefully 
 attended to, that it might be well trimmed, 
 and each having taken a look, as usual, to 
 see that nothing was left, we set out again, 
 descending the Caucomgomoc, and turn- 
 ing northeasterly up the Umbazookskus. 
 This name, the Indian said, meant Much 
 Meadow River. We found it now very 
 wide on account of the rains. The space 
 between the woods, chiefly bare meadow, 
 was from fifty to two hundred rods in 
 breadth. 
 
 In the water on the meadows grew 
 sedges, wool-grass, the common blue flag 
 abundantly, its flower just showing itself 
 above the high water, as if it were a blue 
 water-lily, and higher in the meadows a 
 great many clumps of a peculiar narrow- 
 
76 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 leaved willow. Here also grew the red 
 osier, its large fruit now whitish. 
 
 It was unusual for the woods to be so 
 distant from the shore, and there was 
 quite an echo from them, but when I was 
 shouting in order to awake it, the Indian 
 reminded me that I should scare the 
 moose, which he was looking out for, and 
 which we all wanted to see. 
 
 Having paddled several miles up the 
 Umbazookskus, it suddenly contracted to 
 a mere brook, narrow and swift, the larches 
 and other trees approaching the bank and 
 leaving no open meadow. We landed to 
 get a black spruce pole for pushing against 
 the stream. The one selected was quite 
 slender, cut about ten feet long, merely 
 whittled to a point, and the bark shaved 
 off. 
 
 While we were thus employed, two In- 
 dians in a canoe hove in sight round the 
 bushes, coming down stream. Our Indian 
 knew one of them, an old man, and fell 
 into conversation with him. He belonged 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH -jj 
 
 at the foot of Moosehead. The other was 
 of another tribe. They were returning 
 from hunting. I asked the younger if they 
 had seen any moose, to which he said 
 "No"; but I, seeing the moose-hides 
 sticking out from a great bundle made 
 with their blankets in the middle of the 
 canoe, added, " Only their hides." 
 
 As he was a foreigner, he may have 
 wished to deceive me, for it is against the 
 law for white men and foreigners to kill 
 moose in Maine at this season. But per- 
 haps he need not have been alarmed, for 
 the moose-wardens are not very particular. 
 I heard of one who, being asked by a white 
 man going into the woods what he would 
 say if he killed a moose, answered, " If 
 you bring me a quarter of it I guess you 
 won't be troubled." His duty being, as he 
 said, only to prevent the " indiscriminate " 
 slaughter of them for their hides. I sup- 
 pose that he would consider it an indiscrifn- 
 inate slaughter when a quarter was not 
 reserved for himself. 
 
78 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 We continued along through the most 
 extensive larch wood which I had seen — 
 tall and slender trees with fantastic branches. 
 You do not find straggling trees of this spe- 
 cies here and there throughout the wood, 
 but rather a little forest of them. The same 
 is the case with the white and red pines and 
 some other trees, greatly to the convenience 
 of the lumberer. They are of a social 
 habit, growing in " veins," " clumps,'* 
 "groups," or "communities," as the ex- 
 plorers call them, distinguishing them far 
 away, from the top of a hill or a tree, the 
 white pines towering above the surround- 
 ing forest, or else they form extensive 
 forests by themselves. I should have liked 
 to come across a large community of pines 
 which had never been invaded by the 
 lumbering army. 
 
 We saw some fresh moose-tracks along 
 the shore. The stream was only from one 
 and one half to three rods wide, quite wind- 
 ing, with occasional small islands, meadows, 
 and some very swift and shallow places. 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 79 
 
 When we came to an island the Indian 
 never hesitated which side to take, as if 
 the current told him which was the short- 
 est and deepest. It was lucky for us that 
 the water was so high. We had to walk 
 but once on this stream, carrying a part of 
 the load, at a swift and shallow reach, while 
 he got up with the canoe, not being obliged 
 to take out, though he said it was very 
 strong water. Once or twice we passed 
 the red wreck of a bateau which had 
 been stove some spring. 
 
 While making this portage I saw many 
 splendid specimens of the great purple 
 fringed orchis, three feet high. It is re- 
 markable that such delicate flowers should 
 here adorn these wilderness paths. 
 
 The Umbazookskus is called ten miles 
 long. Having poled up the narrowest part 
 some three or four miles, the next opening 
 in the sky was over Umbazookskus Lake, 
 which we suddenly entered about eleven 
 o'clock in the forenoon. It stretches north- 
 westerly four or five miles. We crossed 
 
8o CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 the southeast end to the carry into Mud 
 Pond. 
 
 Hodge, who went through this way to 
 the St. Lawrence in the service of the State, 
 calls the portage here a mile and three 
 quarters long. The Indian said this was 
 the wettest carry in the State, and as the 
 season was a very wet one we anticipated 
 an unpleasant walk. As usual he made 
 one large bundle of the pork-keg, cook- 
 ing-utensils, and other loose traps, by 
 tying them up in his blanket. We should 
 be obliged to go over the carry twice, and 
 our method was to carry one half part way, 
 and then go back for the rest. 
 
 Our path ran close by the door of a log 
 hut in a clearing at this end of the carry, 
 which the Indian, who alone entered it, 
 found to be occupied by a Canadian and 
 his family, and that the man had been 
 blind for a year. This was the first house 
 above Chesuncook, and was built here, no 
 doubt, because it was the route of the 
 lumberers in the winter and spring. 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 8i 
 
 After a slight ascent from the lake 
 through the springy soil of the Canadian's 
 clearing, we entered on a level and very 
 wet and rocky path through the dense 
 evergreen forest, a loosely paved gutter 
 merely, where we went leaping from rock 
 to rock and from side to side in the vain 
 attempt to keep out of the water and mud. 
 It was on this carry that the white hunter 
 whom I met in the stage, as he told me, 
 had shot two bears a few months before. 
 They stood directly in the path and did 
 not turn out for him. He said that at this 
 season bears were found on the mountains 
 and hillsides in search of berries and were 
 apt to be saucy. 
 
 Here commences what was called, 
 twenty years ago, the best timber land in 
 the State. This very spot was described as 
 ** covered with the greatest abundance of 
 pine," but now this appeared to me, com- 
 paratively, an uncommon tree there — and 
 yet you did not see where any more could 
 have stood, amid the dense growth of 
 cedar, fir, etc. 
 
82 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 The Indian with his canoe soon disap- 
 peared before us, but ere long he came back 
 and told us to take a path which turned 
 off westward, it being better walking, and, 
 at my suggestion, he agreed to leave a 
 bough in the regular carry at that place 
 that we might not pass it by mistake. 
 Thereafter, he said, we were to keep the 
 main path, and he added, "You see 'em 
 my tracks/' 
 
 But I had not much faith that we could 
 distinguish his tracks, since others had 
 passed over the carry within a few days. 
 We turned off at the right place, but were 
 soon confused by numerous logging-paths 
 coming into the one we were on. How- 
 ever, we kept what we considered the 
 main path, though it was a winding one, 
 and in this, at long intervals, we distin- 
 guished a faint trace of a footstep. This, 
 though comparatively unworn, was at first 
 a better, or, at least, a dryer road than the 
 regular carry which we had left. It led 
 through an arbor-vitae wilderness of the 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 83 
 
 grimmest character. The great fallen and 
 rotting trees had been cut through and 
 rolled aside, and their huge trunks abutted 
 on the path on each side, while others still 
 lay across it two or three feet high. 
 
 It was impossible for us to discern the 
 Indian's trail in the elastic moss, which, 
 like a thick carpet, covered every rock and 
 fallen tree, as well as the earth. Neverthe- 
 less, I did occasionally detect the track of 
 a man, and I gave myself some credit for 
 it. I carried my whole load at once, a 
 heavy knapsack, and a large rubber bag 
 containing our bread and a blanket, swung 
 on a paddle, in all about sixty pounds; but 
 my companion preferred to make two jour- 
 neys by short stages while I waited for him. 
 We could not be sure that we were not 
 depositing our loads each time farther off 
 from the true path. 
 
 As I sat waiting for my companion, he 
 would seem to be gone a long time, and 
 I had ample opportunity to make observa- 
 tions on the forest. I now first began to 
 
84 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 be seriously molested by the black fly, a 
 very small but perfectly formed fly of that 
 color, about one tenth of an inch long, 
 which I felt, and then saw, in swarms 
 about me, as I sat by a wider and more 
 than usually doubtful fork in this dark 
 forest path. Remembering that I had a 
 wash in my knapsack, prepared by a 
 thoughtful hand in Bangor, I made haste 
 to apply it to my face and hands, and was 
 glad to find it effectual, as long as it was 
 fresh, or for twenty minutes, not only 
 against black flies, but all the insects that 
 molested us. They would not alight on 
 the part thus defended. It was composed 
 of sweet oil and oil of turpentine, with a 
 little oil of spearmint, and camphor. How- 
 ever, I finally concluded that the remedy 
 was worse than the disease, it was so dis- 
 agreeable and inconvenient to have your 
 face and hands covered with such a mix- 
 ture. 
 
 Three large slate-colored birds of the 
 jay genus, the Canada jay, came flitting 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 85 
 
 silently and by degrees toward me, and 
 hopped down the limbs inquisitively to 
 within seven or eight feet. Fish hawks 
 from the lake uttered their sharp whist- 
 ling notes low over the top of the forest 
 near me, as if they were anxious about a 
 nest there. 
 
 After I had sat there some time I no- 
 ticed at this fork in the path a tree which 
 had been blazed, and the letters " Chamb. 
 L." written on it with red chalk. This I 
 knew to mean Chamberlain Lake. So I 
 concluded that on the whole we were on 
 the right course. 
 
 My companion having returned with 
 his bag, we set forward again. The walk- 
 ing rapidly grew worse and the path more 
 indistinct, and at length we found ourselves 
 in a more open and regular swamp made 
 less passable than ordinary by the unusual 
 wetness of the season. We sank a foot deep 
 in water and mud at every step, and some- 
 times up to our knees. The trail was almost 
 obliterated, being no more than a mus- 
 
86 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 quash leaves in similar places when he parts 
 the floating sedge. In fact, it probably was 
 a musquash trail in some places. We con- 
 cluded that if Mud Pond was as muddy as 
 the approach to it was wet, it certainly de- 
 served its name. It would have been amus- 
 ing to behold the dogged and deliberate 
 pace at which we entered that swamp, 
 without interchanging a word, as if deter- 
 mined to go through it, though it should 
 come up to our necks. Having penetrated 
 a considerable distance into this and found 
 a tussock on which we could deposit our 
 loads, though there was no place to sit, 
 my companion went back for the rest of 
 his pack. 
 
 After a long while my companion came 
 back, and the Indian with him. We had 
 taken the wrong road, and the Indian had 
 lost us. He had gone back to the Cana- 
 dian's camp and asked him which way we 
 had probably gone, since he could better 
 understand the ways of white men, and he 
 told him correctly that we had undoubt- 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 87 
 
 edly taken the supply road to Chamber- 
 lain Lake. The Indian was greatly sur- 
 prised that we should have taken what he 
 called a " tow," that is, tote, toting, or 
 supply, road instead of a carry path, — that 
 we had not followed his tracks, — said 
 it was "strange," and evidently thought 
 little of our woodcraft. 
 
 Having held a consultation and eaten a 
 mouthful of bread, we concluded that it 
 would perhaps be nearer for us two now 
 to keep on to Chamberlain Lake, omit- 
 ting Mud Pond, than to go back and start 
 anew for the last place, though the In- 
 dian had never been through this way and 
 knew nothing about it. In the meanwhile 
 he would go back and finish carrying over 
 his canoe and bundle to Mud Pond, cross 
 that, and go down its outlet and up Cham- 
 berlain Lake, and trust to meet us there 
 before night. It was now a little after 
 noon. He supposed that the water in 
 which we stood had flowed back from 
 Mud Pond, which could not be far off 
 
88 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 eastward, but was unapproachable through 
 the dense cedar swamp. 
 
 Keeping on, we were ere long agreeably 
 disappointed by reaching firmer ground, 
 and we crossed a ridge where the path 
 was more distinct, but there was never any 
 outlook over the forest. At one place I 
 heard a very clear and piercing note from 
 a small hawk as he dashed through the 
 tree-tops over my head. We also saw and 
 heard several times the red squirrel. This, 
 according to the Indian, is the only squir- 
 rel found in those woods, except a very 
 few striped ones. It must have a solitary 
 time in that dark evergreen forest, where 
 there is so little life, seventy-five miles 
 from a road as we had come. I wondered 
 how he could call any particular tree 
 there his home, and yet he would run up 
 the stem of one out of the myriads, as if 
 it were an old road to him. I fancied that 
 he must be glad to see us, though he did 
 seem to chide us. One of those somber 
 fir and spruce woods is not complete un- 
 
f- 
 
 The Red Squirrel 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 89 
 
 less you hear from out its cavernous mossy 
 and twiggy recesses his line alarum — his 
 spruce voice, Hke the v^'orking of the sap 
 through some crack in a tree. Such an im- 
 pertinent fellow would occasionally try to 
 alarm the wood about me. 
 
 "Oh," said I, "I am well acquainted 
 with your family. I know your cousins in 
 Concord very well." But my overtures 
 were vain, for he would withdraw by his 
 aerial turnpikes into a more distant cedar- 
 top, and spring his rattle again. 
 
