172 
THE MAINE WOODS. 
guessed very accurately at our ages, and said that he 
was forty-eight. 
After breakfast I emptied the melted pork that was 
left into the lake, making what sailors call a “ slick,” and 
watching to see how much it spread over and smoothed 
the agitated surface. The Indian looked at it a moment 
and said, “ That make hard paddlum thro’; hold ’em ca¬ 
noe. So say old times.” 
We hastily reloaded, putting the dishes loose in the 
bows, that they might be at hand when wanted, and set 
out again. The western shore, near which we paddled 
along, rose gently to a considerable height, and was ev¬ 
erywhere densely covered with the forest, in which was 
a large proportion of hard wood to enliven and relieve 
the fir and spruce. 
The Indian said that the usnea lichen which we saw 
hanging from the trees was called chorchorque . We 
asked him the names of several small birds which we 
heard this morning. The wood-thrush, which was quite 
common, and whose note he imitated, he said was called 
Adelungquamooldwn ; but sometimes he could not tell 
the name of some small bird which I heard and knew, 
but he said,I tell all the birds about here, — this coun¬ 
try ; can’t tell littlum noise, but I see ’em, then I can tell.” 
I observed that I should like to go to school to him to 
learn his language, living on the Indian island the 
while; could not that be done ? “ O, yer,” he replied, 
“ good many do so.” I asked how long he thought it 
would take. He said one week. I told him that in this 
voyage I would tell him all I knew, and he should tell 
me all he knew, to which he readily agreed. 
The birds sang quite as in our woods, — the red-eye, 
red-start, veery, wood-pewee, etc., but we saw no blue- 
