It Would Be Worth The While To Look
Closely Into The Eye Which Has Been Open And Seeing At Such
Hours, And In Such Solitudes, Its Dull, Yellowish, Greenish Eye.
Methinks My Own Soul Must Be A Bright Invisible Green.
I have
seen these birds stand by the half-dozen together in the
shallower water along the shore, with their bills thrust into the
mud at the bottom, probing for food, the whole head being
concealed, while the neck and body formed an arch above the
water.
Cohass Brook, the outlet of Massabesic Pond, - which last is five
or six miles distant, and contains fifteen hundred acres, being
the largest body of fresh water in Rockingham County, - comes in
near here from the east. Rowing between Manchester and Bedford,
we passed, at an early hour, a ferry and some falls, called
Goff's Falls, the Indian Cohasset, where there is a small
village, and a handsome green islet in the middle of the stream.
From Bedford and Merrimack have been boated the bricks of which
Lowell is made. About twenty years before, as they told us, one
Moore, of Bedford, having clay on his farm, contracted to furnish
eight millions of bricks to the founders of that city within two
years. He fulfilled his contract in one year, and since then
bricks have been the principal export from these towns. The
farmers found thus a market for their wood, and when they had
brought a load to the kilns, they could cart a load of bricks to
the shore, and so make a profitable day's work of it. Thus all
parties were benefited. It was worth the while to see the place
where Lowell was "dug out." So likewise Manchester is being
built of bricks made still higher up the river at Hooksett.
There might be seen here on the bank of the Merrimack, near
Goff's Falls, in what is now the town of Bedford, famous "for
hops and for its fine domestic manufactures," some graves of the
aborigines. The land still bears this scar here, and time is
slowly crumbling the bones of a race. Yet, without fail, every
spring, since they first fished and hunted here, the brown
thrasher has heralded the morning from a birch or alder spray,
and the undying race of reed-birds still rustles through the
withering grass. But these bones rustle not. These mouldering
elements are slowly preparing for another metamorphosis, to serve
new masters, and what was the Indian's will erelong be the white
man's sinew.
We learned that Bedford was not so famous for hops as formerly,
since the price is fluctuating, and poles are now scarce. Yet if
the traveller goes back a few miles from the river, the hop-kilns
will still excite his curiosity.
There were few incidents in our voyage this forenoon, though the
river was now more rocky and the falls more frequent than before.
It was a pleasant change, after rowing incessantly for many
hours, to lock ourselves through in some retired place, - for
commonly there was no lock-man at hand, - one sitting in the boat,
while the other, sometimes with no little labor and heave-yo-ing,
opened and shut the gates, waiting patiently to see the locks
fill.
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