CHESUNCOOK. 
107 
a frosty, autumn night, just after a long rain-storm, and 
even come soon to enjoy and value the fresh air. 
I lay awake awhile, watching the ascent of the sparks 
through the firs, and sometimes their descent in half- 
extinguished cinders on my blanket. They were as 
interesting as fireworks, going up in endless, successive 
crowds, each after an explosion, in an eager, serpentine 
course, some to five or six rods above the tree-tops be¬ 
fore they went out. We do not suspect how much our 
chimneys have concealed; and now air-tight stoves have 
come to conceal all the rest. In the course of the night, 
I got up once or twice and put fresh logs on the fire, 
making my companions curl up their legs. 
When we awoke in the morning, (Saturday, Septem¬ 
ber 17,) there was considerable frost whitening the 
leaves. We heard the sound of the chicadee, and a 
few faintly lisping birds, and also of ducks in the water 
about the island. I took a botanical account of stock of 
our domains before the dew was off, and found that the 
ground-hemlock, or American yew, was the prevailing 
under-shrub. We breakfasted on tea, hard bread, and 
ducks. 
Before the fog had fairly cleared away, we paddled 
down the stream again, and were soon past the mouth of 
the Moosehorn. These twenty miles of the Penobscot, 
between Moosehead and Chesuncook Lakes, are com¬ 
paratively smooth, and a great part dead-water; but 
from time to time it is shallow and rapid, with rocks or 
gravel-beds, where you can wade across. There is no 
expanse of water, and no break in the forest, and the 
meadow is a mere edging here and there. There are 
no hills near the river nor within sight, except one or 
two distant mountains seen in a few places. The banks 
