Still Farther
On We Scrambled Up The Rocky Channel Of A Brook, Which Had Long
Served Nature For A Sluice
There, leaping like it from rock to
rock through tangled woods, at the bottom of a ravine, which grew
darker
And darker, and more and more hoarse the murmurs of the
stream, until we reached the ruins of a mill, where now the ivy
grew, and the trout glanced through the crumbling flume; and
there we imagined what had been the dreams and speculations of
some early settler. But the waning day compelled us to embark
once more, and redeem this wasted time with long and vigorous
sweeps over the rippling stream.
It was still wild and solitary, except that at intervals of a
mile or two the roof of a cottage might be seen over the bank.
This region, as we read, was once famous for the manufacture of
straw bonnets of the Leghorn kind, of which it claims the
invention in these parts; and occasionally some industrious
damsel tripped down to the water's edge, to put her straw a-soak,
as it appeared, and stood awhile to watch the retreating
voyageurs, and catch the fragment of a boat-song which we had
made, wafted over the water.
Thus, perchance, the Indian hunter,
Many a lagging year agone,
Gliding o'er thy rippling waters,
Lowly hummed a natural song.
Now the sun's behind the willows,
Now he gleams along the waves,
Faintly o'er the wearied billows
Come the spirits of the braves.
Just before sundown we reached some more falls in the town of
Bedford, where some stone-masons were employed repairing the
locks in a solitary part of the river. They were interested in
our adventure, especially one young man of our own age, who
inquired at first if we were bound up to "'Skeag"; and when he
had heard our story, and examined our outfit, asked us other
questions, but temperately still, and always turning to his work
again, though as if it were become his duty. It was plain that
he would like to go with us, and, as he looked up the river, many
a distant cape and wooded shore were reflected in his eye, as
well as in his thoughts. When we were ready he left his work,
and helped us through the locks with a sort of quiet enthusiasm,
telling us that we were at Coos Falls, and we could still
distinguish the strokes of his chisel for many sweeps after we
had left him.
We wished to camp this night on a large rock in the middle of the
stream, just above these falls, but the want of fuel, and the
difficulty of fixing our tent firmly, prevented us; so we made
our bed on the main-land opposite, on the west bank, in the town
of Bedford, in a retired place, as we supposed, there being no
house in sight.
-
WEDNESDAY
_"Man is man's foe and destiny."_
^Cotton.^
-
WEDNESDAY.
- * -
Early this morning, as we were rolling up our buffaloes and
loading our boat amid the dew, while our embers were still
smoking, the masons who worked at the locks, and whom we had seen
crossing the river in their boat the evening before while we were
examining the rock, came upon us as they were going to their
work, and we found that we had pitched our tent directly in the
path to their boat. This was the only time that we were observed
on our camping-ground. Thus, far from the beaten highways and
the dust and din of travel, we beheld the country privately, yet
freely, and at our leisure. Other roads do some violence to
Nature, and bring the traveller to stare at her, but the river
steals into the scenery it traverses without intrusion, silently
creating and adorning it, and is as free to come and go as the
zephyr.
As we shoved away from this rocky coast, before sunrise, the
smaller bittern, the genius of the shore, was moping along its
edge, or stood probing the mud for its food, with ever an eye on
us, though so demurely at work, or else he ran along over the wet
stones like a wrecker in his storm-coat, looking out for wrecks
of snails and cockles. Now away he goes, with a limping flight,
uncertain where he will alight, until a rod of clear sand amid
the alders invites his feet; and now our steady approach compels
him to seek a new retreat. It is a bird of the oldest Thalesian
school, and no doubt believes in the priority of water to the
other elements; the relic of a twilight antediluvian age which
yet inhabits these bright American rivers with us Yankees. There
is something venerable in this melancholy and contemplative race
of birds, which may have trodden the earth while it was yet in a
slimy and imperfect state. Perchance their tracks too are still
visible on the stones. It still lingers into our glaring
summers, bravely supporting its fate without sympathy from man,
as if it looked forward to some second advent of which _he_ has
no assurance. One wonders if, by its patient study by rocks and
sandy capes, it has wrested the whole of her secret from Nature
yet. What a rich experience it must have gained, standing on one
leg and looking out from its dull eye so long on sunshine and
rain, moon and stars! What could it tell of stagnant pools and
reeds and dank night-fogs! 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.
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