KTAADN. 
55 
six it was about ten feet long by six in breadth. This 
time we lay under our tent, having pitched it more pru¬ 
dently with reference to the wind and the flame, and the 
usual huge fire blazed in front. Supper was eaten off 
a large log, which some freshet had thrown up. This 
night we had a dish of arbor-vitse, or cedar-tea, which the 
lumberer sometimes uses when other herbs fail, — 
“ A quart of arbor-vitse, 
To make him strong and mighty,” 
but I had no wish to repeat the experiment. It had 
too medicinal a taste for my palate. There was the 
skeleton of a moose here, whose bones some Indian 
hunters had picked on this very spot. 
In the night I dreamed of trout-fishing; and, when at 
length I awoke, it seemed a fable that this painted fish 
swam there so near my couch, and rose to our hooks the 
last evening, and I doubted if I had not dreamed it all. 
So I arose before dawn to test its truth, while my com¬ 
panions were still sleeping. There stood Ktaadn with 
distinct and cloudless outline in the moonlight; and the 
rippling of the rapids was the only sound to break the 
stillness. Standing on the shore, I once more cast my 
line into the stream, and found the dream to be real and 
the fable true. The speckled trout and silvery roach, 
like flying-fish, sped swiftly through the moonlight air, 
describing bright arcs on the dark side of Ktaadn, until 
moonlight, now fading into daylight, brought satiety to 
my mind, and the minds of my companions, who had 
joined me. 
By six o’clock, having mounted our packs and a good 
blanketful of trout, ready dressed, and swung up such 
baggage and provision as we wished to leave behind, upon 
the tops of saplings, to be out of the reach of-bears, we 
