290 
THE MAINE WOODS. 
from time to time from some tree by the shore still 
farther down the stream. Some shecorways, being sur¬ 
prised by us, a part of them dived, and we passed directly 
over them, and could trace their course here and there 
by a bubble on the surface, but we did not see them come 
up. Polis detected once or twice what he called a 
44 tow ” road, an indistinct path leading into the forest. 
In the mean while we passed the mouth of the Seboois 
on our left. This did not look so large as our stream, 
which was indeed the main one. It was some time be¬ 
fore we found a camping-place, for the shore was either 
too grassy and muddy, where mosquitoes abounded, or 
too steep a hillside. The Indian said that there were but 
few mosquitoes on a steep hillside. We examined a good 
place, where somebody had camped a long time; but it 
seemed pitiful to occupy an old site, where there was so 
much room to choose, so we continued on. We at length 
found a place to our minds, on the west bank, about a mile 
below the mouth of the Seboois, where, in a very dense 
spruce wood above a gravelly shore, there seemed to be 
but few insects. The trees were so thick that we were 
obliged to clear a space to build our fire and lie down in, 
and the young spruce trees that were left were like the 
wall of an apartment rising around us. We were 
obliged to pull ourselves up a steep bank to get there. 
But the place which you have selected for your camp, 
though never so rough and grim, begins at once to have 
its attractions, and becomes a very centre of civilization 
to you : 44 Home is home, be it never so homely.” 
It turned out that the mosquitoes were more numerous 
here than w r e had found them before, and the Indian com¬ 
plained a good deal, though he lay, as the night before, 
between three fires and* his stretched hide. As I sat on 
