656 AMERICAN ANGLER'S BOOK. 



I sauntered to the bridge which overlooked this babbling, noisy brook, 

 and was much interested in some half-grown urchins fishing in the 

 ripples and eddies from oflF the boulders, and was not a little surprised to 

 see them quite unconcernedly whip out Trout from a half-pound to a pound 

 in weight. I was informed that this small stream, previous to the con- 

 struction of the mill-dam just above the bridge, was alive with Brook Trout 

 of good size, but the structure being too high for the fish to jump over, 

 and no openings being left in the solid work through which they could 

 insinuate themselves during the spring freshets, few or none remain. This, 

 alas ! is the sad history of many a fine Trout rillet in our own state, — the 

 saw-mill and the tannery are the two most destructive agents in depopu- 

 lating our mountain brooks. 



The following day, the 24th, found us at an early hour on board of 

 the steamer Union, bound up Lake Umbagog to Rapid River, about 

 thirteen miles distant. 



I cannot write much in commendation of this water shallop, yclept a 

 steamer, either as to its conveniences or security as a passenger wherry. 

 I had heard tell of before now, and perhaps had seen more than once, what, 

 in common parlance \yas called an hermaphrodite brig (a nautical term 

 applied to a sailing vessel built and rigged in a style something between 

 a full brig and a schooner), but it was reserved for me to meet, with a 

 water craft in the wilderness of Maine, still more curious and ingenious 

 in its conception than anything which had yet been constructed on our 

 sea-board. For, in truth, our craft the steamer Union was a nondescript 

 abortion, or cross between a mud-scow and a locomotive ; it might very pro 

 perly, in accordance with naval nomenclature, have been christened an 

 hermaphrodite locomotive. An old worn-out, rusty looking locomotive 

 boiler had been assiduously patched up, after many years of hard service, 

 and with much toil and tribulation, had safely passed over the mountains, 

 not of itself, however, but by the aid of two yokes of oxen. Having 

 arrived at the Lake, the rusty old veteran was placed about midships on 

 board of a roughly-built scow, thirty feet long and some ten or a dozen 

 feet wide. This venerable but not overly sound relic of mechanical archi- 

 tecture, being fired up with the inflammable hemlock of the country, soon 

 furnished steam enough to set in motion the cylinder which by the aid of 

 cogs controlled the revolutions of the stern-wheel, and. thus propelled our 

 hybrid craft over the placid waters of the Lake at the astounding rate of 

 five miles an hour, or, with a full head of steam, even faster. Such portions 

 of the rickety old scow as were not previously occupied by the lumbersome 



