THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 
299 
three, — though not always on the best soil, — evidently 
for the sake of society. I saw one or two houses not 
now used by them, because, as our Indian Polis said, 
they were too solitary. 
The small river emptying in at Lincoln is the Mata- 
nancook, which also, we noticed, was the name of a 
steamer moored there. So we paddled and floated along, 
looking into the mouths of rivers. When passing the 
Mohawk Rips, or, as the Indian called them, “ Mohog 
lips,” four or five miles below Lincoln, he told us at 
length the story of a fight between his tribe and the Mo¬ 
hawks there, anciently, — how the latter were overcome 
by stratagem, the Penobscots using concealed knives, —> 
but they could not for a long time kill the Mohawk chief, 
who was a very large and strong man, though he was 
attacked by several canoes at once, when swimming alone 
in the river. 
From time to time we met Indians in their canoes, 
going up river. Our man did not commonly approach 
them, but exchanged a few words with them at a distance 
in his tongue. These were the first Indians we had met 
since leaving the UmbazooksJcus. 
At Piscataquis Falls, just above the river of that name, 
we walked over the wooden railroad on the eastern shore, 
about one and a half miles long, while the Indian glided 
down the rapids. The steamer from Oldtown stops here, 
and passengers take a new boat above. Piscataquis, 
whose mouth we here passed, means “ branch.” It is ob¬ 
structed by falls at its mouth, but can be navigated with 
bateaux or canoes above through a settled country, 
even to the neighborhood of Moosehead Lake, and we 
had thought at first of going that way. We were not 
$ 
obliged to get out of the canoe after this on account of 
