THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 
273 
Using a tape, I found that the moose measured just 
six feet from the shoulder to the tip of the hoof, and 
was eight feet long as she lay. Some portions of the 
body, for a foot in diameter, were almost covered with 
flies, apparently the common fly of our woods, with a 
dark spot on the wing, and not the very large ones 
which occasionally pursued us in mid-stream, though both 
are called moose-flies. 
Polis, preparing to skin the moose, asked me to help 
him find a stone on which to sharpen his large knife. It 
being all a flat alluvial ground where the moose had 
fallen, covered with red maples, &c., this was no easy 
matter; we searched far and wide, a long time, till at 
length I found a flat kind of slate-stone, and soon after 
he returned with a similar one, on which he soon made 
his knife.very sharp. 
While he was skinning the moose, I proceeded to 
ascertain what kind of fishes were to be found in the 
sluggish and muddy outlet. The greatest difficulty was 
to find a pole. It was almost impossible to find a slender, 
straight pole ten or twelve feet long in those woods. 
You might search half an hour in vain. They are 
commonly spruce, arbor-vitae, fir, &c., short, stout, and 
branchy, and do not make good fish-poles, even after you 
have patiently cut off all their tough and scraggy 
branches. The fishes were red perch and chivin. 
The Indian having cut off a large piece of sirloin, the 
upper lip and the tongue, wrapped them in the hide, and 
placed them in the bottom of the canoe, observing that 
there was “ one man,” meaning the weight of one. Our 
load had previously been reduced some thirty pounds, 
but a hundred pounds were now added, a serious addi¬ 
tion, which made our quarters still more narrow, and 
12* B 