 We entered another swamp, at a neces- 
 sarily slow pace, where the walking was 
 worse than ever, not only on account of 
 the water, but the fallen timber, which 
 often obliterated the indistinct trail en- 
 tirely. The fallen trees were so numerous 
 that for long distances the route was 
 through a succession of small yards, where 
 we climbed over fences as high as our 
 heads, down into water often up to our 
 knees, and then over another fence into a 
 second yard, and so on. In many places 
 
90 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 the canoe would have run if it had not 
 been for the fallen timber. Again it would 
 be more open, but equally wet, too wet 
 for trees to grow. It was a mossy swamp, 
 which it required the long legs of a moose 
 to traverse, and it is very likely that we 
 scared some of them in our transit, though 
 we saw none. It was ready to echo the 
 growl of a bear, the howl of a wolf, or the 
 scream of a panther ; but when you get 
 fairly into the middle of one of these grim 
 forests you are surprised to find that the 
 larger inhabitants are not at home com- 
 monly, but have left only a puny red squir- 
 rel to bark at you. Generally speaking, a 
 howling wilderness does not howl ; it is the 
 imagination of the traveler that does the 
 howling. I did, however, see one dead 
 porcupine. Perhaps he had succumbed to 
 the difficulties of the way. These bristly 
 fellows are a very suitable small fruit of 
 such unkempt wildernesses. 
 
 Making a logging-road in the Maine 
 woods is called "swamping" it, and they 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 91 
 
 who do the work are called "swampers." 
 I now perceived the fitness of the term. 
 This was the most perfectly swamped of 
 all the roads I ever saw. Nature must have 
 cooperated with art here. However, I sup- 
 pose they would tell you that this name 
 took its origin from the fact that the chief 
 work of roadmakers in those woods is to 
 make the swamps passable. We came to 
 a stream where the bridge, which had been 
 made of logs tied together with cedar 
 bark, had been broken up, and we got 
 over as we could. Such as it was, this 
 ruined bridge was the chief evidence that 
 we were on a path of any kind. 
 
 We then crossed another low rising 
 ground, and I, who wore shoes, had an 
 opportunity to wring out my stockings, 
 but my companion, who used boots, had 
 found that this was not a safe experiment 
 for him, for he might not be able to get 
 his wet boots on again. He went over the 
 whole ground, or water, three times, for 
 which reason our progress was very slow. 
 
92 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 Beside that, the water softened our feet, 
 and to some extent unfitted them for walk- 
 ing. 
 
 As I sat waiting for him it would natur- 
 ally seem an unaccountable time that he 
 was gone. Therefore, as I could see through 
 the woods that the sun was getting low, 
 and it was uncertain how far the lake 
 might be, even if we were on the right 
 course, and in what part of the world we 
 should find ourselves at nightfall, I pro- 
 posed that I should push through with 
 what speed I could, leaving boughs to mark 
 my path, and find the lake and the In- 
 dian, if possible, before night, and send 
 the latter back to carry my companion's 
 bag. 
 
 Having gone about a mile I heard a 
 noise like the note of an owl, which I 
 soon discovered to be made by the Indian, 
 and answering him, we soon came together. 
 He had reached the lake after crossing 
 Mud Pond and running some rapids be- 
 low it, and had come up about a mile and 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 93 
 
 a half on our path. If he had not come 
 back to meet us, we probably should not 
 have found him that night, for the path 
 branched once or twice before reaching 
 this particular part of the lake. So he went 
 back for my companion and his bag. Hav- 
 ing waded through another stream, where 
 the bridge of logs had been broken up 
 and half floated away, we continued on 
 through alternate mud and water to the 
 shores of Apmoojenegamook Lake, which 
 we reached in season for a late supper, in- 
 stead of dining there, as we had expected, 
 having gone without our dinner. 
 
 It was at least five miles by the way we 
 had come, and as my companion had gone 
 over most of it three times he had walked 
 full a dozen miles. In the winter, when the 
 water is frozen and the snow is four feet 
 deep, it is no doubt a tolerable path to a 
 footman. If you want an exact recipe for 
 making such a road, take one part Mud 
 Pond, and dilute it with equal parts of 
 Umbazookskus and Apmoojenegamook; 
 
94 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 then send a family of musquash through 
 to locate it, look after the grades and cul- 
 verts, and finish it to their minds, and let 
 a hurricane follow to do the fencing. 
 
 We had come out on a point extending 
 into Apmoojenegamook, or Chamberlain 
 Lake, where there was a broad, gravelly, 
 and rocky shore, encumbered with bleached 
 logs and trees. We were rejoiced to see 
 such dry things in that part of the world. 
 But at first we did not attend to dryness 
 so much as to mud and wetness. We all 
 three walked into the lake up to our mid- 
 dle to wash our clothes. 
 
 This was another noble lake, twelve 
 miles long; if you add Telos Lake, which, 
 since the dam was built, has been con- 
 nected with it by dead water, it will be 
 twenty; and it is apparently from a mile 
 and a half to two miles wide. We were 
 about midway its length on the south side. 
 We could see the only clearing in these 
 parts, called the " Chamberlain Farm," 
 with two or three log buildings close to- 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 95 
 
 gether, on the opposite shore, some two 
 and a half miles distant. The smoke of 
 our fire on the shore brought over two men 
 in a canoe from the farm, that being a 
 common signal agreed on when one wishes 
 to cross. It took them about half an hour 
 to come over, and they had their labor for 
 their pains this time. 
 
 After putting on such dry clothes as we 
 had, and hanging the others to dry on the 
 pole which the Indian arranged over the 
 fire, we ate our supper, and lay down on 
 the pebbly shore with our feet to the fire 
 without pitching our tent, making a thin 
 bed of grass to cover the stones. 
 
 Here first I was molested by the little 
 midge called the no-see-em, especially over 
 the sand at the water's edge, for it is a 
 kind of sand-fly. You would not observe 
 them but for their light-colored wings. 
 They are said to get under your clothes 
 and produce a feverish heat, which I sup- 
 pose was what I felt that night. 
 
 Our insect foes in this excursion were. 
 
96 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 first, mosquitoes, only troublesome at night, 
 or when we sat still on shore by day; sec- 
 ond, black flies [simidium molestum)^ which 
 molested us more or less on the carries by 
 day, and sometimes in narrower parts of 
 the stream ; third, moose-flies, stout brown 
 flies much like a horsefly. They can bite 
 smartly, according to Polis, but are easily 
 avoided or killed. Fourth, the no-see-ems. 
 Of all these, the mosquitoes are the only 
 ones that troubled me seriously, but as I 
 was provided with a wash and a veil, they 
 have not made any deep impression. 
 
 The Indian would not use our wash to 
 protect his face and hands, for fear that 
 it would hurt his skin, nor had he any 
 veil. He, therefore, suflFered from insects 
 throughout this journey more than either 
 of us. He regularly tied up his face in his 
 handkerchief, and buried it in his blanket, 
 and he now finally lay down on the sand 
 between us and the fire for the sake of the 
 smoke, which he tried to make enter his 
 blanket about his face, and for the same 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 97 
 
 purpose he lit his pipe and breathed the 
 smoke into his blanket. 
 
 In the middle of the night we heard 
 the voice of the loon, loud and distinct, 
 from far over the lake. It is a very wild 
 sound, quite in keeping with the place 
 and the circumstances of the traveler, and 
 very unlike the voice of a bird. I could 
 lie awake for hours listening to it, it is so 
 thrilling. When camping in such a wil- 
 derness as this, you are prepared to hear 
 sounds from some of its inhabitants which 
 will give voice to its wildness. Some idea 
 of bears, wolves, or panthers runs in your 
 head naturally, and when this note is first 
 heard very far off at midnight, as you lie 
 with your ear to the ground, — the forest 
 being perfectly still about you, you take 
 it for granted that it is the voice of a 
 wolf or some other wild beast, — you con- 
 clude that it is a pack of wolves baying 
 the moon, or, perchance, cantering after 
 a moose. It was the unfailing and charac- 
 teristic sound of those lakes. 
 
98 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 Some friends of mine, who two years 
 ago went up the Caucomgomoc River, 
 were serenaded by wolves while moose- 
 hunting by moonlight. It was a sudden 
 burst, as if a hundred demons had broke 
 loose, — a startling sound enough, which, 
 if any, would make your hair stand on 
 end, — and all was still again. It lasted 
 but a moment, and you 'd have thought 
 there were twenty of them, when probably 
 there were only two or three. They heard 
 it twice only, and they said that it gave 
 expression to the wilderness which it 
 lacked before. I heard of some men, who, 
 while skinning a moose lately in those 
 woods, were driven off from the carcass 
 by a pack of wolves, which ate it up. 
 
 This of the loon — I do not mean its 
 laugh, but its looning — is a long-drawn 
 call, as it were, sometimes singularly hu- 
 man to my ear — hoo-hoo-ooooo ^ like the 
 hallooing of a man on a very high key, 
 having thrown his voice into his head. I 
 have heard a sound exactly like it when 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 99 
 
 breathing heavily through my own nos- 
 trils, half awake at ten at night, suggest- 
 ing my affinity to the loon; as if its 
 language were but a dialect of my own, 
 after all. Formerly, when lying awake at 
 midnight in those woods, I had listened 
 to hear some words or syllables of their 
 language, but it chanced that I listened in 
 vain until I heard the cry of the loon. I 
 have heard it occasionally on the ponds 
 of my native town, but there its wild- 
 ness is not enhanced by the surrounding 
 scenery. 
 
 I was awakened at midnight by some 
 heavy, low-flying bird, probably a loon, 
 flapping by close over my head along the 
 shore. So, turning the other side of my 
 half-clad body to the fire, I sought slum- 
 ber again. 
 
w 
 
 VI 
 
 TUESDAY, JULY 28 
 
 HEN we awoke we found a heavy 
 dew on our blankets. I lay awake 
 very early and listened to the clear, shrill 
 ah, te te, te te, te of the white-throated 
 sparrow, repeated at short intervals, with- 
 out the least variation, for half an hour, 
 as if it could not enough express its hap- 
 piness. 
 
 We did some more washing in the lake 
 this morning, and, with our clothes hung 
 about on the dead trees and rocks, the 
 shore looked like washing-day at home. 
 The Indian, taking the hint, borrowed 
 the soap, and, walking into the lake, 
 washed his only cotton shirt on his per- 
 son, then put on his pants and let it dry 
 on him. 
 
 I observed that he wore a cotton shirt, 
 originally white, a greenish flannel one 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH loi 
 
 over it, but no waistcoat, flannel drawers, 
 and strong linen or duck pants, which also 
 had been white, blue woolen stockings, 
 cowhide boots, and a Kossuth hat.i He car- 
 ried no change of clothing, but, putting on 
 a stout, thick jacket, which he laid aside 
 in the canoe, and seizing a full-sized axe, 
 his gun and ammunition, and a blanket, 
 which would do for a sail or knapsack, if 
 wanted, and strapping on his belt, which 
 contained a large sheath-knife, he walked 
 off at once, ready to be gone all summer. 
 This looked very independent — a few 
 simple and effective tools, and no rubber 
 clothing. He was always the first ready 
 to start in the morning. Instead of carry- 
 ing a large bundle of his own extra cloth- 
 ing, etc., he brought back the greatcoats 
 of moose tied up in his blanket. I found 
 that his outfit was the result of a long ex- 
 perience, and in the main hardly to be 
 improved on, unless by washing and an 
 
 " A soft felt hat of the kind worn by the Hungarian patriot, 
 Kossuth, on his visit to this country in 1851-52. 
 
102 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 extra shirt. Wanting a button here, he 
 walked off to a place where some Indians 
 had recently encamped, and searched for 
 one, but I believe in vain. 
 
 Having softened our stiffened boots and 
 shoes with the pork fat, the usual disposi- 
 tion of what was left at breakfast, we 
 crossed the lake, steering in a diagonal di- 
 rection northeastly about four miles to the 
 outlet. The Indian name, Apmoojenega- 
 mook, means lake that is crossed, because 
 the usual course lies across and not along 
 it. We did not intend to go far down the 
 Allegash, but merely to get a view of the 
 lakes which are its source, and then re- 
 turn this way to the East Branch of the 
 Penobscot. 
 
 After reaching the middle of the lake, 
 we found the waves pretty high, and the 
 Indian warned my companion, who was 
 nodding, that he must not allow himself 
 to fall asleep in the canoe lest he should 
 upset us ; adding, that when Indians want 
 to sleep in a canoe, they lie down straight 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 103 
 
 on the bottom. But in this crowded one 
 that was impossible. However, he said 
 that he would nudge him if he saw him 
 nodding. 
 
 A belt of dead trees stood all around the 
 lake, some far out in the water, with others 
 prostrate behind them, and they made the 
 shore, for the most part, almost inaccessi- 
 ble. This is the effect of the dam at the 
 outlet. Thus the natural sandy or rocky 
 shore, with its green fringe, was concealed 
 and destroyed. We coasted westward along 
 the north side, searching for the outlet, 
 about quarter of a mile distant from this 
 savage-looking shore, on which the waves 
 were breaking violently, knowing that it 
 might easily be concealed amid this rub- 
 bish, or by the overlapping of the shore. 
 It is remarkable how little these important 
 gates to a lake are blazoned. There is no 
 triumphal arch over the modest inlet or 
 outlet, but at some undistinguished point 
 it trickles in or out through the uninter- 
 rupted forest, almost as through a sponge. 
 
