Jan. 24, 1914. 
FOREST AND STREAM 
107 
Old Roads and Trails 
“The Deep Mystery of the Road, Its Vistas and Windings” 
H OW eloquent they are to the thinking mind, 
these ancient, sinuous highways, thread¬ 
ing the rugged scenery of the hills, creep¬ 
ing along the valleys, or passing through the dim 
and mysterious depths of the forests, whose by¬ 
paths are easily lost in the thick growth which 
has sprung up around them, the half-hidden, 
deep-furrowed trail of the departed toilers:— 
these old roads are all akin, essentially the same 
everywhere, possessing in spirit a common origin. 
They are the trails of the pioneer who blazed the 
way to possibilities in development, and ensured 
the privileges enjoyed by their descendants and 
the on-coming generations; they are more, they 
are the scars of hard-fought battles with adver¬ 
sity and privation, the marks of fortitude, cour¬ 
age and heroic self-sacrifice—not less plainly ex¬ 
pressed than in the wandering walls “frost flung 
and broken”—where nature has not been cut and 
scraped to the bone, her very vertebrae laid bare 
in unsightly barren fields. 
George Sand somewhere alludes to “the deep 
mystery of the road, its vistas and windings, its 
shining approaches, and retreats—its penetration 
into unknown primeval depths—how steeped they 
are in enchantment and how eloquent in sugges¬ 
tion to the roaming genii!” Not every one’s er- 
By John McClelland Bulkley 
which is perfectly symbolical of the path which 
we love to travel in the interior of the ideal 
world; and sometimes we doubtless find it diffi¬ 
cult to choose our direction because it does not 
yet exist definitely in our idea.” 
When we see a very crooked road which is 
tortuous without visible cause, its strange genesis 
at once occurs to us. Many roads, in fact, had 
at first this one origin. The creatures of the for¬ 
ests pushed through where the openings allowed 
the best paths on their way to the water courses 
for drink or to follow their prey. The Indians 
found these paths easy and convenient, and so 
adopted them. When the emigrant came with his 
cattle, these trails from place to place were logi¬ 
cally his paths—he enlarged them at length into 
roads necessary for reaching the appointed ter¬ 
mini of his infrequent journeyings. But does 
the traveller by rail or the pedestrian in Boston 
or New York and many another metropolis ever 
reflect that the peculiar route they are traversing 
as they turn capriciously one way and another is 
thus laid out because some sleek panther, lordly 
buck or painted savage had marked it out three 
centuries or more ago? 
The forest paths have their peculiar attrac¬ 
tions and fascinations. We follow their wind- 
room for the smoke to go up. The trees are a 
standing night and every fir and spruce that you 
fell is a plume plucked from night’s raven wing. 
The stillness especially at night, is more elo¬ 
quently impressive than any sound, but occa¬ 
sionally you hear the note of an owl farther or 
nearer in the woods, and if near a lake the semi¬ 
human cry and laughter of the loons in their 
unearthly revels.” 
Here is one of the surprises which nature 
has in store for the traveller in the forest, the 
agreeable change after having been shut up in 
the woods, to look down into the deep waters of 
a suddenly appearing lake, expanding and stretch¬ 
ing for miles mirroring the sky and towering 
giants of trees—-it is liberating and even civiliz¬ 
ing. The lakes also reveal the mountains and 
give wide scope and range to thought. 
From the forest path, and the Indian’s trial 
to the carefully built and surfaced modern road 
is a far cry. The logical sequence of the real 
history of roads, if it could be written, would 
be found to be the history of culture and civiliza¬ 
tion. But how much has preceded and inter¬ 
vened! In primitive times the herdsman and 
herd-races of Asia did not have them, because 
they did not need them. Where life was simple 
A WATER TRAIL. 
rand is our own, and all do not discern the hid¬ 
den story of the road. To most it is but the most 
commonplace thing of life. 
John Burroughs, says in his “Exhilarations 
of the Road” “afoot and in the open road, one 
has a fair start in life at least. There is no hin¬ 
drance, now. He is on the broadest human plane. 
This is the level of the great laws and heroic 
deeds. There are plenty of roads in the world, 
but the will is almost palsied at times, in the 
confusion of indecision which one to take. There 
are so many and such beckoning sirens sit by 
their borders to lure us on, that we are drawn so 
many ways that it may be probable that we 
choose the wrong one altogether,” and yet, as 
Thoreau has said, “We would fain take that walk 
never yet taken by us through this actual world, 
ings through the aromatic pines and balsams 
where a trout brook babbles over its pebbly bed, 
falling now and again into a quiet pool, to sleep 
within banks of softest moss. Feathery ferns 
creep close to the water’s edge, while overhang¬ 
ing boughs bathe their finger tips therein. Al¬ 
though far into the wilderness, miles from hu¬ 
man habitation, we know that the foot of the 
fisherman has wandered along these unseen 
paths, and the lover of the woods-folk must have 
given himself to the unalloyed enjoyment of the 
place. Thoreau’s was the spirit of exploration 
in the deep woods for the very love of it, and 
none could have the sense of interpretations of 
the mysterious environment in a greater degree. 
He says in his “Maine Woods;” “In some of 
these dense fir and spruce woods there is hardly 
THE FIRST PORTAGE. 
and nomadic the ground was pastured for a 
night—or for a few days at the most when the 
tent and its occupants with the retinue of cattle 
and beasts of burden, passed on. When bounda¬ 
ries and land marks were set up, and became 
somewhat distinct, and the land was divided into 
separate possessions, even then the necessity did 
not arise, or was not discovered. The paths 
which accident or use had marked out were kept 
only so long as they were useful, and -there was 
no fence or moral bar to a universal passage. 
The right of way to a bird in the air was proba¬ 
bly not much greater than those ancient wilder¬ 
ness dwellers to pass and repass as they chose. 
Diodorus Siculus says that the construction 
of the famous Appian Way nearly bankrupted 
the Roman treasury. It was built in 313 B. C.; 
