The Presence Of An Animal Always Associated In The
Imagination With Uninhabited Coasts Of The Ocean, Made Us Feel That We
Were Advancing Into A Thinly Or At Least A Newly Peopled Country.
Above Bath, the channel of the Kennebeck widens into what is called
Merrymeeting Bay.
Here the great Androscoggin brings in its waters from
the southwest, and various other small streams from different quarters
enter the bay, making it a kind of Congress of Rivers. It is full of
wooded islands and rocky promontories projecting into the water and
overshading it with their trees. As we passed up we saw, from time to
time, farms pleasantly situated on the islands or the borders of the
river, where a soil more genial or more easily tilled had tempted the
settler to fix himself. At length we approached Gardiner, a flourishing
village, beautifully situated among the hills on the right bank of the
Kennebeck. All traces of sterility had already disappeared from the
country; the shores of the river were no longer rock-bound, but disposed
in green terraces, with woody eminences behind them. Leaving Gardiner
behind us, we went on to Hallowell, a village bearing similar marks of
prosperity, where we landed, and were taken in carriages to Augusta, the
seat of government, three or four miles beyond.
Augusta is a pretty village, seated on green and apparently fertile
eminences that overlook the Kennebeck, and itself overlooked by still
higher summits, covered with woods, The houses are neat, and shaded with
trees, as is the case with all New England villages in the agricultural
districts.
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