I04 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 We reached the outlet in about an hour, 
 and carried over the dam there, which is 
 quite a solid structure, and about one 
 quarter of a mile farther there was a sec- 
 ond dam. The result of this particular 
 damming about Chamberlain Lake is that 
 the headwaters of the St. John are made to 
 flow by Bangor. They have thus dammed 
 all the larger lakes, raising their broad 
 surfaces many feet, thus turning the forces 
 of Nature against herself, that they might 
 float their spoils out of the country. They 
 rapidly run out of these immense forests 
 all the finer and more accessible pine tim- 
 ber, and then leave the bears to watch the 
 decaying dams, not clearing nor cultivat- 
 ing the land, nor making roads, nor build- 
 ing houses, but leaving it a wilderness, as 
 they found it. In many parts only these 
 dams remain, like deserted beaver dams. 
 Think how much land they have flowed 
 without asking Nature's leave. 
 
 The wilderness experiences a sudden rise 
 of all her streams and lakes. She feels ten 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 105 
 
 thousand vermin gnawing at the base of 
 her noblest trees. Many combining drag 
 them off, jarring over the roots of the sur- 
 vivors, and tumble them into the nearest 
 stream, till, the fairest having fallen, they 
 scamper off to ransack some new wilder- 
 ness, and all is still again. It is as when a 
 migrating army of mice girdles a forest of 
 pines. The chopper fells trees from the 
 same motive that the mouse gnaws them 
 — to get his living. You tell me that he 
 has a more interesting family than the 
 mouse. That is as it happens. He speaks 
 of a " berth " of timber, a good place for 
 him to get into, just as a worm might. 
 
 When the chopper would praise a pine 
 he will commonly tell you that the one 
 he cut was so big that a yoke of oxen stood 
 on its stump; as if that were what the pine 
 had grown for, to become the footstool 
 of oxen. In my mind's eye I can see these 
 unwieldy tame deer, with a yoke binding 
 them together, the brazen-tipped horns 
 betraying their servitude, taking their 
 
io6 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 stand on the stump of each giant pine in 
 succession throughout this whole forest, 
 and chewing their cud there, until it is 
 nothing but an ox-pasture, and run out at 
 that. As if it were good for the oxen, 
 and some medicinal quality ascended into 
 their nostrils. Or is their elevated position 
 intended merely as a symbol of the fact 
 that the pastoral comes next in order to 
 the sylvan or hunter life ? 
 
 The character of the logger's admira- 
 tion is betrayed by his very mode of ex- 
 pressing it. If he told all that was in his 
 mind, he would say, " It was so big that I 
 cut it down, and then a yoke of oxen could 
 stand on its stump." He admires the log, 
 the carcass or corpse, more than the tree. 
 Why, my dear sir, the tree might have 
 stood on its own stump, and a great deal 
 more comfortably and firmly than a yoke 
 of oxen can, if you had not cut it down. 
 
 The Anglo-American can indeed cut 
 down and grub up all this waving forest, 
 and make a stump speech on its ruins, but 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 107 
 
 he cannot converse with the spirit of the 
 tree he fells, he cannot read the poetry and 
 mythology which retire as he advances. 
 He ignorantly erases mythological tablets 
 in order to print his handbills and town- 
 meeting warrants on them. Before he has 
 learned his a b c in the beautiful but mys- 
 tic lore of the wilderness he cuts it down, 
 puts up a " deestrict " schoolhouse, and 
 introduces Webster's spelling-book. 
 
 Below the last dam, the river being 
 swift and shallow, we two walked about 
 half a mile to lighten the canoe. I made 
 it a rule to carry my knapsack when I 
 walked, and also to keep it tied to a cross- 
 bar when in the canoe, that it might be 
 found with the canoe if we should upset. 
 
 I heard the dog-day locust here, a sound 
 which I had associated only with more 
 open, if not settled countries. 
 
 We were now fairly on the Allegash 
 River. After perhaps two miles of river 
 we entered Heron Lake, scaring up forty 
 or fifty young sheldrakes, at the entrance. 
 
io8 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 which ran over the water with great rap- 
 idity, as usual in a long line. 
 
 This lake, judging from the map, is 
 about ten miles long. We had entered it 
 on the southwest side, and saw a dark moun- 
 tain northeast over the lake which the In- 
 dian said was called Peaked Mountain, and 
 used by explorers to look for timber from. 
 The shores were in the same ragged and 
 unsightly condition, encumbered with dead 
 timber, both fallen and standing, as in the 
 last lake, owing to the dam on the Allegash 
 below. Some low points or islands were 
 almost drowned. 
 
 I saw something white a mile off on the 
 water, which turned out to be a great gull 
 on a rock, which the Indian would have 
 been glad to kill and eat. But it flew away 
 long before we were near ; and also a flock 
 of summer ducks that were about the rock 
 with it. I asking him about herons, since 
 this was Heron Lake, he said that he found 
 the blue heron's nests in the hard-wood 
 trees. 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 109 
 
 Rounding a point, we stood across a bay 
 toward a large island three or four miles 
 down the lake. We met with shadflies 
 midway, about a mile from the shore, and 
 they evidently fly over the whole lake. 
 On Moosehead I had seen a large devil's- 
 needle half a mile from the shore, coming 
 from the middle of the lake, where it was 
 three or four miles wide at least. It had 
 probably crossed. 
 
 We landed on the southeast side of the 
 island, which was rather elevated, and 
 densely wooded, with a rocky shore, in 
 season for an early dinner. Somebody had 
 camped there not long before and left the 
 frame on which they stretched a moose- 
 hide. The Indian proceeded at once to cut 
 a canoe birch, slanted it up against another 
 tree on the shore, tying it with a withe, 
 and lay down to sleep in its shade. We 
 made this island the limit of our excursion 
 in this direction. 
 
 The next dam was about fifteen miles 
 farther north down the Allegash. We had 
 
no CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 been told in Bangor of a man who lived 
 alone, a sort of hermit, at that dam, to 
 take care of it, who spent his time tossing 
 a bullet from one hand to the other, for 
 want of employment. This sort of tit-for- 
 tat intercourse between his two hands, 
 bandying to and fro a leaden subject, seems 
 to have been his symbol for society. 
 
 There was another island visible toward 
 the north end of the lake, with an elevated 
 clearing on it ; but we learned afterward 
 that it was not inhabited, had only been 
 used as a pasture for cattle which sum- 
 mered in these woods. This unnaturally 
 smooth-shaven, squarish spot, in the midst 
 of the otherwise uninterrupted forest, only 
 reminded us how uninhabited the country 
 was. You would sooner expect to meet a 
 bear than an ox in such a clearing. At any 
 rate, it must have been a surprise to the 
 bears when they came across it. Such, seen 
 far or near, you know at once to be man's 
 work, for Nature never does it. In order 
 to let in the light to the earth he clears off 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH iii 
 
 the forest on the hillsides and plains, and 
 sprinkles fine grass seed like an enchanter, 
 and so carpets the earth with a firm sward. 
 
 Polls had evidently more curiosity re- 
 specting the few settlers in those woods 
 than we. If nothing was said, he took it 
 for granted that we wanted to go straight 
 to the next log hut. Having observed that 
 we came by the log huts at Chesuncook, 
 and the blind Canadian's at the Mud Pond 
 carry, without stopping to communicate 
 with the inhabitants, he took occasion 
 now to suggest that the usual way was, 
 when you came near a house, to go to it, 
 and tell the inhabitants what you had seen 
 or heard, and then they told you what they 
 had seen; but we laughed and said that 
 we had had enough of houses for the pres- 
 ent, and had come here partly to avoid 
 them. 
 
 In the meanwhile, the wind, increas- 
 ing, blew down the Indian's birch and 
 created such a sea that we found ourselves 
 prisoners on the island, the nearest shore 
 
112 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 being perhaps a mile distant, and we took 
 the canoe out to prevent its drifting away. 
 We did not know but we should be com- 
 pelled to spend the rest of the day and the 
 night there. At any rate, the Indian went 
 to sleep again, my companion busied him- 
 self drying his plants, and I rambled along 
 the shore westward, which was quite stony, 
 and obstructed with fallen bleached or 
 drifted trees for four or five rods in width. 
 
 Our Indian said that he was a doctor, and 
 could tell me some medicinal use for every 
 plant I could show him. I immediately 
 tried him. He said that the inner bark 
 of the aspen was good for sore eyes ; and 
 so with various other plants, proving him- 
 self as good as his word. According to his 
 account, he had acquired such knowledge 
 in his youth from a wise old Indian with 
 whom he associated, and he lamented that 
 the present generation of Indians " had 
 lost a great deal.'* 
 
 He said that the caribou was a "very 
 great runner," that there were none about 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 113 
 
 this lake now, though there used to be 
 many, and, pointing to the belt of dead 
 trees caused by the dams, he added: "No 
 likum stump. When he sees that he 
 scared." 
 
 Pointing southeasterly over the lake and 
 distant forest, he observed, " Me go Old- 
 town in three days." 
 
 I asked how he would get over the 
 swamps and fallen trees. "Oh," said he, 
 "in winter all covered, go anywhere on 
 snowshoes, right across lakes." 
 
 What a wilderness walk for a man to take 
 alone ! None of your half-mile swamps, 
 none of your mile-wide woods merely, as 
 on the skirts of our towns, without hotels, 
 only a dark mountain or a lake for guide- 
 board and station, over ground much of it 
 impassable in summer ! 
 
 Here was traveling of the old heroic 
 kind over the unaltered face of nature. 
 From the Allegash River, across great 
 Apmoojenegamook, he takes his way under 
 the bear-haunted slopes of Katahdin to 
 
114 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 Pamadumcook and Millinocket's inland 
 seas, and so to the forks of the Nicketow, 
 ever pushing the boughs of the fir and 
 spruce aside, with his load of furs, con- 
 tending day and night, night and day, with 
 the shaggy demon vegetation, traveling 
 through the mossy graveyard of trees. Or 
 he could go by "that rough tooth of the 
 sea" Kineo, great source of arrows and of 
 spears to the ancients, when weapons of 
 stone were used. Seeing and hearing moose, 
 caribou, bears, porcupines, lynxes, wolves, 
 and panthers. Places where he might live 
 and die and never hear of the United States 
 — never hear of America. 
 
 There is a lumberer's road called the 
 Eagle Lake Road from the Seboois to the 
 east side of this lake. It may seem strange 
 that any road through such a wilderness 
 should be passable, even in winter, but at 
 that season, wherever lumbering operations 
 are actively carried on, teams are contin- 
 ually passing on the single track, and it 
 becomes as smooth almost as a railway. I 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 115 
 
 am told that in the Aroostook country the 
 sleds are required by law to be of one width, 
 four feet, and sleighs must be altered to fit 
 the track, so that one runner may go in 
 one rut and the other follow the horse. 
 Yet it is very bad turning out. 
 
 We had for some time seen a thunder- 
 shower coming up from the west over the 
 woods of the island, and heard the mut- 
 tering of the thunder, though we were in 
 doubt whether it would reach us; but now 
 the darkness rapidly increasing, and a fresh 
 breeze rustling the forest, we hastily put up 
 the plants which we had been drying, and 
 with one consent made a rush for the tent 
 material and set about pitching it. A place 
 was selected and stakes and pins cut in the 
 shortest possible time, and we were pin- 
 ning it down lest it should be blown away, 
 when the storm suddenly burst over us. 
 
 As we lay huddled together under the 
 tent, which leaked considerably about the 
 sides, with our baggage at our feet, we 
 listened to some of the grandest thunder 
 
ii6 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 which I ever heard — rapid peals, round 
 and plump, bang, bang, bang, in succes- 
 sion, like artillery from some fortress in 
 the sky ; and the lightning was propor- 
 tionally brilliant. The Indian said, " It 
 must be good powder." All for the bene- 
 fit of the moose and us, echoing far over 
 the concealed lakes. I thought it must be 
 a place which the thunder loved, where 
 the lightning practiced to keep its hand 
 in, and it would do no harm to shatter a 
 few pines. 
 
 Looking out, I perceived that the violent 
 shower falling on the lake had almost in- 
 stantaneously flattened the waves, and, it 
 clearing off, we resolved to start immedi- 
 ately, before the wind raised them again. 
 
 Getting outside, I said that I saw clouds 
 still in the southwest, and heard thunder 
 there. We embarked, nevertheless, and 
 paddled rapidly back toward the dams. 
 
 At the outlet of Chamberlain Lake we 
 were overtaken by another gusty rain- 
 storm, which compelled us to take shelter. 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 117 
 
 the Indian under his canoe on the bank, 
 and we under the edge of the dam. How- 
 ever, we were more scared than wet. From 
 my covert I could see the Indian peeping 
 out from beneath his canoe to see what 
 had become of the rain. When we had 
 taken our respective places thus once or 
 twice, the rain not coming down in ear- 
 nest, we commenced rambling about the 
 neighborhood, for the wind had by this 
 time raised such waves on the lake that 
 we could not stir, and we feared that we 
 should be obliged to camp there. We got 
 an early supper on the dam and tried for 
 fish, while waiting for the tumult to sub- 
 side. The fishes were not only few, but 
 small and worthless. 
 
 At length, just before sunset, we set out 
 again. It was a wild evening when we 
 coasted up the north side of this Apmooje- 
 negamook Lake. One thunder-storm was 
 just over, and the waves which it had 
 raised still running with violence, and an- 
 other storm was now seen coming up in 
 
ii8 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 the southwest, far over the lake ; but it 
 might be worse in the morning, and we 
 wished to get as far as possible on our way 
 while we might. 
 
