* 



98 NEW ENGLAND AND THE AKOOSTOOK. 



mountain around this basin is in the form of a horseshoe, 

 opening to the northeast. From the peak on the northern 

 wing there is another deep gorge, partly encircled- with a 

 curving ridge, which some would call another basin, which 

 opens to the southeast : these two basins, from some points 

 of view, seem to be one. The structure of the mountain 

 is an immense f curiosity. From its summit yery few popu- 

 lous places are visible, so extensive is the intervening wilder- 

 ness. Not far from two hundred lakes can be seen dotting 

 the landscape ; in one of these we can count one hundred 

 islands." 



From Mattawamkeag there is an all-rail route to St. Croix 

 station at the foot of the eastern Schoodic or Grand Lake, 

 and thence by the St. Andrews Eailroad to Houlton ; thence 

 stage to Presque Isle on the Aroostook River. In the vicin- 

 ity of both these places is good trout-fishing, and at the lat- 

 ter place, in 1859, 1 took a salmon from the bridge on the 

 edge of the village. In that year I made a tour of the entire 

 Aroostook country by stage and wagon, covering a period of 

 several weeks, and the information I am now able to give is 

 obtained chiefly from personal experience and observation 

 then made. From Presque Isle there is a good road due 

 north, which strikes the Acadian settlement of Madawaska, 

 on the upper St. John, near the middle chapel. A most 

 excellent road follows up the St. John to Fort Kent on the 

 Fish River, traversed daily by that portion of its six thou- 

 sand inhabitants who occupy the American side. Fish River 

 is the outlet of numerous lakes which connect with each 

 other, and thereby render a canoe voyage easy and agree- 

 able. Several of these lakes are merely wide expanses of 

 Fish River, and a good road follows its course for thirty 

 miles, and then continues on down through the Aroostook, 

 back to Mattawamkeag, in a line parallel to and twenty 

 miles distant from the old military road that passes through 

 Houlton. There are four or five small villages on its route. 

 The intervening belt of country is an uninhabited wilder- 



