50 
THE MAINE WOODS. 
irrecoverably amid the whirlpool, we were obliged to 
resign the poles to more skilful hands. 
Katepskonegan is one of the shallowest and weediest 
©f the lakes, and looked as if it might abound in pick¬ 
erel. The falls of the same name, where w T e stopped to 
dine, are considerable and quite picturesque. Here Un¬ 
cle George had seen trout caught by the barrelful; hut 
they would not rise to our bait at this hour. Half-way 
over this carry, thus far in the Maine wilderness on its 
way to the Provinces, we noticed a large, darning, Oak 
Hall hand-bill, about two feet long, wrapped round the 
trunk of a pine, from which the bark had been strip!, 
and to w hich it w 7 as fast glued by the pitch. This should 
be recorded among the advantages of this mode of ad¬ 
vertising, that so, possibly, even the bears and wolves, 
moose, deer, otter, and beaver, not to mention the Indian, 
may learn where they can fit themselves according to the 
latest fashion, or, at least, recover some of their own lost 
garments. We christened this, the Oak Hall carry. 
The forenoon was as serene and placid on this wild 
stream in the woods, as w r e are apt to imagine that Sun¬ 
day in summer usually is in Massachusetts. We were 
occasionally startled by the scream of a bald-eagle, sail¬ 
ing over the stream in front of our batteau; or of the 
fish-hawks, on whom he levies his contributions. There 
were, at intervals, small meadows of a few acres on the 
sides of the stream, waving with uncut grass, which at¬ 
tracted the attention of our boatmen, who regretted that 
they w r ere not nearer to their clearings, and calculated 
how many stacks they might cut. Two or three men 
sometimes spend the summer by themselves, cutting the 
grass in these meadows, to sell to the loggers in the win¬ 
ter, since it will fetch a higher price on the spot than in 
