CHESUNCOOK. 
97 
This we did in company with the explorers. Both In¬ 
dians and whites use a mixture of rosin and grease for 
this purpose, — that is, for the pitching, not the dinner. 
Joe took a small brand from the fire and blew the heat 
and flame against the pitch on his birch, and so melted 
and spread it. Sometimes he put his mouth over the 
suspected spot and sucked, to see if it admitted air; and 
at one place, where we stopped, he set his canoe high on 
crossed stakes, and poured water into it. I narrowly 
watched his motions, and listened attentively to his 
observations, for we had employed an Indian mainly 
that I might have an opportunity to study his ways. I 
heard him swear once, mildly, during this operation, 
about his knife being as dull as a hoe, — an accomplish¬ 
ment which he owed to his intercourse with the whites; 
and he remarked, “ We ought to have some tea before 
we start; we shall be hungry before we kill that 
moose.” 
At mid-afternoon we embarked on the Penobscot. 
Our birch was nineteen and a half feet long by two and 
a half at the widest part, and fourteen inches deep with¬ 
in, both ends alike, and painted green, which Joe thought 
affected the pitch and made it leak. This, I think, was 
a middling-sized one. That of the explorers was much 
larger, though probably not much longer. This carried 
us three with our baggage, weighing in all between five 
hundred and fifty and six hundred pounds. We had 
two heavy, though slender, rock-maple paddles, one of 
them of bird’s-eye maple. Joe placed birch-bark on 
the bottom for us to sit on, and slanted cedar splints 
against the cross-bars to protect our backs, while he him¬ 
self sat upon a cross-bar in the stern. The baggage 
occupied the middle or widest part of the canoe. We 
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