Canoeing in the wilderness

ther 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 e

nd crannies 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 bask

called Shecorways, and some peetweets on the rocky shore. We also saw and heard loons. It was inspiriting to hear the

d 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

reminding us that he could not work without eating, we stopped to breakfast 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 a stump, though he said that

dling by within three or four rods, not at all alarmed; and they loitered about as long

g-day weather, and we had already penetrated a smaller bay of the same kind, and knocked the bottom out of it, though we had been obliged to pass over a bar between an island and the shore, where there was but just breadth and depth enough to float the canoe, and the

es, though curious to know how they were spelled and what they meant. We called him Pol

a "slick," and watching to see how much it spread over and smoothed the agitated surface. The Indian

in. The western shore, near which we paddled along, rose gently to a considerable height and was everywhere densel

s morning. The thrush, which was quite common, and whose note he imitated, he said was called Adelungquamooktum; but sometimes he could not tell the n

to him to learn his language, living on the In

replied, "go

I told him that in this voyage I would tell him all I knew, a

ad a level bar of cloud concealing its summit, and all the mountain-tops about the lake were cut off at the sa

ent, that is, intelligent. I observed that he could rarely sound the letter r, but used l, as also r for l sometimes; as load f

gs prepared for the following night. So I knew not only that they had just left, but that they designed to return, and by the breadth of the bed that there was more than one in the party. You might have gone within six

ing it swing round slowly sidewise, and was still more particular that we should not step into it on shore, nor

t. Here we were exposed 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 leap

, a wave will gently creep up the side of the canoe and fill your lap, like a monster deliberately 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 impos

an makes a spritsail of his blanket. He thus easil

hen he wanted to change hands he would say, "T' other side." He asserted, in answer to our

tossing across that great lake, a mere b

ng him that a big fish might upset us, for there are some very large ones

ifficulty, while her calf was killed somewhere among the islands in Penobscot Bay, and, to his eyes, this mountain had still the form of the moose in a reclining posture. He told this at some length and with apparent good faith, and asked us how we supposed the hunter could have kil

across the lake at its narrowest part to the eastern side, and were soon partly und

own on, after cutting away a few bushes. The Indian 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,

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, Polis, bought the land, the former could take it whether the latter knew it or not. To which he only answered, "Strange!" He wen

n, besides some about his house; that he hired a good deal of his work, hoeing,

o 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 forenoon, 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 h

and stormy appearance, but from its surface six or eight miles distant there was reflected upward through the misty air a brig

ts 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 t

ul weather so as to be there when it cleared up. We are then in the most suitable mood, and nature is mo

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

re 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, fa

ix hundred feet high, we probably might have jumped down to the water, or to the seemingly dwarfish trees on the

und-leafed orchis, bunchberry, reddening as we ascended, green at the base of the mountain, red at the top, and the small fern Woodsia ilvensis, growing in tufts, now in fruit. Having explored the wonders of the mountain, and the weather being now cleared up,

ss it to prevent its being blown away. The Indian cut some large logs of damp and rot

y sit up in the middle. 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 purpo

ling note-pheet-pheet-two or three times repeated, 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 h

"just as you say; it ma

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 t

the simple faith of the Indian. There was, indeed, a beautiful simplicity about it; nothing of the dark

ons 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 diameter, 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,

as 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

five feet of the fire, an inch wide and six inches lon

thing to do with this, but the previous day's rai

e more if it had taken the form of letters, or of the human face. I little thoug

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 phenomena witnessed by "his

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 improved. It made a believer of me more than before. I believed that the woods were not tenantless, but choke-full of honest 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 a

wet them again the next nigh

TNO

veral species of water-birds that ar