THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 
279 
with the least possible communication and ado. He 
was really paying us a great compliment all the while, 
thinking that we preferred a hint to a kick. 
At length, climbing over the willows and fallen trees, 
when this was easier than to go round or under them, we 
overtook the canoe, and glided down the stream in smooth 
but swift water for several miles. I here observed again, 
as at Webster Stream, and on a still larger scale the next 
day, that the river was a smooth and regularly inclined 
plane down which we coasted. As we thus glided along 
we started the first black ducks which we had distin¬ 
guished. 
We decided to camp early to-night, that we might have 
ample time before dark; so we stopped at the first favor¬ 
able shore, where there was a narrow gravelly beach on 
the western side, some five miles below the outlet of the 
lake. It was an interesting spot, where the river began 
to make a great bend to the east, and the last of the pecu¬ 
liar moose-faced Nerlumskeechticook mountains not far 
southwest of Grand Lake rose dark in the northwest a 
short distance behind, displaying its gray precipitous 
southeast side, but we could not see this without coming 
out upon the shore. 
Two steps from the water on either side, and you 
come to the abrupt bushy and rooty if not turfy edge 
of the bank, four or five feet high, where the • intermina¬ 
ble forest begins, as if the stream had but just cut its 
way through it. 
It is surprising on stepping ashore anywhere into this 
unbroken wilderness to see so often, at least within a 
few rods of the river, the marks of the axe, made by 
lumberers who have either camped here, or driven logs 
past in previous springs. You will see perchance where, 
