TROUT FISHING IN MAINE. 265 



hood, in which naiads and nymphs, with the enchanting 

 Lurline for their sovereign, prominently figure. 



The Pond, at some seasons, affords splendid sport, 

 especially at the entrance and exit of the river, which 

 flows through it, but it cannot be fished except from a 

 boat, which can be brought down, if desired, from the 

 dam above, no easy task to be performed, but fre- 

 quently accomplished by the expert lumbermen, who 

 appear equally at home in handling the axe or shooting 

 rapids in their flat-bottomed punts. 



Having rested sufficiently to recruit, and probably 

 imbibed a small glass of something stimulating, diluted 

 with water that trickles from a neighbouring spring 

 which is always cold as ice however warm the weather 

 may be as scarcely more than a couple of miles are 

 before us, we may just as well hurry on. The walk 

 now leaves the river and becomes much more hilly and 

 enclosed ; one time crossing a deep boggy ravine, the 

 next, threading its erratic course along the summit of 

 some stony hill- side. The timber here is very beau- 

 tiful, much superior to what we have formerly met, 

 and the graceful, silver birch prevails a tree than 

 which no prettier or more beautiful exists. Although 

 the road, in some places, must be quite half a mile 

 from the water, still the deep rumbling of the nume- 

 rous rapids is distinctly audible the neighbouring 



