THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 
203 
nearer, and quite visible. We steered across the north¬ 
west end of the lake, from which we looked down south- 
southeast, the whole length to Joe Merry Mountain, seen 
over its extremity. It is an agreeable change to cross a 
lake, after you have been shut up in the woods, not only 
on account of the greater expanse of water, but also 
of sky. *tt is one of the surprises which Nature has in 
store for the traveller in the forest. To look down, in 
this case, over eighteen miles of water, was liberating 
and civilizing even. No doubt, the short distance to 
which you can see in the woods, and the general twilight, 
would at length react on the inhabitants, and make them 
salvages. The lakes also reveal the mountains, and give 
ample scope and range to our thought. The very gulls 
which we saw sitting on the rocks, like white specks, or 
circling about, reminded me of custom-house officers. 
Already there were half a dozen log-huts about this end 
of the lake, though so far from a road. I perceive that 
in these woods the earliest settlements are, for various 
reasons, clustering about the lakes, but partly, I think, 
for the sake of the neighborhood as the oldest clearings. 
They are forest schools already established, — great 
centres of light. Water is a pioneer which the settler 
follows, taking advantage of its improvements. 
Thus far only I had been before. About noon we 
turned northward, up a broad kind of estuary, and at its 
northeast corner found the. Caucomgomoc River, and 
after going about a mile from the lake, reached the Um- 
bazookskus, which comes in on the right at a point where 
the former river, coming from the west, turns short to 
the south. Our course was up the Umbazookskus, but 
as the Indian knew of a good camping-place, that is, a 
cool place where there were few mosquitoes, about half a 
