216 
THE MAINE WOODS. 
upon. He said it was a sign that I was going to be 
married. 
The Umbazookskus River is called ten miles long. 
Having polled up the narrowest point some three or four 
miles, the next opening in the sky was over Umbazook- 
skus Lake, which we suddenly entered about eleven 
o'clock in the forenoon. It stretches northwesterly four 
or five miles, with what the Indian called the Caucom- 
gomoc Mountain seen far beyond it. It was an agree¬ 
able change. 
This lake was very shallow a long distance from the 
shore, and I saw stone heaps on the bottom, like those 
in the Assabet at home. The canoe ran into one. The 
Indian thought that they were made by an eel. Joe 
Aitteon in 1853 thought that they were made by chub. 
We crossed the southeast end of the lake to the carry 
into Mud Pond. 
Umbazookskus Lake is the head of the Penobscot 
in this direction, and Mud Pond is the nearest bend of 
the Allegash, one of the chief sources of the St. John. 
Hodge, who went through this way to the St. Lawrence 
in the service of the State, calls the portage here a mile 
and three quarters long, and states that Mud Pond has 
been found to be fourteen feet higher than Umbazook¬ 
skus Lake. As the west branch of the Penobscot at the 
Moosehead carry is considered about twenty-five feet 
lower than Moosehead Lake, it appears that the Penob¬ 
scot in the upper part of its course runs in a broad and 
shallow valley, between the Kennebec and St. Johns, 
and lower than either of them, though, judging from the 
map, you might expect it to be the highest. 
Mud Pond is about half-way from Umbazookskus to 
Chamberlain Lake, into which it empties, and to which 