 It blew hard against the shore, which 
 was as dreary and harborless as you can 
 conceive. For half a dozen rods in width 
 it was a perfect maze of submerged trees, 
 all dead and bare and bleaching, some 
 standing half their original height, others 
 prostrate, and criss-across, above or be- 
 neath the surface, and mingled with them 
 were loose trees and limbs and stumps, 
 beating about. We could not have landed 
 if we would, without the greatest danger 
 of being swamped; so blow as it might, 
 we must depend on coasting. It was twi- 
 light, too, and that stormy cloud was ad- 
 vancing rapidly in our rear. It was a 
 pleasant excitement, yet we were glad to 
 reach, at length, the cleared shore of the 
 Chamberlain Farm. 
 
 We landed on a low and thinly wooded 
 point, and while my companions were 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 119 
 
 pitching the tent, I ran up to the house 
 to get some sugar, our six pounds being 
 gone. It was no wonder they were, for 
 Polis had a sweet tooth. He would first 
 fill his dipper nearly a third full of sugar, 
 and then add the coffee to it. Here was a 
 clearing extending back from the lake to 
 a hilltop, with some dark-colored log 
 buildings and a storehouse in it, and half 
 a dozen men standing in front of the prin- 
 cipal hut, greedy for news. Among them 
 was the man who tended the dam on the 
 Allegash and tossed the bullet. He, having 
 charge of the dams, and learning that we 
 were going to Webster Stream the next 
 day, told me that some of their men, who 
 were haying at Telos Lake, had shut the 
 dam at the canal there in order to catch 
 trout, and if we wanted more water to 
 take us through the canal we might raise 
 the gate. 
 
 They were unwilling to spare more than 
 four pounds of brown sugar, — unlocking 
 the storehouse to get it, — since they only 
 
120 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 kept a little for such cases as this, and 
 they charged twenty cents a pound for it, 
 which certainly it was worth to get it up 
 there. 
 
 When I returned to the shore it was 
 quite dark, but we had a rousing fire to 
 warm and dry us by, and a snug apart- 
 ment behind it. The Indian went up to 
 the house to inquire after a brother who 
 had been absent hunting a year or two, 
 and while another shower was beginning, 
 I groped about cutting spruce and arbor- 
 vits twigs for a bed. I preferred the ar- 
 bor-vitas on account of its fragrance, and 
 spread it particularly thick about the 
 shoulders. It is remarkable with what 
 pure satisfaction the traveler in those 
 woods will reach his camping-ground on 
 the eve of a tempestuous night like this, 
 as if he had got to his inn, and, rolling 
 himself in his blanket, stretch himself 
 on his six-feet-by-two bed of dripping fir 
 twigs, with a thin sheet of cotton for roof, 
 snug as a meadow mouse in its nest. In- 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 121 
 
 variably our best nights were those when 
 it rained, for then we were not troubled 
 with mosquitoes. 
 
 You soon come to disregard rain on 
 such excursions, at least in the summer, 
 it is so easy to dry yourself, supposing a 
 dry change of clothing is not to be had. 
 You can much sooner dry you by such a 
 fire as you can make in the woods than in 
 anybody's kitchen, the fireplace is so much 
 larger, and wood so much more abundant. 
 A shed-shaped tent will catch and reflect 
 the heat, and you may be drying while 
 you are sleeping. 
 
 Some who have leaky roofs in the 
 towns may have been kept awake, but we 
 were soon lulled asleep by a steady, soak- 
 ing rain, which lasted all night. 
 
VII 
 
 WEDNESDAY, JULY 29 
 
 WHEN we awoke it had done rain- 
 ing, though it was still cloudy. The 
 fire was put out, and the Indian's boots, 
 which stood under the eaves of the tent, 
 were half full of water. He was much 
 more improvident in such respects than 
 either of us, and he had to thank us for 
 keeping his powder dry. We decided to 
 cross the lake at once, before breakfast ; 
 and before starting I took the bearing of 
 the shore which we wished to strike, about 
 three miles distant, lest a sudden misty rain 
 should conceal it when we were midway. 
 Though the bay in which we were was 
 perfectly quiet and smooth, we found the 
 lake already wide awake outside, but not 
 dangerously or unpleasantly so. Neverthe- 
 less, when you get out on one of those 
 lakes in a canoe like this, you do not for- 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 123 
 
 get that you are completely at the mercy 
 of the wind, and a fickle power it is. The 
 playful waves may at any time become too 
 rude for you in their sport, and play right 
 on over you. After much steady paddling 
 and dancing over the dark waves we found 
 ourselves in the neighborhood of the 
 southern land. We breakfasted on a rocky 
 point, the first convenient place that of- 
 fered. 
 
 It was well enough that we crossed thus 
 early, for the waves now ran quite high, 
 but beyond this point we had compara- 
 tively smooth water. You can commonly 
 go along one side or the other of a lake, 
 when you cannot cross it. 
 
 My companion and I, having a discus- 
 sion on some point of ancient history, were 
 amused by the attitude which the Indian, 
 who could not tell what we were talking 
 about, assumed. He constituted himself 
 umpire, and, judging by our air and ges- 
 ture, he very seriously remarked from time 
 to time, "You beat," or " He beat." 
 
124 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 Leaving a spacious bay on our left, we 
 entered through a short strait into a small 
 lake a couple of miles over, and thence 
 into Telos Lake. This curved round 
 toward the northeast, and may have been 
 three or four miles long as we paddled. 
 
 The outlet from the lake into the East 
 Branch of the Penobscot is an artificial 
 one, and it was not very apparent where 
 it was exactly, but the lake ran curving 
 far up northeasterly into two narrow val- 
 leys or ravines, as if it had for a long time 
 been groping its way toward the Penob- 
 scot waters. By observing where the hori- 
 zon was lowest, and following the longest 
 of these, we at length reached the dam, 
 having come about a dozen miles from 
 the last camp. Somebody had left a line 
 set for trout, and the jackknife with 
 which the bait had been cut on the dam 
 beside it, and, on a log close by, a loaf of 
 bread. These proved the property of a 
 solitary hunter, whom we soon met, and 
 canoe and gun and traps were not far off. 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 125 
 
 He told us that it was twenty miles to the 
 foot of Grand Lake, and that the first 
 house below the foot of the lake, on the 
 East Branch, was Hunt's, about forty-five 
 miles farther. 
 
 This hunter, who was a quite small, 
 sunburnt man, having already carried his 
 canoe over, had nothing so interesting and 
 pressing to do as to observe our transit. 
 He had been out a month or more alone. 
 How much more respectable is the life 
 of the solitary pioneer or settler in these, 
 or any woods — having real difficulties, 
 not of his own creation, drawing his sub- 
 sistence directly from nature — than that 
 of the helpless multitudes in the towns 
 who depend on gratifying the extremely 
 artificial wants of society and are thrown 
 out of employment by hard times! 
 
 Telos Lake, the head of the St. John 
 on this side, and Webster Pond, the head 
 of the East Branch of the Penobscot, are 
 only about a mile apart, and they are con- 
 nected by a ravine, in which but little 
 
126 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 digging was required to make the water 
 of the former, which is the highest, flow 
 into the latter. This canal is something 
 less than a mile long and about four rods 
 wide. The rush of the water has pro- 
 duced such changes in the canal that it 
 has now the appearance of a very rapid 
 mountain stream flowing through a ravine, 
 and you would not suspect that any dig- 
 ging had been required to persuade the 
 waters of the St. John to flow into the 
 Penobscot here. It was so winding that 
 one could see but a little way down. 
 
 It is wonderful how well watered this 
 country is. As you paddle across a lake, 
 bays will be pointed out to you, by fol- 
 lowing up which, and perhaps the tribu- 
 tary stream which empties in, you may, 
 after a short portage, or possibly, at some 
 seasons, none at all, get into another 
 river, which empties far away from the 
 one you are on. Generally, you may go 
 in any direction in a canoe, by making 
 frequent but not very long portages. It 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 127 
 
 seems as if the more youthful and impres- 
 sionable streams can hardly resist the nu- 
 merous invitations and temptations to 
 leave their native beds and run down their 
 neighbors' channels. 
 
 Wherever there is a channel for water 
 there is a road for the canoe. It is said 
 that some Western steamers can run on 
 a heavy dew, whence we can imagine 
 what a canoe may do. 
 
 This canal, so called, was a consider- 
 able and extremely rapid and rocky river. 
 The Indian decided that there was water 
 enough in it without raising the dam, 
 which would only make it more vio- 
 lent, and that he would run down it alone, 
 while we carried the greater part of the 
 baggage. Our provisions being about half 
 consumed, there was the less left in the 
 canoe. We had thrown away the pork- 
 keg and wrapped its contents in birch 
 bark. 
 
 Following a moist trail through the 
 forest, we reached the head of Webster 
 
128 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 Pond about the same time with the In- 
 dian, notwithstanding the velocity with 
 which he moved, our route being the 
 most direct. The pond was two or three 
 miles long. 
 
 At the outlet was another dam, at 
 which we stopped and picked raspberries, 
 while the Indian went down the stream a 
 half-mile through the forest, to see what 
 he had got to contend with. There was 
 a deserted log camp here, apparently used 
 the previous winter, with its " hovel " or 
 barn for cattle. In the hut was a large 
 fir-twig bed, raised two feet from the 
 floor, occupying a large part of the single 
 apartment, a long narrow table against 
 the wall, with a stout log bench before 
 it, and above the table a small window, 
 the only one there was, which admitted 
 a feeble light. It was a simple and strong 
 fort erected against the cold. 
 
 We got our dinner on the shore, on 
 the upper side of the dam. As we were 
 sitting by our fire, concealed by the earth 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 129 
 
 bank of the dam, a long line of shel- 
 drakes, half grown, came waddling over 
 it from the water below, passing within 
 about a rod of us, so that we could 
 almost have caught them in our hands. 
 They were very abundant on all the 
 streams and lakes which we visited, and 
 every two or three hours they would rush 
 away in a long string over the water be- 
 fore us, twenty to fifty of them at once, 
 rarely ever flying, but running with great 
 rapidity up or down the stream, even in 
 the midst of the most violent rapids, and 
 apparently as fast up as down. 
 
 An Indian at Oldtown had told us that 
 we should be obliged to carry ten miles 
 between Telos Lake on the St. John and 
 Second Lake on the East Branch of the 
 Penobscot; but the lumberers whom we 
 met assured us that there would not be 
 more than a mile of carry. It turned out 
 that the Indian was nearest right, as far as 
 we were concerned. However, if one of 
 us could have assisted the Indian in man- 
 
130 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 aging the canoe in the rapids, we might 
 have run the greater part of the way; but 
 as he was alone in the management of the 
 canoe in such places we were obliged to 
 walk the greater part. 
 
 My companion and I carried a good 
 part of the baggage on our shoulders, while 
 the Indian took that which would be least 
 injured by wet in the canoe. We did not 
 know when we should see him again, for 
 he had not been this way since the canal 
 was cut. He agreed to stop when he got 
 to smooth water, come up and find our 
 path if he could, and halloo for us, and 
 after waiting a reasonable time go on and 
 try again — and we were to look out in 
 like manner for him. 
 
 He commenced by running through the 
 sluiceway and over the dam, as usual, stand- 
 ing up in his tossing canoe, and was soon 
 out of sight behind a point in a wild gorge. 
 This Webster Stream is well known to 
 lumbermen as a difficult one. It is exceed- 
 ingly rapid and rocky, and also shallow. 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 131 
 
 and can hardly be considered navigable, 
 unless that may mean that what is launched 
 in it is sure to be carried swiftly down it, 
 though it may be dashed to pieces by the 
 way. It is somewhat like navigating a thun- 
 der-spout. With commonly an irresistible 
 force urging you on, you have got to choose 
 your own course each moment between 
 the rocks and shallows, and to get into it, 
 moving forward always with the utmost 
 possible moderation, and often holding on, 
 if you can, that you may inspect the rapids 
 before you. 
 
 By the Indian's direction we took an 
 old path on the south side, which appeared 
 to keep down the stream. It was a wild 
 wood-path, with a few tracks of oxen 
 which had been driven over it, probably 
 to some old camp clearing for pasturage, 
 mingled with the tracks of moose which 
 had lately used it. We kept on steadily for 
 about an hour without putting down our 
 packs, occasionally winding around or 
 climbing over a fallen tree, for the most 
 
132 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 part far out of sight and hearing of the 
 river; till, after walking about three miles, 
 we were glad to find that the path came 
 to the river again at an old camp-ground, 
 where there was a small opening in the 
 forest, at which we paused. 
 
 Swiftly as the shallow and rocky river 
 ran here, a continuous rapid with dancing 
 waves, I saw, as I sat on the shore, a long 
 string of sheldrakes, which something 
 scared, run up the opposite side of the 
 stream by me, just touching the surface of 
 the waves, and getting an impulse from 
 them as they flowed from under them; 
 but they soon came back, driven by the 
 Indian, who had fallen a little behind us 
 on account of the windings. He shot 
 round a point just above, and came to land 
 by us with considerable water in his canoe. 
 He had found it, as he said, " very strong 
 water," and had been obliged to land once 
 before to empty out what he had taken in. 
 
