44 
THE MAINE WOODS. 
themselves in huts covered with the bark of the canoe- 
birch, or the arbor-vitse ; and, though the cold is so 
intense that the mercury sometimes remains for several 
weeks from 40° to 50° [Fahr.] below the point of con¬ 
gelation, they persevere, with unabated courage, in their 
work.” According to Springer, the company consists of 
choppers, swampers, — who make roads, — barker and 
loader, teamster, and cook. “ When the trees are felled, 
they cut them into logs from fourteen to eighteen feet long, 
and, by means of their cattle, which they employ with 
great dexterity, drag them to the river, and after stamp¬ 
ing on them a mark of property, roll them on its frozen 
bosom. At the breaking of the ice, in the spring, they 
float down with the current.The logs that are not 
drawn the first year,” adds Michaux, “ are attacked by 
large worms, which form holes about two lines in diam¬ 
eter, in every direction ; but, if stripped of their bark, 
they will remain uninjured for thirty years.” 
Ambejijis, this quiet Sunday morning, struck me as 
the most beautiful lake we had seen. It is said to be 
one of the deepest. We had the fairest view of Joe 
Merry, Double Top, and Ktaadn, from its surface. The 
summit of the latter had a singularly flat, table-land ap¬ 
pearance, like a short highway, where a demigod might 
be let down to take a turn or two in an afternoon, to 
settle his dinner. We rowed a mile and a half to near 
the head of the lake, and, pushing through a field of lily- 
pads, landed, to cook our breakfast, by the side of a large 
rock, known to McCauslin. Our breakfast consisted of 
tea, with hard bread and pork, and fried salmon, which 
we ate with forks neatly whittled from alder-twigs, which 
grew there, off strips of birch-bark for plates. The tea 
was black tea, without milk to color or sugar to sweeten 
