KTAADN. 
73 
' suncook, which McCauslin had formerly logged on, and 
the Allegash lakes. There were still longer rapids and 
portages above; among the last the Rippogenus Port¬ 
age, which he described as the most difficult on the 
river, and three miles long. The whole length of the 
Penobscot is two hundred and seventy-five miles, and 
w r e are still nearly one hundred miles from its source. 
Hodge, the assistant State Geologist, passed up this 
river in 1837, and by a portage of only one mile and 
three-quarters crossed over into the Allegash, and so 
went down that into the St. John, and up the Mada- 
waska to the Grand Portage across to the St. Lawrence. 
His is the only account that I know, of an expedition 
through to Canada in this direction. He thus describes 
his first sight of the latter river, which, to compare small 
things with great, is like Balboa’s first sight of the 
Pacific from the mountains of the Isthmus of Darien. 
“ When we first came in sight of the St. Lawrence,” he 
says, “from the top of a high hill, the view was most 
striking, and much more interesting to me from having 
been shut up in the woods for the two previous months. 
Directly before us lay the broad river, extending across 
nine or ten miles, its surface broken by a few islands 
and reefs, and two ships riding at anchor near the shore. 
Beyond, extended ranges of uncultivated hills, parallel 
with the river. The sun was just going down behind 
them, and gilding the whole scene with its parting rays.” 
About four o’clock, the same afternoon, we commenced 
our return voyage, which would require but little if any 
poling. In shooting rapids the boatmen use large and 
broad paddles, instead of poles, to guide the boat with. 
Though we glided so swiftly, and often smoothly, down, 
where it had cost us no slight effort to get up, our pres- 
4 
