GREAT PINE SWAMP. 53 



height, touching here and there the rough angle of a pro- 

 jecting rock, bouncing from it with the elasticity of a 

 foot-ball, and at last falling with awful crash into the 

 river, forms a sight interesting in the highest degree, but 

 impossible 'for me to describe. Shall I tell you that I 

 have seen masses of these logs heaped above each other 

 to the number of five thousand, ? I may so tell you, for 

 such I have seen. My friend Irish assured me that at 

 some seasons, these piles consisted of a much greater 

 number, the river becoming in those places completely 

 choked up. 



When freshets (or floods) take place, then is the time 

 chosen for forwarding the logs to the different mills. 

 This is called a frolic. Jediah Irish, who is generally 

 the leader, proceeds to the upper leap with his men, each 

 provided with a strong wooden handspike, and a short- 

 handled axe. They all take to the water, be it summer 

 or winter, like so many Newfoundland spaniels. The 

 logs are gradually detached, and, after a time, are seen 

 floating down the dancing stream, here striking against 

 a rock and whirling many times round, there suddenly 

 checked in dozens by a shallow, over which they have to 

 be forced with the handspikes. Now they arrive at the 

 edge of a dam, and are again pushed over. Certain 

 numbers are left in each dam, and when the party has 

 arrived at the last, which lies just where my friend Irish's 

 camp was first formed, the drenched leader and his men, 

 about sixty in number, make their way home, find there 

 a healthful repast, and spend the evening and a portion 

 of the night in dancing and frolicking, in their own sim- 

 ple manner, in the most perfect amity, seldom troubling 