 He complained that it strained him to 
 paddle so hard in order to keep his canoe 
 
Coming Down the Rapids 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 133 
 
 straight in its course, having no one in the 
 bows to aid him, and, shallow as it was, 
 said that it would be no joke to upset there, 
 for the force of the water was such that he 
 had as lief I would strike him over the 
 head with a paddle as have that water 
 strike him. Seeing him come out of that 
 gap was as if you should pour water down 
 an inclined and zigzag trough, then drop 
 a nutshell into it, and, taking a short cut 
 to the bottom, get there in time to see it 
 come out, notwithstanding the rush and 
 tumult, right side up, and only partly full 
 of water. 
 
 After a moment's breathing-space, while 
 I held his canoe, he was soon out of sight 
 again around another bend, and we, shoul- 
 dering our packs, resumed our course. 
 
 Before going a mile we heard the Indian 
 calling to us. He had come up through the 
 woods and along the path to find us, hav- 
 ing reached sufficiently smooth water to 
 warrant his taking us in. The shore was 
 about one fourth of a mile distant through 
 
134 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 a dense, dark forest, and as he led us back 
 to it, winding rapidly about to the right 
 and left, I had the curiosity to look down 
 carefully and found that he was following 
 his steps backward. I could only occasion- 
 ally perceive his trail in the moss, and yet 
 he did not appear to look down nor hesi- 
 tate an instant, but led us out exactly to 
 his canoe. This surprised me, for without 
 a compass, or the sight or noise of the 
 river to guide us, we could not have kept 
 our course many minutes, and could have 
 retraced our steps but a short distance, with 
 a great deal of pains and very slowly, using 
 a laborious circumspection. But it was evi- 
 dent that he could go back through the 
 forest wherever he had been during the 
 day. 
 
 After this rough walking in the dark 
 woods it was an agreeable change to glide 
 down the rapid river in the canoe once 
 more. This river, though still very swift, 
 was almost perfectly smooth here, and 
 showed a very visible declivity, a regularly 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 135 
 
 inclined plane, for several miles, like a 
 mirror set a little aslant, on which we 
 coasted down. It was very exhilarating, 
 and the perfection of traveling, the coast- 
 ing down this inclined mirror between two 
 evergreen forests edged with lofty dead 
 white pines, sometimes slanted half-way 
 over the stream. I saw some monsters 
 there, nearly destitute of branches, and 
 scarcely diminishing in diameter for eighty 
 or ninety feet. 
 
 As we were thus swept along, our In- 
 dian repeated in a deliberate and drawling 
 tone the words, " Daniel Webster, great 
 lawyer," apparently reminded of him by the 
 name of the stream, and he described his 
 calling on him once in Boston at what he 
 supposed was his boarding-house. He had 
 no business with him but merely went to 
 pay his respects, as we should say. It was 
 on the day after Webster delivered his 
 Bunker Hill oration. The first time he 
 called he waited till he was tired without 
 seeing him, and then went away. The 
 
136 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 next time he saw him go by the door of 
 the room in which he was waiting several 
 times, in his shirt-sleeves, without notic- 
 ing him. He thought that if he had come 
 to see Indians they would not have treated 
 him so. At length, after very long delay, 
 he came in, walked toward him, and asked 
 in a loud voice, gruffly, " What do you 
 want?" and he, thinking at first, by the 
 motion of his hand, that he was going to 
 strike him, said to himself, "You'd bet- 
 ter take care; if you try that I shall know 
 what to do." 
 
 He did not like him, and declared that 
 all he said "was not worth talk about a 
 musquash." 
 
 Coming to falls and rapids, our easy 
 progress was suddenly terminated. The In- 
 dian went alongshore to inspect the water, 
 while we climbed over the rocks, picking 
 berries. When the Indian came back, he 
 remarked, " You got to walk ; ver' strong 
 water." 
 
 So, taking out his canoe, he launched 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 137 
 
 it again below the falls, and was soon 
 out of sight. At such times he would step 
 into the canoe, take up his paddle, and 
 start off, looking far down-stream as if 
 absorbing all the intelligence of forest 
 and stream into himself. We meanwhile 
 scrambled along the shore with our packs, 
 without any path. This was the last of 
 our boating for the day. 
 
 The Indian now got along much faster 
 than we, and waited for us from time to 
 time. I found here the only cool spring 
 that I drank at anywhere on this excur- 
 sion, a little water filling a hollow in the 
 sandy bank. It was a quite memorable 
 event, and due to the elevation of the 
 country, for wherever else we had been 
 the water in the rivers and the streams 
 emptying in was dead and warm, com- 
 pared with that of a mountainous region. 
 It was very bad walking along the shore 
 over fallen and drifted trees and bushes, 
 and rocks, from time to time swinging 
 ourselves round over the water, or else 
 
138 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 taking to a gravel bar or going inland. At 
 one place, the Indian being ahead, I was 
 obliged to take off all my clothes in order 
 to ford a small but deep stream emptying 
 in, while my companion, who was inland, 
 found a rude bridge, high up in the woods, 
 and I saw no more of him for some time. 
 I saw there very fresh moose tracks, and 
 I passed one white pine log, lodged in the 
 forest near the edge of the stream, which 
 was quite five feet in diameter at the butt. 
 Shortly after this I overtook the Indian 
 at the edge of some burnt land, which ex- 
 tended three or four miles at least, begin- 
 ning about three miles above Second Lake, 
 which we were expecting to reach that 
 night. This burnt region was still more 
 rocky than before, but, though compara- 
 tively open, we could not yet see the lake. 
 Not having seen my companion for some 
 time, I climbed with the Indian a high 
 rock on the edge of the river forming a 
 narrow ridge only a foot or two wide at 
 top, in order to look for him. After calling 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 139 
 
 many times I at length heard him answer 
 from a considerable distance inland, he 
 having taken a trail which led off from the 
 river, and being now in search of the river 
 again. Seeing a much higher rock of the 
 same character about one third of a mile 
 farther down-stream, I proceeded toward 
 it through the burnt land, in order to 
 look for the lake from its summit, and 
 hallooing all the while that my com- 
 panion might join me on the way. 
 
 Before we came together I noticed 
 where a moose, which possibly I had 
 scared by my shouting, had apparently 
 just run along a large rotten trunk of a 
 pine, which made a bridge thirty or forty 
 feet long over a hollow, as convenient for 
 him as for me. The tracks were as large 
 as those of an ox, but an ox could not 
 have crossed there. This burnt land was 
 an exceedingly wild and desolate region. 
 Judging by the weeds and sprouts, it ap- 
 peared to have been burnt about two years 
 before. It was covered with charred 
 
140 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 trunks, either prostrate or standing, which 
 crocked our clothes and hands. Great 
 shells of trees, sometimes unburnt with- 
 out, or burnt on one side only, but black 
 within, stood twenty or forty feet high. 
 The fire had run up inside, as in a chim- 
 ney, leaving the sapwood. There were 
 great fields of fireweed, which presented 
 masses of pink. Intermixed with these 
 were blueberry and raspberry bushes. 
 
 Having crossed a second rocky ridge, 
 when I was beginning to ascend the third, 
 the Indian, whom I had left on the shore, 
 beckoned to me to come to him, but I 
 made sign that I would first ascend the 
 rock before me. My companion accom- 
 panied me to the top. 
 
 There was a remarkable series of these 
 great rock-waves revealed by the burning ; 
 breakers, as it were. No wonder that the 
 river that found its way through them was 
 rapid and obstructed by falls. We could 
 see the lake over the woods, and that the 
 river made an abrupt turn southward around 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 141 
 
 the end of the cliff on which we stood, 
 and that there was an important fall in it 
 a short distance below us. I could see the 
 canoe a hundred rods behind, but now on 
 the opposite shore, and supposed that the 
 Indian had concluded to take out and carry 
 round some bad rapids on that side, but after 
 waiting a while I could still see nothing 
 of him, and I began to suspect that he had 
 gone inland to look for the lake from some 
 hilltop on that side. This proved to be 
 the case, for after I had started to return 
 to the canoe I heard a faint halloo, and 
 descried him on the top of a distant rocky 
 hill. I began to return along the ridge 
 toward the angle in the river. My com- 
 panion inquired where I was going ; to 
 which I answered that I was going far 
 enough back to communicate with the 
 Indian. 
 
 When we reached the shore the Indian 
 appeared from out the woods on the oppo- 
 site side, but on account of the roar of the 
 water it was difficult to communicate with 
 
142 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 him. He kept along the shore westward 
 to his canoe, while we stopped at the an- 
 gle where the stream turned southward 
 around the precipice. I said to my com- 
 panion that we would keep along the shore 
 and keep the Indian in sight. We started 
 to do so, being close together, the Indian 
 behind us having launched his canoe again, 
 but I saw the latter beckoning to me, and 
 I called to my companion, who had just 
 disappeared behind large rocks at the point 
 of the precipice on his way down the 
 stream, that I was going to help the In- 
 dian. 
 
 I did so — helped get the canoe over a 
 fall, lying with my breast over a rock, and 
 holding one end while he received it be- 
 low — and within ten or fifteen minutes I 
 was back at the point where the river 
 turned southward, while Polis glided down 
 the river alone, parallel with me. But to 
 my surprise, when I rounded the preci- 
 pice, though the shore was bare of trees, 
 without rocks, for a quarter of a mile at 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 143 
 
 least, my companion was not to be seen. 
 It was as if he had sunk into the earth. 
 This was the more unaccountable to me, 
 because I knew that his feet were very 
 sore, and that he wished to keep with the 
 party. 
 
 I hastened along, hallooing and search- 
 ing for him, thinking he might be con- 
 cealed behind a rock, but the Indian had 
 got along faster in his canoe, till he was ar- 
 rested by the falls, about a quarter of a mile 
 below. He then landed, and said that we 
 could go no farther that night. The sun was 
 setting, and on account of falls and rapids 
 we should be obliged to leave this river 
 and carry a good way into another farther 
 east. The first thing then was to find my 
 companion, for I was now very much 
 alarmed about him, and I sent the Indian 
 along the shore down-stream, which be- 
 gan to be covered with unburnt wood 
 again just below the falls, while I searched 
 backward about the precipice which we 
 had passed. 
 
144 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 The Indian showed some unwilHngness 
 to exert himself, complaining that he was 
 very tired in consequence of his day's 
 work, that it had strained him getting 
 down so many rapids alone; but he went 
 off calling somewhat like an owl. I re- 
 membered that my companion was near- 
 sighted, and I feared that he had either 
 fallen from the precipice, or fainted and 
 sunk down amid the rocks beneath it. I 
 shouted and searched above and below this 
 precipice in the twilight till I could not 
 see, expecting nothing less than to find his 
 body beneath it. For half an hour I antic- 
 ipated and believed only the worst. I 
 thought what I should do the next day if 
 I did not find him, and how his relatives 
 would feel if I should return without him. 
 I felt that if he were really lost away from 
 the river there, it would be a desperate 
 undertaking to find him ; and where were 
 they who could help you ? What would it 
 be to raise the country, where there were 
 only two or three camps, twenty or thirty 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 145 
 
 miles apart, and no road, and perhaps no- 
 body at home? 
 
 I rushed down from this precipice to 
 the canoe in order to fire the Indian's gun, 
 but found that my companion had the 
 caps. When the Indian returned he said 
 that he had seen his tracks once or twice 
 along the shore. This encouraged me very 
 much. He objected to firing the gun, say- 
 ing that if my companion heard it, which 
 was not likely, on account of the roar of 
 the stream, it would tempt him to come 
 toward us, and he might break his neck 
 in the dark. For the same reason we re- 
 frained from lighting a fire on the highest 
 rock. I proposed that we should both 
 keep down the stream to the lake, or that 
 I should go at any rate, but the Indian 
 said: "No use, can't do anything in the 
 dark. Come morning, then we find 'em. 
 No harm — he make 'em camp. No bad 
 animals here — warm night — he well off 
 as you and I." 
 
 The darkness in the woods was by this 
 
146 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 so thick that it decided the question. We 
 must camp where we were. I knew that 
 he had his knapsack, with blankets and 
 matches, and, if well, would fare no worse 
 than we, except that he would have no 
 supper nor society. 
 
 This side of the river being so encum- 
 bered with rocks, we crossed to the east- 
 ern or smoother shore, and proceeded to 
 camp there, within two or three rods of 
 the falls. We pitched no tent, but lay on 
 the sand, putting a few handfuls of grass 
 and twigs under us, there being no ever- 
 green at hand. For fuel we had some of 
 the charred stumps. Our various bags of 
 provisions had got quite wet in the rapids, 
 and I arranged them about the lire to dry. 
 The fall close by was the principal one on 
 this stream, and it shook the earth un- 
 der us. It was a cool, dewy night. I lay 
 awake a good deal from anxiety. From 
 time to time I fancied that I heard his 
 voice calling through the roar of the falls 
 from the opposite side of the river; but 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 147 
 
 it is doubtful if we could have heard him 
 across the stream there. Sometimes I 
 doubted whether the Indian had really- 
 seen his tracks, since he manifested an 
 unwillingness to make much of a search. 
 It was the most wild and desolate re- 
 gion we had camped in, where, if any- 
 where, one might expect to meet with 
 befitting inhabitants, but I heard only the 
 squeak of a nighthawk flitting over. The 
 moon in her first quarter, in the fore part 
 of the night, setting over the bare rocky 
 hills garnished with tall, charred, and 
 hollow stumps or shells of trees, served to 
 reveal the desolation. 
 
