252 
THE MAINE WOODS. 
stream which empties in, you may, after a short portage, 
or possibly, at some seasons, none at all, get into another 
river, which empties far away from the one you are on. 
Generally, you may go in any direction in a canoe, by 
making frequent but not very long portages. You are 
only realizing once more what all nature distinctly re¬ 
members here, for no doubt the waters flowed thus in 
a former geological period, and instead of being a lake 
country, it was an archipelago. It seems as if the more 
youthful and impressible streams can hardly resist the 
numerous invitations and temptations to leave their na¬ 
tive beds and run down their neighbors’ channels. 
Your carries are often over half-submerged ground, on 
the dry channels of a former period. In carrying from 
one river to another, I did not go over such high and 
rocky ground as in going about the falls of the same 
river. For in the former case I was once lost in a 
swamp, as I have related, and, again, found an artificial 
canal which appeared to be natural. 
I remember once dreaming of pushing a canoe up the 
rivers of Maine, and that, when I had got so high that 
the channels were dry, I kept on through the ravines 
and gorges, nearly as well as before, by pushing a little- 
harder, and now it seemed to me that my dream was 
partially realized. 
Wherever there is a channel for water, there is a road 
for the canoe. The pilot of the steamer which ran from 
Oldtown up the Penobscot in 1854 told me that she drew 
only fourteen inches, and would run easily in two feet of 
water, though they did not like to. It is said that some 
Western steamers can run on a heavy dew, whence we 
can imagine what a canoe may do. Montresor, who was 
sent from Quebec by the English about 1760 to explore 
