82 
THE MAINE WOODS. 
up to the foot of the falls, and then only carries round 
some perpendicular ledge, and launches again in 
“ The torrent’s smoothness, ere it dash below,” 
to struggle with the boiling rapids above. The Indians 
say that the river once ran both ways, one half up and 
the other down, but that, since the white man came, it 
all runs down, and now they must laboriously pole their 
canoes against the stream, and carry them over numerous 
portages. In the summer, all stores — the grindstone and 
the plough of the pioneer, flour, pork, and utensils for the 
explorer —- must be conveyed up the river in batteaux ; 
and many a cargo and many a boatman is lost in these 
waters. In the winter, however, which is very equable 
and long, the ice is the great highway, and the loggers’ 
team penetrates to Chesuncook Lake, and still higher 
up, even two hundred miles above Bangor. Imagine 
the solitary sled-track running far up into the snowy 
and evergreen wilderness, hemmed in closely for a hun¬ 
dred miles by the forest, and again stretching straight 
across the broad surfaces of concealed lakes ! 
We were soon in the smooth water of the Quakish 
Lake, and took our turns at rowing and paddling across 
it. It is a small, irregular, but handsome lake, shut in 
on all sides by the forest, and showing no traces of man 
but some low boom in a distant cove, reserved for spring 
use. The spruce and cedar on its shores, hung with 
gray lichens, looked at a distance like the ghosts of trees. 
Ducks were sailing here and there on its surface, and a 
solitary loon, like a more living wave, — a vital spot on 
the lake’s surface, -— laughed and frolicked, and showed 
its straight leg, for our amusement. Joe Merry Moun¬ 
tain appeared in the northwest, as if it were looking 
down on this lake especially; and we had our first, but 