VIII 
 
 THURSDAY, JULY 30 
 
 1 AROUSED the Indian early to go 
 in search of our companion, expecting 
 to find him within a mile or two, farther 
 down the stream. The Indian wanted his 
 breakfast first, but I reminded him that 
 my companion had had neither breakfast 
 nor supper. We were obliged first to 
 carry our canoe and baggage over into 
 another stream, the main East Branch, 
 about three fourths of a mile distant, for 
 Webster Stream was no farther navigable. 
 We went twice over this carry, and the 
 dewy bushes wet us through like water 
 up to the middle. I hallooed from time 
 to time, though I had little expectation 
 that I could be heard over the roar of the 
 rapids. 
 
 In going over this portage the last time, 
 the Indian, who was before me with the 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 149 
 
 canoe on his head, stumbled and fell 
 heavily once, and lay for a moment silent 
 as if in pain. I hastily stepped forward to 
 help him, asking if he was much hurt, 
 but after a moment's pause, without re- 
 plying, he sprang up and went forward. 
 
 We had launched our canoe and gone 
 but little way down the East Branch, 
 when I heard an answering shout from 
 my companion, and soon after saw him 
 standing on a point where there was a 
 clearing a quarter of a mile below, and 
 the smoke of his fire was rising near by. 
 Before I saw him I naturally shouted 
 again and again, but the Indian curtly 
 remarked, "He hears you," as if once 
 was enough. 
 
 It was just below the mouth of Web- 
 ster Stream. When we arrived he was 
 smoking his pipe, and said that he had 
 passed a pretty comfortable night, though 
 it was rather cold, on account of the dew. 
 It appeared that when we stood together 
 the previous evening, and I was shouting 
 
ISO CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 to the Indian across the river, he, being 
 nearsighted, had not seen the Indian nor 
 his canoe, and when I went back to the 
 Indian's assistance, did not see which way 
 I went, and supposed that we were below 
 and not above him, and so, making haste 
 to catch up, he ran away from us. Hav- 
 ing reached this clearing, a mile or more 
 below our camp, the night overtook him, 
 and he made a fire in a little hollow, and 
 lay down by it in his blanket, still think- 
 ing that we were ahead of him. 
 
 He had stuck up the remnant of a 
 lumberer's shirt, found on the point, on a 
 pole by the waterside for a signal, and 
 attached a note to it to inform us that he 
 had gone on to the lake, and that if he 
 did not find us there he would be back in 
 a couple of hours. If he had not found 
 us soon he had some thoughts of going 
 back in search of the solitary hunter 
 whom we had met at Telos Lake, ten 
 miles behind, and, if successful, hire him 
 to take him to Bangor. But if this hunter 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 151 
 
 had moved as fast as we, he would have 
 been twenty miles off by this time, and 
 who could guess in what direction ? It 
 would have been like looking for a needle 
 in a haymow to search for him in these 
 woods. He had been considering how 
 long he could live on berries alone. 
 
 We all had good appetites for the 
 breakfast which we made haste to cook 
 here, and then, having partially dried our 
 clothes, we glided swiftly down the wind- 
 ing stream toward Second Lake. 
 
 As the shores became flatter with fre- 
 quent sandbars, and the stream more wind- 
 ing in the lower land near the lake, elms 
 and ash trees made their appearance; also 
 the wild yellow lily, some of whose bulbs 
 I collected for a soup. On some ridges 
 the burnt land extended as far as the lake. 
 This was a very beautiful lake, two or three 
 miles long, with high mountains on the 
 southwest side. The morning was a bright 
 one, and perfectly still, the lake as smooth 
 as glass, we making the only ripple as we 
 
152 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 paddled into it. The dark mountains 
 about it were seen through a glaucous 
 mist, and the white stems of canoe birches 
 mingled with the other woods around it. 
 The thrush sang on the distant shore, 
 and the laugh of some loons, sporting in 
 a concealed western bay, as if inspired 
 by the morning, came distinct over the 
 lake to us. The beauty of the scene may 
 have been enhanced to our eyes by the 
 fact that we had just come together after 
 a night of some anxiety. 
 
 Having paddled down three quarters 
 of the lake, we came to a standstill while 
 my companion let down for fish. In the 
 midst of our dreams of giant lake trout, 
 even then supposed to be nibbling, our fish- 
 erman drew up a diminutive red perch, 
 and we took up our paddles. 
 
 It was not apparent where the outlet 
 of the lake was, and while the Indian 
 thought it was in one direction, I thought 
 it was in another. He said, " I bet you 
 fourpence it is there," but he still held on 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 153 
 
 in my direction, which proved to be the 
 right one. 
 
 As we were approaching the outlet he 
 suddenly exclaimed, "Moose! moose!" 
 and told us to be still. He put a cap on 
 his gun, and, standing up in the stern, 
 rapidly pushed the canoe straight toward 
 the shore and the moose. It was a cow 
 moose, about thirty rods off, standing in 
 the water by the side of the outlet, partly 
 behind some fallen timber and bushes, 
 and at that distance she did not look very 
 large. She was flapping her large ears, 
 and from time to time poking off the 
 flies with her nose from some part of her 
 body. She did not appear much alarmed 
 by our neighborhood, only occasionally 
 turned her head and looked straight at 
 us, and then gave her attention to the 
 flies again. As we approached nearer she 
 got out of the water, stood higher, and 
 regarded us more suspiciously. 
 
 Polis pushed the canoe steadily forward 
 in the shallow water, but the canoe soon 
 
154 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 grounded in the mud eight or ten rods 
 distant from the moose, and the Indian 
 seized his gun. After standing still a mo- 
 ment she turned so as to expose her side, 
 and he improved this moment to fire, 
 over our heads. She thereupon moved off 
 eight or ten rods at a moderate pace 
 across a shallow bay to the opposite shore, 
 and she stood still again while the In- 
 dian hastily loaded and fired twice at her, 
 without her moving. My companion, 
 who passed him his caps and bullets, said 
 that Polis was as excited as a boy of fif- 
 teen, that his hand trembled, and he once 
 put his ramrod back upside down. 
 
 The Indian now pushed quickly and 
 quietly back, and a long distance round, 
 in order to get into the outlet, — for he 
 had fired over the neck of a peninsula 
 between it and the lake, — till we ap- 
 proached the place where the moose had 
 stood, when he exclaimed, " She is a 
 goner ! " 
 
 There, to be sure, she lay perfectly 
 
Y""^- 
 
 i^ 
 
 T 
 
 Shooting the Moose 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 155 
 
 dead, just where she had stood to receive 
 the last shots. Using a tape, I found that 
 the moose measured six feet from the 
 shoulder to the tip of the hoof, and was 
 eight feet long. 
 
 Polis, preparing to skin the moose, 
 asked me to help him find a stone on 
 which to sharpen his large knife. It being 
 flat alluvial ground, covered with red 
 maples, etc., this was no easy matter. We 
 searched far and wide a long time till at 
 length I found a flat kind of slate stone, 
 on which he soon made his knife very- 
 sharp. 
 
 While he was skinning the moose I 
 proceeded to ascertain what kind of fishes 
 were to be found in the sluggish and 
 muddy outlet. The greatest difficulty was 
 to find a pole. It was almost impossible 
 to find a slender, straight pole ten or 
 twelve feet long in those woods. You 
 might search half an hour in vain. They 
 are commonly spruce, arbor-vits, fir, etc., 
 short, stout, and branchy, and do not 
 
156 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 make good iishpoles, even after you have 
 patiently cut off all their tough and scraggy 
 branches. The fishes were red perch and 
 chivin. 
 
 The Indian, having cut off a large piece 
 of sirloin, the upper lip, and the tongue, 
 wrapped them in the hide, and placed 
 them in the bottom of the canoe, observ- 
 ing that there was " one man," meaning 
 the weight of one. Our load had pre- 
 viously been reduced some thirty pounds, 
 but a hundred pounds were now added, 
 which made our quarters still more nar- 
 row, and considerably increased the dan- 
 ger on the lakes and rapids as well as the 
 labor of the carries. The skin was ours 
 according to custom, since the Indian was 
 in our employ, but we did not think of 
 claiming it. He being a skillful dresser 
 of moose-hides would make it worth seven 
 or eight dollars to him, as I was told. He 
 said that he sometimes earned fifty or sixty 
 dollars in a day at them ; he had killed 
 ten moose in one day, though the skin- 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 157 
 
 ning and all took two days. This was the 
 way he had got his property. 
 
 We continued along the outlet through 
 a swampy region, by a long, winding dead- 
 water, very much choked up by wood, 
 where we were obliged to land sometimes 
 in order to get the canoe over a log. It 
 was hard to find any channel, and we did 
 not know but we should be lost in the 
 swamp. It abounded in ducks, as usual. 
 At length we reached Grand Lake. 
 
 We stopped to dine on an interesting 
 rocky island, securing our canoe to the 
 cliffy shore. Here was a good opportunity 
 to dry our dewy blankets on the open 
 sunny rock. Indians had recently camped 
 here, and accidentally burned over the 
 western end of the island. Polls picked 
 up a gun-case of blue broadcloth, and 
 said that he knew the Indian it belonged 
 to and would carry it to him. His tribe is 
 not so large but he may know all its 
 effects. We proceeded to make a fire and 
 cook our dinner amid some pines. 
 
IS8 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 I saw where the Indians had made 
 canoes in a Httle secluded hollow in the 
 woods, on the top of the rock, where they 
 were out of the wind, and large piles of 
 whittlings remained. This must have been 
 a favorite resort of their ancestors, and, 
 indeed, we found here the point of an ar- 
 row-head, such as they have not used for 
 two centuries and now know not how to 
 make. The Indian picked up a yellowish 
 curved bone by the side of our fireplace 
 and asked me to guess what it was. It 
 was one of the upper incisors of a beaver, 
 on which some party had feasted within 
 a year or two. I found also most of the 
 teeth and the skull. We here dined on 
 fried moose meat. 
 
 Our blankets being dry, we set out again, 
 the Indian, as usual, having left his gazette 
 on a tree. We paddled southward, keeping 
 near the western shore. The Indian did 
 not know exactly where the outlet was, 
 and he went feeling his way by a middle 
 course between two probable points, from 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 159 
 
 which he could diverge either way at last 
 without losing much distance. In ap- 
 proaching the south shore, as the clouds 
 looked gusty and the waves ran pretty high, 
 we so steered as to get partly under the lee 
 of an island, though at a great distance 
 from it. 
 
 I could not distinguish the outlet till we 
 were almost in it, and heard the water fall- 
 ing over the dam there. Here was a con- 
 siderable fall, and a very substantial dam, 
 but no sign of a cabin or camp. 
 
 While we loitered here Polls took oc- 
 casion to cut with his big knife some of 
 the hair from his moose-hide, and so light- 
 ened and prepared it for drying. I noticed 
 at several old Indian camps in the woods 
 the pile of hair which they had cut from 
 their hides. 
 
 Having carried over the dam, he darted 
 down the rapids, leaving us to walk for a 
 mile or more, where for the most part 
 there was no path, but very thick and diffi- 
 cult traveling near the stream. He would 
 
i6o CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 call to let us know where he was waiting 
 for us with his canoe, when, on account of 
 the windings of the stream, we did not 
 know where the shore was, but he did not 
 call often enough, forgetting that we were 
 not Indians. He seemed to be very saving 
 of his breath — yet he would be surprised 
 if we went by, or did not strike the right 
 spot. This was not because he was un- 
 accommodating, but a proof of superior 
 manners. Indians like to get along with 
 the least possible communication and ado. 
 He was really paying us a great compli- 
 ment all the while, thinking that we pre- 
 ferred a hint to a kick. 
 
 At length, climbing over the willows 
 and fallen trees, when this was easier than 
 to go round or under them, we overtook 
 the canoe, and glided down the stream in 
 smooth but swift water for several miles. 
 I here observed, as at Webster Stream, that 
 the river was a smooth and regularly in- 
 clined plane down which we coasted. 
 
 We decided to camp early that we might 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH i6i 
 
 have ample time before dark. So we 
 stopped at the first favorable shore, where 
 there was a narrow gravelly beach, some 
 five miles below the outlet of the lake. 
 Two steps from the water on either side, 
 and you come to the abrupt, bushy, and 
 rooty, if not turfy, edge of the bank, four 
 or five feet high, where the interminable 
 forest begins, as if the stream had but just 
 cut its way through it. 
 
 It is surprising on stepping ashore any- 
 where into this unbroken wilderness to see 
 so often, at least within a few rods of the 
 river, the marks of the axe, made by lum- 
 berers who have either camped here or 
 driven logs past in previous springs. You 
 will see perchance where they have cut 
 large chips from a tall white pine stump 
 for their fire. 
 
 While we were pitching the camp and 
 getting supper, the Indian cut the rest of 
 the hair from his moose-hide, and pro- 
 ceeded to extend it vertically on a tem- 
 porary frame between two small trees, half 
 
i62 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 a dozen feet from the opposite side of the 
 fire, lashing and stretching it with arbor- 
 vitae bark. Asking for a new kind of tea, 
 he made us some pretty good of the check- 
 erberry, which covered the ground, drop- 
 ping a little bunch of it tied up with cedar 
 bark into the kettle. 
 
 After supper he put on the moose 
 tongue and lips to boil. He showed me 
 how to write on the under side of birch 
 bark with a black spruce twig, which is 
 hard and tough and can be brought to a 
 point. 
 
