174 
THE MAINE WOODS. 
I asked him the meaning of the word Muslceticooh , the 
Indian name of Concord River. He pronounced it Mus - 
Meticooh , emphasizing the second syllable with a peculiar 
guttural sound, and said that it meant “ Dead-water,’’ 
which it is, and in this definition he agreed exactly with 
the St. Francis Indian with whom I talked in 1853. 
On a point on the mainland some miles southwest of 
Sand-bar Island, where we landed to stretch our legs and 
look at the vegetation, going inland a few steps, I discov¬ 
ered a fire still glowing beneath its ashes, where some¬ 
body had breakfasted, and a bed of twigs prepared for 
the following night. So I knew not only that they had 
just left* but that they designed to return, and by the 
breadth of the bed that there was more than one in the 
party. You might have gone within six feet of these 
signs without seeing them. There grew the beaked ha¬ 
zel, the only hazel which I saw on this journey, the JDi- 
ervilla , rue seven feet high, which was very abundant on 
all the lake and river shores, and Cornus stolonifera , or 
red osier, whose bark, the Indian said, was good to smoke, 
and was called maquoxigill , “ tobacco before white people 
came to this country, Indian tobacco.” 
The Indian was always very careful in approaching 
the shore, lest he should injure his canoe on the rocks, 
letting it swing round slowly sidewise, and was still 
more particular that we should not step into it on shore, 
nor till it floated free, and then should step gently lest 
we should open its seams, or make a hole in the bottom. 
He said that he would tell us when to jump. 
Soon after leaving this point we passed the mouth 
of the Kennebec, and heard and saw the falls at the 
dam there, for even Moosehead Lake is dammed. Af¬ 
ter passing Deer Island, we saw the little steamer from 
