KTAADN. 
5 
begone look of the girl that cried for spilt milk —just 
from “ up river ” -— land on the Oldtown side near a gro¬ 
cery, and, drawing up his canoe, take out a bundle of 
skins in one hand, and an empty keg or half-barrel in 
the other, and scramble up the bank with them. This 
picture will do to put before the Indian’s history, that is, 
the history of his extinction. In 1837 there were three 
hundred and sixty-two souls left of this tribe. The 
island seemed deserted to-day, yet I observed some new 
houses among the weather-stained ones, as if the tribe 
had still a design upon life; but generally they have a 
very shabby, forlorn, and cheerless look, being all back 
side and woodshed, not homesteads, even Indian home¬ 
steads, but instead of home or abroad-steads, for their life 
is domi aut militice , at home or at war, or now rather 
venatus , that is, a hunting, and most of the latter. The 
church is the only trim-looking building, but that is not 
Abenaki, that was Home’s doings. Good Canadian it 
may be, but it is poor Indian. These were once a pow¬ 
erful tribe. Politics are all the rage with them now. I 
even thought that a row of wigwams, with a dance of 
powwows, and a prisoner tortured at the stake, would 
be more respectable than this. 
We landed in Milford, and rode along on the east side 
of the Penobscot, having a more or less constant view 
of the river, and the Indian islands in it, for they retain 
all the islands as far up as Nickatow, at the mouth of the 
East Branch. They are generally well-timbered, and 
are said to be better soil than the neighboring shores. 
The river seemed shallow and rocky, and interrupted by 
rapids, rippling and gleaming in the sun. We paused a 
moment to see a fish-hawk dive for a fish down straight 
as an arrow, from a great height, but he missed his prey 