 The Indian wandered off into the woods 
 a short distance just before night, and, com- 
 ing back, said, " Me found great treasure." 
 
 "What's that? "we asked. 
 
 " Steel traps, under a log, thirty or forty, 
 I did n't count 'em. I guess Indian work 
 — worth three dollars apiece." 
 
 It was a singular coincidence that he 
 should have chanced to walk to and look 
 under that particular log in that trackless 
 forest. 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 163 
 
 I saw chivin and chub in the stream 
 when washing my hands, but my com- 
 panion tried in vain to catch them. I 
 heard the sound of bullfrogs from a swamp 
 on the opposite side. 
 
 You commonly make your camp just 
 at sundown, and are collecting wood, get- 
 ting your supper, or pitching your tent 
 while the shades of night are gathering 
 around and adding to the already dense 
 gloom of the forest. You have no time to 
 explore or look around you before it is 
 dark. You may penetrate half a dozen 
 rods farther into that twilight wilderness 
 after some dry bark to kindle your fire with, 
 and wonder what mysteries lie hidden still 
 deeper in it, or you may run down to the 
 shore for a dipper of water, and get a 
 clearer view for a short distance up or 
 down the stream, and while you stand 
 there, see a fish leap, or duck alight in the 
 river, or hear a thrush or robin sing in the 
 woods. 
 
 But there is no sauntering off to see the 
 
1 64 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 country. Ten or fifteen rods seems a great 
 way from your companions, and you come 
 back with the air of a much traveled man, 
 as from a long journey, with adventures to 
 relate, though you may have heard the 
 crackling of the fire all the while — and at 
 a hundred rods you might be lost past re- 
 covery and have to camp out. It is all 
 mossy and moosey. In some of those dense 
 fir and spruce woods there is hardly room 
 for the smoke to go up. The trees are a 
 standing night, and every fir and spruce 
 which you fell is a plume plucked from 
 night's raven wing. Then at night the 
 general stillness is more impressive than 
 any sound, but occasionally you hear the 
 note of an owl farther or nearer in the 
 woods, and if near a lake, the semihuman 
 cry of the loons at their unearthly revels. 
 To-night the Indian lay between the fire 
 and his stretched moose-hide, to avoid 
 mosquitoes. Indeed, he also made a small 
 smoky fire of damp leaves at his head and 
 feet, and then as usual rolled up his head 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 165 
 
 in his blanket. We with our veils and our 
 wash were tolerably comfortable, but it 
 would be difficult to pursue any sedentary 
 occupation in the woods at this season; 
 you cannot see to read much by the light 
 of a fire through a veil in the evening, nor 
 handle pencil and paper well with gloves 
 or anointed fingers. 
 
IX 
 
 FRIDAY, JULY 3 1 
 
 WE had smooth but swift water for 
 a considerable distance, where we 
 glided rapidly along, scaring up ducks and 
 kingfishers. But, as usual, our smooth prog- 
 ress ere long come to an end, and we were 
 obliged to carry canoe and all about half 
 a mile down the right bank around some 
 rapids or falls. It required sharp eyes some- 
 times to tell which side was the carry, be- 
 fore you went over the falls, but Polis never 
 failed to land us rightly. The raspberries 
 were particularly abundant and large here, 
 and all hands went to eating them, the 
 Indian remarking on their size. 
 
 Often on bare rocky carries the trail 
 was so indistinct that I repeatedly lost it, 
 but when I walked behind him I observed 
 that he could keep it almost like a hound, 
 and rarely hesitated, or, if he paused a mo- 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 167 
 
 ment on a bare rock, his eye immediately 
 detected some sign which would have es- 
 caped me. Frequently we found no path 
 at all at these places, and were to him un- 
 accountably delayed. He would only say 
 it was "ver' strange." 
 
 We had heard of a Grand Fall on this 
 stream, and thought that each fall we came 
 to must be it, but after christening several 
 in succession with this name we gave up 
 the search. There were more Grand or 
 Petty Falls than I can remember. 
 
 I cannot tell how many times we had 
 to walk on account of falls or rapids. We 
 were expecting all the while that the river 
 would take a final leap and get to smooth 
 water, but there was no improvement this 
 forenoon. However, the carries were an 
 agreeable variety. So surely as we stepped 
 out of the canoe and stretched our legs we 
 found ourselves in a blueberry and rasp- 
 berry garden, each side of our rocky trail 
 being lined with one or both. There was 
 not a carry on the main East Branch where 
 
1 68 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 we did not find an abundance of both these 
 berries, for these were the rockiest places 
 and partially cleared, such as these plants 
 prefer, and there had been none to gather 
 the finest before us. 
 
 We bathed and dined at the foot of one 
 of these carries. It was the Indian who 
 commonly reminded us that it was dinner- 
 time, sometimes even by turning the prow 
 to the shore. He once made an indirect, 
 but lengthy apology, by saying that we 
 might think it strange, but that one who 
 worked hard all day was very particular to 
 have his dinner in good season. At the 
 most considerable fall on this stream, 
 when I was walking over the carry close 
 behind the Indian, he observed a track 
 on the rock, which was but slightly cov- 
 ered with soil, and, stooping, muttered, 
 "Caribou." 
 
 When we returned, he observed a much 
 larger track near the same place, where 
 some animal's foot had sunk into a small 
 hollow in the rock, partly filled with grass 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 169 
 
 and earth, and he exclaimed with surprise, 
 "What that?" 
 
 "Well, what is it?" I asked. 
 
 Stooping and laying his hand in it, he 
 answered with a mysterious air, and in a 
 half-whisper, " Devil [that is, Indian devil, 
 or cougar] — ledges about here — very bad 
 animal — pull 'em rocks all to pieces." 
 
 "How long since it was made?" I 
 asked. 
 
 "To-day or yesterday," said he. 
 
 We spent at least half the time in walk- 
 ing to-day. The Indian, being alone, com- 
 monly ran down far below the foot of the 
 carries before he waited for us. The carry- 
 paths themselves were more than usually 
 indistinct, often the route being revealed 
 only by the countless small holes in the 
 fallen timber made by the tacks in the 
 drivers' boots. It was a tangled and per- 
 plexing thicket, through which we stum- 
 bled and threaded our way, and when we 
 had finished a mile of it, our starting-point 
 seemed far away. We were glad that we 
 
I70 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 had not got to walk to Bangor along the 
 banks of this river, which would be a jour- 
 ney of more than a hundred miles. Think 
 of the denseness of the forest, the fallen 
 trees and rocks, the windings of the river, 
 the streams emptying in, and the frequent 
 swamps to be crossed. It made you shud- 
 der. Yet the Indian from time to time 
 pointed out to us where he had thus crept 
 along day after day when he was a boy of 
 ten, and in a starving condition- 
 He had been hunting far north of this 
 with two grown Indians. The winter 
 came on unexpectedly early, and the ice 
 compelled them to leave their canoe at 
 Grand Lake, and walk down the bank. 
 They shouldered their furs and started for 
 Oldtown. The snow was not deep enough 
 for snowshoes, or to cover the inequalities 
 of the ground. Polls was soon too weak to 
 carry any burden, but he managed to catch 
 one otter. This was the most they all had 
 to eat on this journey, and he remem- 
 bered how good the yellow lily roots were. 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 171 
 
 made into a soup with the otter oil. He 
 shared this food equally with the other 
 two, but being so small he suffered much 
 more than they. He waded through the 
 Mattawamkeag at its mouth, when it was 
 freezing cold and came up to his chin, 
 and he, being very weak and emaciated, 
 expected to be swept away. The first 
 house which they reached was at Lincoln, 
 and thereabouts they met a white teamster 
 with supplies, who, seeing their condition, 
 gave them as much as they could eat. For 
 six months after getting home he was very 
 low and did not expect to live, and was 
 perhaps always the worse for it. 
 
 For seven or eight miles below that 
 succession of "Grand" falls the aspect of 
 the banks as well as the character of the 
 stream was changed. After passing a trib- 
 utary from the northeast we had swift 
 smooth water. Low grassy banks and 
 muddy shores began. Many elms as well 
 as maples and more ash trees overhung the 
 stream and supplanted the spruce. 
 
172 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 Mosquitoes, black flies, etc., pursued us 
 in mid-channel, and we were glad some- 
 times to get into violent rapids, for then we 
 escaped them. As we glided swiftly down 
 the inclined plane of the river, a great cat 
 owl launched itself away from a stump on 
 the bank, and flew heavily across the 
 stream, and the Indian, as usual, imitated 
 its note. Soon afterward a white-headed 
 eagle sailed down the stream before us. 
 We drove him several miles, while we 
 were looking for a good place to camp, — 
 for we expected to be overtaken by a 
 shower, — and still we could distinguish 
 him by his white tail, sailing away from 
 time to time from some tree by the shore 
 still farther down the stream. Some she- 
 corways being surprised by us, a part of 
 them dived, and we passed directly over 
 them, and could trace their course here 
 and there by a bubble on the surface, but 
 we did not see them come up. 
 
 It was some time before we found a 
 camping-place, for the shore was either 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 173 
 
 too grassy and muddy, where mosquitoes 
 abounded, or too steep a hillside. We at 
 length found a place to our minds, where, 
 in a very dense spruce wood above a grav- 
 elly shore, there seemed to be but few in- 
 sects. The trees were so thick that we 
 were obliged to clear a space to build our 
 fire and lie down in, and the young spruce 
 trees that were left were like the wall of 
 an apartment rising around us. We were 
 obliged to pull ourselves up a steep bank 
 to get there. But the place which you 
 have selected for your camp, though never 
 so rough and grim, begins at once to have 
 its attractions, and becomes a very center 
 of civilization to you : " Home is home, 
 be it never so homely." 
 
 The mosquitoes were numerous, and 
 the Indian complained a good deal, though 
 he lay, as the night before, between three 
 fires and his stretched hide. As I sat on a 
 stump by the fire with a veil and gloves 
 on, trying to read, he observed, " I make 
 you candle," and in a minute he took a 
 
174 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 piece of birch bark about two inches wide 
 and rolled it hard, like an allumette ' fifteen 
 inches long, lit it, fixed it by the other end 
 horizontally in a split stick three feet high, 
 and stuck it in the ground, turning the 
 blazing end to the wind, and telling me to 
 snuff it from time to time. It answered the 
 purpose of a candle pretty well. 
 
 I noticed, as I had before, that there 
 was a lull among the mosquitoes about 
 midnight, and that they began again in 
 the morning. Apparently they need rest 
 as well as we. Few, if any, creatures are 
 equally active all night. As soon as it was 
 light I saw, through my veil, that the in- 
 side of the tent about our heads was quite 
 blackened with myriads, and their com- 
 bined hum was almost as bad to endure as 
 their stings. I had an uncomfortable night 
 on this account, though I am not sure that 
 one succeeded in his attempt to sting me. 
 
 'A match. In this case an old-fashioned "spill," or 
 lamplighter, made by twisting a piece of paper, into a long, 
 tight spiral roll. 
 
X 
 
 SATURDAY, SUNDAY, MONDAY 
 AUGUST 1-3 
 
 I CAUGHT two or three large red 
 chivin within twenty feet of the camp, 
 which, added to the moose tongue that 
 had been left in the kettle boiling over 
 night, and to our other stores, made a 
 sumptuous breakfast. The Indian made us 
 some hemlock tea instead of coffee. This 
 was tolerable, though he said it was not 
 strong enough. It was interesting to see 
 so simple a dish as a kettle of water with 
 a handful of green hemlock sprigs in it 
 boiling over the huge fire in the open air, 
 the leaves fast losing their lively green color, 
 and know that it was for our breakfast. 
 
 We were glad to embark once more 
 and leave some of the mosquitoes behind. 
 We found that we had camped about a 
 mile above Hunt's, which is the last house 
 
176 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 for those who ascend Katahdin on this side. 
 We had expected to ascend it from this 
 point, but my companion was obHged to 
 give up this on account of sore feet. The 
 Indian, however, suggested that perhaps he 
 might get a pair of moccasins at this place, 
 and that he could walk very easily in them 
 without hurting his feet, wearing several 
 pairs of stockings, and he said beside that 
 they were so porous that when you had 
 taken in water it all drained out in a little 
 while. We stopped to get some sugar, but 
 found that the family had moved away, 
 and the house was unoccupied, except tem- 
 porarily by some men who were getting 
 the hay. I noticed a seine here stretched 
 on the bank, which probably had been 
 used to catch salmon. 
 
 Just below this, on the west bank, we 
 saw a moose-hide stretched, and with it a 
 bearskin. The Indian said they belonged 
 to Joe Aitteon,' but how he told I do not 
 
 " Joe Aitteon was Thoreau's guide on the second of his 
 three excursions into the Maine Woods. He was an Indian 
 whose home was on the same island where Polis lived. 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 177 
 
 know. He was probably hunting near and 
 had left them for the day. Finding that 
 we were going directly to Oldtown, he 
 regretted that he had not taken more of 
 the moose meat to his family, saying that 
 in a short time, by drying it, he could 
 have made it so light as to have brought 
 away the greater part, leaving the bones. 
 We once or twice inquired after the lip, 
 which is a famous tidbit, but he said, 
 " That go Oldtown for my old woman ; 
 don't get it every day." 
 
