44 A TASTE OF MAINE BIRCH. 



art, and the soul of the ideal red man looked out of 

 the boat before us. Uncle Nathan had spent two 

 days ranging the mountains looking for a suitable 

 tree, and had worked nearly a week on the craft. It 

 was twelve feet long, and would seat and carry five 

 men nicely. Three trees contribute to the making of 

 a canoe besides the birch, namely, the white cedar for 

 ribs and lining, the spruce for roots and fibres to sew 

 its joints and bind its frame, and the pine for pitch 

 or rosin to stop its seams and cracks. It is hand-made 

 and home-made, or rather wood-made, in a sense that 

 no other craft is, except a dug-out, and it suggests a 

 taste and a refinement that few products of civilization 

 realize. The design of a savage, it yet looks like the 

 thought of a poet, and its grace and fitness haunt the 

 imagination. I suppose its production was the inev- 

 itable result of the Indian's wants and surroundings, 

 but that does not detract from its beauty. It is, in- 

 deed, one of the fairest flowers the thorny plant of 

 necessity ever bore. Our canoe, as I have intimated, 

 was not yet finished when we first saw it, nor yet 

 when we took it up, with its architect, upon our met- 

 aphorical backs and bore it to the woods. It lacked 

 part of its cedar lining and the rosin upon its joints, 

 and these were added after we reached our destination. 

 Though we were not indebted to the birch-tree for 

 our guide. Uncle Nathan, as he was known in all the 

 country, yet he matched well these woodsy products 

 and conveniences. The birch-tree had given him a 

 large part of his tuition, and kneeling in his canoe 

 and making it shoot noiselessly over the water with 

 that subtle yet indescribably expressive and athletic 

 play of the muscles of the back and shoulders, the 

 boat and the man seemed born o£ the same spirit. 



