"It Is Said," Remarked A Passenger, "That There Are As
Many Of These Islands As There Are Days In The
Year, but I do not know
that any body has ever counted them." Two of the loftiest, rock-bound,
with
Verdant summits, and standing out beyond the rest, overlooking the
main ocean, bore light-houses, and near these we entered the mouth of the
Kennebeck, which here comes into the sea between banks of massive rock.
At the mouth of the river were forests of stakes, for the support of the
nets in which salmon, shad, and alewives are taken. The shad fishery, they
told me, was not yet over, though the month of August was already come. We
passed some small villages where we saw the keels of large unfinished
vessels lying high upon the stocks; at Bath, one of the most considerable
of these places, but a small village still, were five or six, on which
the ship-builders were busy. These, I was told, when once launched would
never be seen again in the place where they were built, but would convey
merchandise between the great ports of the world.
"The activity of ship-building in the state of Maine," said a gentleman
whom I afterward met, "is at this moment far greater than you can form any
idea of, without travelling along our coast. In solitary places where a
stream or creek large enough to float a ship is found, our builders lay
the keels of their vessels. It is not necessary that the channel should be
wide enough for the ship to turn round; it is enough if it will contain
her lengthwise. They choose a bend in the river from which they can launch
her with her head down stream, and, aided by the tide, float her out to
sea, after which she proceeds to Boston or New York, or some other of our
large seaports to do her part in carrying on the commerce of the world."
I learned that the ship-builders of Maine purchase large tracts of forest
in Virginia and other states of the south, for their supply of timber.
They obtain their oaks from the Virginia shore, their hard pine from North
Carolina; the coverings of the deck and the smaller timbers of the large
vessels are furnished by Maine. They take to the south cargoes of lime and
other products of Maine, and bring back the huge trunks produced in that
region. The larger trees on the banks of the navigable rivers of Maine
were long ago wrought into the keels of vessels.
It was not far from Bath, and a considerable distance from the open sea,
that we saw a large seal on a rock in the river. He turned his head slowly
from side to side as we passed, without allowing himself to be disturbed
by the noise we made, and kept his place as long as the eye could
distinguish him. 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. I found the Legislature in session; the Senate, a small quiet
body, deliberating for aught I could see, with as much grave and tranquil
dignity as the Senate of the United States. The House of Representatives
was just at the moment occupied by some railway question, which I was told
excited more feeling than any subject that had been debated in the whole
session, but even this occasioned no unseemly agitation; the surface was
gently rippled, nothing more.
While at Augusta, we crossed the river and visited the Insane Asylum, a
state institution, lying on the pleasant declivities of the opposite
shore. It is a handsome stone building. One of the medical attendants
accompanied us over a part of the building, and showed us some of the
wards in which there were then scarcely any patients, and which appeared
to be in excellent order, with the best arrangements for the comfort of
the inmates, and a scrupulous attention to cleanliness. When we expressed
a desire to see the patients, and to learn something of the manner in
which they were treated, he replied, "We do not make a show of our
patients; we only show the building." Our visit was, of course, soon
dispatched. We learned afterward that this was either insolence or
laziness on the part of the officer in question, whose business it
properly was to satisfy any reasonable curiosity expressed by visitors.
It had been our intention to cross the country from Augusta directly to
the White Hills in New Hampshire, and we took seats in the stage-coach
with that view.
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