 Maples grew more and more numerous. 
 It rained a little during the forenoon, and, 
 as we expected a wetting, we stopped early 
 and dined just above Whetstone Falls, 
 about a dozen miles below Hunt's. My 
 companion, having lost his pipe, asked the 
 Indian if he could make him one. 
 
 " Oh, yer," said he, and in a minute 
 rolled up one of birch bark, telling him 
 to wet the bowl from time to time. 
 
 We carried round the falls. The dis- 
 tance was about three fourths of a mile. 
 
178 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 When we had carried over one load, the 
 Indian returned by the shore, and I by 
 the path ; and though I made no particular 
 haste I was nevertheless surprised to find 
 him at the other end as soon as I. It was 
 remarkable how easily he got over the 
 worst ground. He said to me, " I take 
 canoe and you take the rest, suppose you 
 can keep along with me ? " 
 
 I thought he meant that while he ran 
 down the rapids I should keep along the 
 shore, and be ready to assist him from time 
 to time, as I had done before ; but as the 
 walking would be very bad, I answered, 
 " I suppose you will go too fast for me, 
 but I will try." 
 
 But I was to go by the path, he said. 
 This I thought would not help the mat- 
 ter, I should have so far to go to get to 
 the riverside when he wanted me. But 
 neither was this what he meant. He was 
 proposing a race over the carry, and asked 
 me if I thought I could keep along with 
 him by the same path, adding that I must 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 179 
 
 be pretty smart to do it. As his load, 
 the canoe, would be much the heaviest 
 and bulkiest, I thought that I ought to 
 be able to do it, and said that I would try. 
 So I proceeded to gather up the gun, axe, 
 paddle, kettle, frying-pan, plates, dippers, 
 carpets, etc., and while I was thus engaged 
 he threw me his cowhide boots. " What, 
 are these in the bargain?" I asked. 
 
 " Oh, yer," said he ; but before I could 
 make a bundle of my load I saw him dis- 
 appearing over a hill with the canoe on 
 his head. 
 
 Hastily scraping the various articles to- 
 gether, I started on the run, and immedi- 
 ately went by him in the bushes, but I 
 had no sooner left him out of sight in a 
 rocky hollow than the greasy plates, dip- 
 pers, etc., took to themselves wings, and 
 while I was employed in gathering them 
 up, he went by me; but, hastily pressing 
 the sooty kettle to my side, I started once 
 more, and, soon passing him again, I saw 
 him no more on the carry. I do not men- 
 
i8o CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 tion this as anything of a feat, for it was 
 but poor running on my part, and he was 
 obliged to move with great caution for 
 fear of breaking his canoe as well as his 
 neck. When he made his appearance, puf- 
 fing and panting like myself, in answer to 
 my inquiries where he had been, he said, 
 " Locks cut 'em feet," and, laughing, 
 added, " Oh, me love to play sometimes." 
 
 He said that he and his companions 
 when they came to carries several miles 
 long used to try who would get over first; 
 each perhaps with a canoe on his head. I 
 bore the sign of the kettle on my brown 
 linen sack for the rest of the voyage. 
 
 As we approached the mouth of the 
 East Branch we passed two or three huts, 
 the first sign of civilization after Hunt's, 
 though we saw no road as yet. We heard 
 a cowbell, and even saw an infant held up 
 to a small square window to see us pass. 
 On entering the West Branch at Nicke- 
 tow, Polls remarked that it was all smooth 
 water hence to Oldtown, and he threw 
 
Carrying round the Falls 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH i8i 
 
 away his pole which was cut on the Um- 
 bazookskus. 
 
 We camped about two miles below 
 Nicketow, covering with fresh twigs the 
 withered bed of a former traveler, and 
 feeling that we were now in a settled 
 country, especially when in the evening 
 we heard an ox sneeze in its wild pasture 
 across the river. Wherever you land along 
 the frequented part of the river you have 
 not far to go to find these sites of tem- 
 porary inns, the withered bed of flattened 
 twigs, the charred sticks, and perhaps the 
 tent-poles. Not long since, similar beds 
 were spread along the Connecticut, the 
 Hudson, and the Delaware, and longer 
 still ago, by the Thames and Seine, and 
 they now help to make the soil where 
 private and public gardens, mansions, and 
 palaces are. We could not get fir twigs 
 for our bed here, and the spruce was 
 harsh in comparison, having more twig 
 in proportion to its leaf, but we improved 
 it somewhat with hemlock. 
 
i82 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 After the regular supper we attempted 
 to make a lily soup of the bulbs which I had 
 brought along, for I wished to learn all I 
 could before I got out of the woods. Fol- 
 lowing the Indian's directions, I washed 
 the bulbs carefully, minced some moose 
 meat and some pork, salted and boiled all 
 together, but we had not the patience to 
 try the experiment fairly, for he said it 
 must be boiled till the roots were com- 
 pletely softened so as to thicken the soup 
 like flour; but though we left it on all 
 night, we found it dried to the kettle in 
 the morning and not yet boiled to a flour. 
 Perhaps the roots were not ripe enough, 
 for they commonly gather them in the 
 fall. The Indian's name for these bulbs 
 was sheepnoc. 
 
 He prepared to camp as usual between 
 his moose-hide and the fire, but it begin- 
 ning to rain suddenly he took refuge under 
 the tent with us, and gave us a song before 
 falling asleep. It rained hard in the night 
 and spoiled another box of matches for 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 183 
 
 us, which the Indian had left out, for he 
 was very careless; but we had so much 
 the better night for the rain, since it kept 
 the mosquitoes down. 
 
 Sunday, a cloudy and unpromising morn- 
 ing. One of us observed to the Indian, 
 "You did not stretch your moose-hide 
 last night, did you, Mr. Polis ?" 
 
 Whereat he replied in a tone of sur- 
 prise, though perhaps not of ill humor: 
 "What you ask me that question for? 
 Suppose I stretch 'em, you see 'em. May 
 be your way talking, may be all right, no 
 Indian way." 
 
 I had observed that he did not wish to 
 answer the same question more than once, 
 and was often silent when it was put 
 again, as if he were moody. Not that he 
 was incommunicative, for he frequently 
 commenced a longwinded narrative of his 
 own accord — repeated at length the tra- 
 dition of some old battle, or some passage 
 in the recent history of his tribe in which 
 he had acted a prominent part, from time 
 
1 84 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 to time drawing a long breath, and resum- 
 ing the thread of his tale, with the true 
 story-teller's leisureliness. Especially after 
 the day's work was over, and he had put 
 himself in posture for the night, he would 
 be unexpectedly sociable, and we would 
 fall asleep before he got through. 
 
 The Indian was quite sick this morning 
 with the colic. I thought that he was the 
 worse for the moose meat he had eaten. 
 
 We reached the Mattawamkeag at half 
 past eight in the morning, in the midst 
 of a drizzling rain, and, after buying some 
 sugar, set out again. 
 
 The Indian growing much worse, we 
 stopped in the north part of Lincoln to 
 get some brandy for him, but, failing in 
 this, an apothecary recommended Brand- 
 reth's pills, which he refused to take be- 
 cause he was not acquainted with them. 
 He said, "Me doctor — first study my 
 case, find out what ail 'em — then I know 
 what to take." 
 ■ We stopped at mid-forenoon on an 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 185 
 
 island and made him a dipper of tea. 
 Here, too, we dined and did some washing 
 and botanizing, while he lay on the bank. 
 In the afternoon we went on a little far- 
 ther. As a thunder-shower appeared to be 
 coming up we stopped opposite a barn 
 on the west bank. Here we were obliged 
 to spend the rest of the day and night, 
 on account of our patient, whose sickness 
 did not abate. He lay groaning under his 
 canoe on the bank, looking very woebe- 
 gone. You would not have thought, if 
 you had seen him lying about thus, that 
 he was worth six thousand dollars and 
 had been to Washington. It seemed to 
 me that he made a greater ado about his 
 sickness than a Yankee does, and was 
 more alarmed about himself. We talked 
 somewhat of leaving him with his people 
 in Lincoln, — for that is one of their 
 homes, — but he objected on account of 
 the expense, saying, " Suppose me well 
 in morning, you and I go Oldtown by 
 noon.*' 
 
1 86 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 As we were taking our tea at twilight, 
 while he lay groaning under his canoe, he 
 asked me to get him a dipper of water. 
 Taking the dipper in one hand, he seized 
 his powderhorn with the other, and, pour- 
 ing into it a charge or two of powder, 
 stirred it up with his finger, and drank it 
 off. This was all he took to-day after 
 breakfast beside his tea. 
 
 To save the trouble of pitching our 
 tent, when we had secured our stores from 
 wandering dogs, we camped in the soli- 
 tary half-open barn near the bank, with 
 the permission of the owner, lying on new- 
 mown hay four feet deep. The fragrance 
 of the hay, in which many ferns, etc., 
 were mingled, was agreeable, though it 
 was quite alive with grasshoppers which 
 you could hear crawling through it. This 
 served to graduate our approach to houses 
 and feather beds. In the night some large 
 bird, probably an owl, flitted through 
 over our heads, and very early in the 
 morning we were awakened by the twit- 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 187 
 
 tering of swallows which had their nests 
 there. 
 
 We started early before breakfast, the 
 Indian being considerably better, and soon 
 glided by Lincoln, and stopped to break- 
 fast two or three miles below this town. 
 
 We frequently passed Indian islands 
 with their small houses on them. The 
 Penobscot Indians seem to be more social 
 even than the whites. Ever and anon in 
 the deepest wilderness of Maine you come 
 to the log hut of a Yankee or Canada set- 
 tler, but a Penobscot never takes up his 
 residence in such a solitude. They are not 
 even scattered about on their islands in the 
 Penobscot, but gathered together on two 
 or three, evidently for the sake of society. 
 I saw one or two houses not now used by 
 them, because, as our Indian said, they 
 were too solitary. 
 
 From time to time we met Indians in 
 their canoes going up river. Our man did 
 not commonly approach them, but only 
 exchanged a few words with them at a 
 
i88 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 distance. We took less notice of the scen- 
 ery to-day, because we were in quite a 
 settled country. The river became broad 
 and sluggish, and we saw a blue heron 
 winging its way slowly down the stream 
 before us. 
 
 The Sunkhaze, a short dead stream, 
 comes in from the east two miles above 
 Oldtown. Asking the meaning of this 
 name, the Indian said, " Suppose you are 
 going down Penobscot, just like we, and 
 you see a canoe come out of bank and go 
 along before you, but you no see 'em 
 stream. That is Sunkhaze ^ 
 
 He had previously complimented me on 
 my paddling, saying that I paddled "just 
 like anybody," giving me an Indian name 
 which meant " great paddler." When off 
 this stream he said to me, who sat in the 
 bows, " Me teach you paddle." 
 
 So, turning toward the shore, he got out, 
 came forward, and placed my hands as he 
 wished. He placed one of them quite out- 
 side the boat, and the other parallel with 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 189 
 
 the first, grasping the paddle near the end, 
 not over the fiat extremity, and told me to 
 slide it back and forth on the side of the 
 canoe. This, I found, was a great improve- 
 ment which I had not thought of, saving 
 me the labor of lifting the paddle each 
 time, and I wondered that he had not sug- 
 gested it before. It is true, before our bag- 
 gage was reduced we had been obliged to 
 sit with our legs drawn up, and our knees 
 above the side of the canoe, which would 
 have prevented our paddling thus, or per- 
 haps he was afraid of wearing out his 
 canoe by constant friction on the side. 
 
 I told him that I had been accustomed 
 to sit in the stern, and lift my paddle at 
 each stroke, getting a pry on the side each 
 time, and I still paddled partly as if in the 
 stern. He then wanted to see me paddle 
 in the stern. So, changing paddles, for he 
 had the longer and better one, and turning 
 end for end, he sitting flat on the bottom 
 and I on the crossbar, he began to paddle 
 very hard, trying to turn the canoe, look- 
 
iQo CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 ing over his shoulder and laughing, but, 
 finding it in vain, he relaxed his efforts, 
 though we still sped along a mile or two 
 very swiftly. He said that he had no fault 
 to find with my paddling in the stern, but 
 I complained that he did not paddle ac- 
 cording to his own directions in the bows. 
 
 As we drew near to Oldtown I asked 
 Polls if he was not glad to get home 
 again ; but there was no relenting to his 
 wildness, and he said, " It makes no dif- 
 ference to me where I am." Such is the 
 Indian's pretense always. 
 
 We approached the Indian Island 
 through the narrow strait called " Cook." 
 He said : " I 'xpect we take in some wa- 
 ter there, river so high — never see it so 
 high at this season. Very rough water 
 there ; swamp steamboat once. Don't you 
 paddle till I tell you. Then you paddle 
 right along." 
 
 It was a very short rapid. When we 
 were in the midst of it he shouted, " Pad- 
 dle ! " and we shot through without taking 
 
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 191 
 
 in a drop. Soon after the Indian houses 
 came in sight. I could not at first tell my 
 companion which of two or three large 
 white ones was our guide's. He said it was 
 the one with blinds. 
 
 We landed opposite his door at about 
 four in the afternoon, having come some 
 forty miles this day. We stopped for an 
 hour at his house. Mrs. P. wore a hat and 
 had a silver brooch on her breast, but she 
 was not introduced to us. The house was 
 roomy and neat. A large new map of Old- 
 town and the Indian Island hung on the 
 wall, and a clock opposite to it. 
 
 This was the last that I saw of Joe Polls. 
 We took the last train, and reached Ban- 
 gor that night. 
 
 THE END 
 
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