KTAADN. 
11 
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of arrow-head stone, some points of arrow-heads, one 
small leaden bullet, and some colored beads, the last to 
be referred, perhaps, to early fur-trader days. The Mat- 
tawamkeag, though wide, was a mere river’s bed, full 
of rocks and shallows at this time, so that you could 
cross it almost dry-shod in boots; and I could hardly 
believe my companion, when he told me that he had 
been fifty or sixty miles up it in a batteau, through 
distant and still uncut forests. A batteau could hardly 
find a harbor now at its mouth. Deer and carribou, or 
reindeer, are taken here in the winter, in sight of the 
house. 
Before our companions arrived, we rode on up the 
Houlton road seven miles, to Molunkus, where the 
Aroostook road comes into it, and where there is a spa¬ 
cious public house in the woods, called the “ Molunkus 
House,” kept by one Libbey, which looked as if it had 
its hall for dancing and for military drills. There was 
no other evidence of man but this huge shingle palace 
in this part of the world; but sometimes even this is 
filled with travellers. I looked off the piazza round the 
corner of the house up the Aroostook road, on which 
there was no clearing in sight. There was a man just 
adventuring upon it this evening in a rude, original, 
what you may call Aroostook wagon, — a mere seat, 
with a wagon swung under it, a few bags on it, and a 
dog asleep to watch them. He offered to carry a mes¬ 
sage for us to anybody in that country, cheerfully. I 
suspect that, if you should go to the end of the world, 
you would find somebody there going farther, as if just 
starting for home at sundown, and having a last word 
before he drove off. Here, too, was a small trader, 
whom I did not see at first, who kept a store — but no 
