Terms, Five Dollars a Year. 

 Ten Cents a Copy. 



\ 



NEW YORK, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1875. 



i Volume 5, Number 20. 



1 17 Chatham St. (CityHall Sqr.) 



For Forest and Stream. 



— » 



A FEW weeks since, wliile busily at work in ray office, 

 I was surprised by a call from your traveling corre- 

 spondent, and still more surprised when I learned from 

 him that his object was to ask me to contribute to your 

 paper some reminiscences of my sporting experience in 

 other days. The bare mention of it sent the blood tingling 

 through my veins, but the second sensation was akin to 

 that of poor old Rip Van Winkle, when looking for his 

 former comrades after his long nap. Visions of jovial 

 days in camp and field arose in my mind, and thoughts of 

 Porter's Spirit of the Times, and of "Frank Forester" and 

 George W. Kendall and many another less known, but not 

 less dear, companions of the days of "auld langsyne" came 

 over me, and made me feel my lonesomeness, and that any- 

 thing I could contribute on sporting matters would be but 

 a raking of dead leaves and a conjuring up of spirits from 

 the past. My visitor was kind enough to say that I was 



lakes and rivers, and run township lines in the vicinity of 

 the above named lakes. 



We went from Bangor by stage to Munson, and then 

 traveled twelve miles on foot through the woods to the 

 foot of Moosehead Lake, having sent our two batteaux and 

 one canoe, and three months' provisions for twelve men, 

 in advance by teams. There were two houses at the foot 

 of the lake, where Greenville now stands, but no other 

 dwellings on the lake or north of it. A steamboat, or 

 rather a mud scow with an engine in it, was in service on 

 the lake for towing rafts of lumber, and we chartered her 

 to carry our party and traps to the head of the lake, which 

 we reached just at night, and the next morning got our 

 boats, provisions, etc., ashore, and began the real labor of 

 carrying across the ten mile portage to the Penobscot. 



No such advanced elements of civilization as the "hay 

 rack, with two horses attached," which Dr. Thompson de- 

 scribes, existed in that region in our day. Only a rough 

 track, bushed out by the axemen, facilitated our labor. 

 Through this the batteaux were dragged, and the barrels 



sions, carrying hard bread and pork in our knapsacks to 

 last a week or ten days, and returning for a fresh supply, 

 or leaving directions with the boatmen to meet us with, 

 such supply at some point on the lakes. In surveying Te- 

 los Lake we took the levels across to Webster Pond, on 

 the line where the canal, of which Dr. Thompson speaks, 

 was afterwards constructed. 



Of course the experience of several months of such a 

 life, in such a country, could not fail to comprise many in- 

 teresting incidents and stirring adventures, the thought of 

 which rises in my mind like the memory of a dream, or a 

 vision of a previous existence. Hardship and exposure 

 was our daily lot, and the labor was such as only men se- 

 lected for the purpose could endure. We had shelter tents, 

 but after the first excursion we left them at the home camp, 

 preferring to do without them, or to make a camp of bark, 

 if the weather made it necessary, rather than have the 

 trouble of carrying a tent. Sometimes our line would run 

 through cedar or hackmatack swamps, where, with the 

 utmost effort, we could not make more than a mile or two 



LILLY, Lemon and White Pointer, the Property of W. Arthur Wheatley, Esq., of Memphis, Tenn.--See Page 309. 



not yet forgotten, and that my "Hints to Riflemen" were 

 still quoted in sporting circles, and that an occasional bit 

 of gossip from my pen in the pages of your journal would 

 possess interest for some of your readers, And so he got 

 from me a sort of half promise that I would now and then 

 dr op you a line, and perhaps that would have been the end 

 of it, but a late number of your paper contained an ac- 

 count of a trip "Down the Allegash," by Dr. E. J. Thomp- 

 son, which called up such reminiscences of the Maine for- 

 ests that I cannot resist the temptation to tell you something 

 of my experiences in those regions nearly forty years ago. 

 In the latter part of May, 1839, I went over much of the 

 same route described by Dr. Thompson, and spent the 

 whole Summer in the region of Chamberlain and Eagle 

 lakes, which at that time were part of the territory in dis- 

 pute between the United States and Great Britain, the line 

 claimed by the latter being the dividing line between the 

 waters flowing into the Penobscot and those which emp- 

 tied into the Bay of Fundy. Notwithstanding the dispute, 

 however, the party, of which I was one, was sent by the 

 States of Mains and Massachusetts to make surveys of 



of bread and half barrels of pork were packed on the 

 shoulders of the men, slung on a pole and carried between 

 two of them. It was here that we discovered the herculean 

 strength of one of the party, which afterwards proved of 

 inestimable value to us on more than one occasion. Stuff- 

 ing his knapsack full of blankets, he got his comrades to 

 lash a half barrel of pork on top of it on his shoulders, 

 and actually carried it across the whole portage (two miles) 

 without taking it off, and only once or twice resting by 

 backing up against a tree. The feat was done on a banter, 

 and established the reputation of the performer, whose 

 name was Gove, as the strongest man in the party, which 

 was made up of rugged woodsmen. 



Our route was the same described by Dr. Thompson- 

 down the Penobscot to Chesuncook, and thence via Mud 

 Pond (the odor of which I well remember, as every stroke 

 of the oars brought up the filthy mire from the bottom) to 

 Chamberlain Lake, where we built a home camp and es- 

 tablished our headquarters for the Summer on a point not 

 far from the mouth of the inlet, 



From this point we wont out on our surveying excur- 



k 



in a day, and the misery of toiling through such a region, 

 under a broiling sun, with a heavy load of pork and hard 

 bread on one's back, guiding the axemen ahead by sighting 

 through the instrument, and keeping the topographical 

 notes, while the black flies and mosquitoes were in swarms 

 and could only be kept off by continually smearing the 

 face, neck and hands with a piece of salt pork, is such as 

 no man can realize who has not tried it. Sometimes we 

 could not get through a piece of work in the time we had 

 calculated, and were forced to put ourselves on allowance 

 to make our provisions last until we could return to the 

 home camp for a fresh supply; and there was scarcely a 

 day that we were not obliged to work more or less in the 

 water, and a change of clothing was out of the question. 

 Yet we never had a man on the sick list for a day; and 

 this corresponds with all my experience of camp life 

 which goes far to convince me that the evils of civiliza- 

 tion, which renders necessary such elaborate, machinery to 

 supply our wants without endangering our lives, are but 

 inventions of the evil one. 

 After completing the work of running out twelve town- 



