THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 
211 
Returning from a short walk, he brought a vine in his 
hand, and asked me if I knew what it was, saying that 
it made the best tea of anything in the woods. It was 
the Creeping Snowberry (Chiogenes hispidula), which 
was quite common there, its berries just grown. He 
called it cowosnebagosar, which name implies that it 
grows where old prostrate trunks have collapsed and 
rotted. So we determined to have some tea made of 
this to-night. It had a slight checkerberry flavor, and 
we both agreed that it was really better than the black 
tea which we had brought. We thought it quite a dis¬ 
covery, and that it might well be dried, and sold in the 
shops. I, for one, however, am not an old tea-drinker, 
and cannot speak with authority to others. It would 
have been particularly good to carry along for a cold 
drink during the day, the water thereabouts being inva¬ 
riably warm. The Indian said that they also used for 
tea a certain herb which grew in low ground, which he 
did not find there, and Ledum , or Labrador tea, which I 
have since found and tried in Concord; also hemlock 
leaves, the last especially in the winter, when the other 
plants were covered with snow; and various other things f 
but he did not approve of arbor vitce , which I said I had 
drunk in those woods. We could have had a new kind 
of tea every night. 
Just before night we saw a musquash , (he did not say 
muskrat,) the only one we saw in thfs voyage, swimming 
downward on the opposite side of the stream. The 
Indian, wishing to get one to eat, hushed us, saying, 
“ Stop, me call ’em ”; and sitting flat on the bank, he 
began to make a curious squeaking, wiry sound with his 
lips, exerting himself considerably. I was greatly sur¬ 
prised, — thought that I had at last got into the wilder- 
