We cannot draw on our boots
without bracing ourselves against it.
If there were but one
erect and solid standing tree in the woods, all creatures would
go to rub against it and make sure of their footing. During the
many hours which we spend in this waking sleep, the hand stands
still on the face of the clock, and we grow like corn in the
night. Men are as busy as the brooks or bees, and postpone
everything to their business; as carpenters discuss politics
between the strokes of the hammer while they are shingling a
roof.
This noontide was a fit occasion to make some pleasant harbor,
and there read the journal of some voyageur like ourselves, not
too moral nor inquisitive, and which would not disturb the noon;
or else some old classic, the very flower of all reading, which
we had postponed to such a season
"Of Syrian peace, immortal leisure."
But, alas, our chest, like the cabin of a coaster, contained only
its well-thumbed "Navigator" for all literature, and we were
obliged to draw on our memory for these things.
We naturally remembered Alexander Henry's Adventures here, as a
sort of classic among books of American travel. It contains
scenery and rough sketching of men and incidents enough to
inspire poets for many years, and to my fancy is as full of
sounding names as any page of history, - Lake Winnipeg, Hudson
Bay, Ottaway, and portages innumerable; Chipeways, Gens de
Terres, Les Pilleurs, The Weepers; with reminiscences of Hearne's
journey, and the like; an immense and shaggy but sincere country,
summer and winter, adorned with chains of lakes and rivers,
covered with snows, with hemlocks, and fir-trees. There is a
naturalness, an unpretending and cold life in this traveller, as
in a Canadian winter, what life was preserved through low
temperatures and frontier dangers by furs within a stout heart.
He has truth and moderation worthy of the father of history,
which belong only to an intimate experience, and he does not
defer too much to literature. The unlearned traveller may quote
his single line from the poets with as good right as the scholar.
He too may speak of the stars, for he sees them shoot perhaps
when the astronomer does not. The good sense of this author is
very conspicuous. He is a traveller who does not exaggerate, but
writes for the information of his readers, for science, and for
history. His story is told with as much good faith and
directness as if it were a report to his brother traders, or the
Directors of the Hudson Bay Company, and is fitly dedicated to
Sir Joseph Banks. It reads like the argument to a great poem on
the primitive state of the country and its inhabitants, and the
reader imagines what in each case, with the invocation of the
Muse, might be sung, and leaves off with suspended interest, as
if the full account were to follow. In what school was this
fur-trader educated? He seems to travel the immense snowy
country with such purpose only as the reader who accompanies him,
and to the latter's imagination, it is, as it were, momentarily
created to be the scene of his adventures. What is most
interesting and valuable in it, however, is not the materials for
the history of Pontiac, or Braddock, or the Northwest, which it
furnishes; not the _annals_ of the country, but the natural
facts, or _perennials_, which are ever without date. When out of
history the truth shall be extracted, it will have shed its dates
like withered leaves.
The Souhegan, or _Crooked_ River, as some translate it, comes in
from the west about a mile and a half above Thornton's Ferry.
Babboosuck Brook empties into it near its mouth. There are said
to be some of the finest water privileges in the country still
unimproved on the former stream, at a short distance from the
Merrimack. One spring morning, March 22, in the year 1677, an
incident occurred on the banks of the river here, which is
interesting to us as a slight memorial of an interview between
two ancient tribes of men, one of which is now extinct, while the
other, though it is still represented by a miserable remnant, has
long since disappeared from its ancient hunting-grounds. A
Mr. James Parker, at "Mr. Hinchmanne's farme ner Meremack," wrote
thus "to the Honred Governer and Council at Bostown, _Hast, Post
Hast":_ -
"Sagamore Wanalancet come this morning to informe me, and then
went to Mr. Tyng's to informe him, that his son being on ye
other sid of Meremack river over against Souhegan upon the 22
day of this instant, about tene of the clock in the morning, he
discovered 15 Indians on this sid the river, which he soposed
to be Mohokes by ther spech. He called to them; they answered,
but he could not understand ther spech; and he having a conow
ther in the river, he went to breck his conow that they might
not have ani ues of it. In the mean time they shot about
thirty guns at him, and he being much frighted fled, and come
home forthwith to Nahamcock [Pawtucket Falls or Lowell], wher
ther wigowames now stand."
Penacooks and Mohawks! _ubique gentium sunt?_ In the year 1670, a
Mohawk warrior scalped a Naamkeak or else a Wamesit Indian maiden
near where Lowell now stands. She, however, recovered. Even as
late as 1685, John Hogkins, a Penacook Indian, who describes his
grandfather as having lived "at place called Malamake rever,
other name chef Natukkog and Panukkog, that one rever great many
names," wrote thus to the governor: -
"May 15th, 1685.
"Honor governor my friend, -
"You my friend I desire your worship and your power, because I
hope you can do som great matters this one. I am poor and
naked and I have no men at my place because I afraid allwayes
Mohogs he will kill me every day and night.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 63 of 113
Words from 64083 to 65095
of 116321
