802 
THE MAINE WOODS. 
borhood, which the Indian called “ Soogle ” (i. e. Sugar) 
Island. 
About a dozen miles before reaching Oldtown he in¬ 
quired, “How you like ’em your pilot?” But we post¬ 
poned an answer till we had got quite back again. 
The Sunkhaze , another short dead stream, comes in 
from the east two miles above Oldtown. There is said 
to be some of the best deer ground in Maine on this 
stream. Asking the meaning of this name, the Indian 
said, “ Suppose you are going down Penobscot, just 
like we, and you see a canoe come out of bank and go 
along before you, but you no see ’em stream. That is 
Sunkhaze .” 
He had previously complimented me on my paddling, 
saying that I paddled “just like anybody,” giving me an 
Indian name which meant “ great paddler.” When off 
this stream he said to me, who sat in the bows, “Me 
teach you paddle.” So turning toward the shore he got 
out, came forward and placed my hands as he wished. 
He placed one of them quite outside the boat, and the 
other parallel with the first, grasping the paddle near the 
end, not over the flat extremity, and told me to slide it 
back and forth on the side of the canoe. This, I found, 
was a great improvement which I had not thought of, 
saving me the labor of lifting the paddle each time, and 
I wondered that he had not suggested it before. It is 
true, before our baggage was reduced we had been 
obliged to sit with our legs drawn up, and our knees 
above the side of the canoe, which would have prevented 
our paddling thus, or perhaps he w^as afraid of wearing 
out his canoe, by constant friction on the side. 
I told him that I had been accustomed to sit in the 
stern, and lifting my paddle at each stroke, getting a pry 
