Monday.
There were some yellow lilies (Nuphar), Scutellaria galericulata, clematis (abundant), sweet-gale, "great smilacina" (did I mean S. racemosa?), and beaked hazel, the only hazel I saw in Maine.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 27, 1857
See The Maine Woods ("Monday, July 27. Having rapidly loaded the canoe, which the Indian always carefully attended to, that it might be well trimmed, and each having taken a look, as usual, to see that nothing was left, we set out again descending the Caucomgomoc, and turning northeasterly up the Umbazookskus. . . . Having paddled several miles up the Umbazookskus, it suddenly contracted to a mere brook, narrow and swift, the larches and other trees approaching the bank and leaving no open meadow, and we landed to get a black spruce pole for pushing against the stream. . . .Having poled up the narrowest part some three or four miles, the next opening in the sky was over Umbazookskus Lake, which we suddenly entered about eleven o'clock in the forenoon. . . .We crossed the southeast end of the lake to the carry into Mud Pond. Umbazookskus Lake is the head of the Penobscot in this direction, and Mud Pond is the nearest head of the Allegash, one of the chief sources of the St. John. . . . Mud Pond is about halfway from Umbazookskus to Chamberlain Lake, into which it empties, and to which we were bound. . . . After a long while my companion came back, and the Indian with him. We had taken the wrong road, and the Indian had lost us. . . .We then entered another swamp, at a necessarily slow pace, where the walking was worse than ever, not only on account of the water, but the fallen timber, which often obliterated the indistinct trail entirely. . . .and, going back for his bag, my companion once lost his way and came back without it.. . . As I sat waiting for him, it would naturally seem an unaccountable time that he was gone. Therefore, as I could see through the woods that the sun was getting low, and it was uncertain how far the lake might be, even if we were on the right course, and in what part of the world we should find ourselves at night fall, I proposed that I should push through with what speed I could, leaving boughs to mark my path, and find the lake and the Indian, if possible, before night, and send the latter back to carry my companion's bag. . . . If he had not come back to meet us, we probably should not have found him that night, . . .We had come out on a point extending into . . .Chamberlain Lake, west of the outlet of Mud Pond, where there was a broad, gravelly, and rocky shore, encumbered with bleached logs and trees. . . . In the middle of the night . . . we heard the voice of the loon, loud and distinct, from far over the lake. It is a very wild sound, quite in keeping with the place and the circumstances of the traveler, and very unlike the voice of a bird. I could lie awake for hours listening to it, it is so thrilling. When camping in such a wilderness as this, you are prepared to hear sounds from some of its inhabitants which will give voice to its wildness. . . I was awakened at midnight by some heavy, low- flying bird, probably a loon, flapping by close over my head, along the shore. So, turning the other side of my half-clad body to the fire, I sought slumber again.")
No comments:
Post a Comment