276 
THE MAINE WOODS. 
One who was my companion in my two previous ex¬ 
cursions to these woods, tells me that when hunting up 
the Caucomgomoc, about two years ago, he found him¬ 
self dining one day on moose-meat, mud-turtle, trout, and 
beaver, and he thought that there were few places in the 
world where these dishes could easily be brought together 
on one table. 
After the almost incessant rapids and falls of the Ma- 
dunkchunk (Height-of-Land, or Webster Stream), we 
had just passed through the dead-water of Second Lake, 
and were now in the much larger dead-water of Grand 
Lake, and I thought the Indian was entitled to take an 
extra nap here. Ktaadn, near which we were to pass 
the next day, is said to mean “ Highest Land.” So much 
geography is there in their names. The Indian naviga¬ 
tor naturally distinguishes by a name those parts of a 
stream where he has encountered quick water and forks, 
and again, the lakes and smooth water where he can rest 
his weary arms, since those are the most interesting and 
more arable parts to him. The very sight of the JVer- 
lumslceechticook , or Dead-Water Mountains, a day’s jour¬ 
ney off over the forest, as we first saw them, must awaken 
in him pleasing memories. And not less interesting is it 
to the white traveller, when he is crossing a placid lake 
in these out-of-the-way woods, perhaps thinking that he 
is in some sense one of the earlier discoverers of it, to be 
reminded that it was thus well known and suitably 
named by Indian hunters perhaps a thousand years 
ago. 
Ascending the precipitous rock which formed this long 
narrow island, I was surprised to find that its summit was 
a narrow ridge, with a precipice on one side, and that its 
axis of elevation extended from northwest to southeast, 
