August 22.
P. M. — I have spliced my old sail to a new one, and now go out to try it in a sail to Baker Farm. It is a “square sail,” some five feet by six. I like it much. It pulls like an ox, and makes me think there’s more wind abroad than there is.
The yard goes about with a pleasant force, almost enough, I would fain imagine, to knock me overboard.
How sturdily it pulls, shooting us along, catching more wind than I knew to be wandering in this river valley! It suggests a new power in the sail, like a Grecian god. I can even worship it, after a heathen fashion. And then, how it becomes my boat and the river, — a simple homely square sail, all for use not show, so low and broad! Ajacean.
The boat is like a plow drawn by a winged bull. If I had had this a dozen years ago, my voyages would have been performed more quickly and easily. But then probably I should have lived less in them. I land on a remote shore at an unexpectedly early hour, and have time for a long walk there. Before, my sail was so small that I was wont to raise the mast with the sail on it ready set, but now I have had to rig some tackling with which to haul up the sail.
As for the beauty of the river’s brim: now that the mikania begins to prevail the button-bush has done, the pontederia is waning, and the willows are already some what crisped and imbrowned (though the last may be none the worse for it); lilies, too, are as good as gone. So perhaps I should say that the brim of the river was in its prime about the 1st of August this year, when the pontederia and button-bush and white lilies were in their glory.
The cyperus (phgmatodes, etc.) now yellows edges of pools and half-bare low grounds.
See one or two blue herons every day now, driving them far up or down the river before me.
I see a mass of bur-reed, etc., which the wind and waves are sweeping down-stream. The higher water and wind thus clear the river for us.
At Baker Farm a large bird rose up near us, which at first I took for a hen-hawk, but it appeared larger. It screamed the same, and finally soared higher and higher till it was almost lost amid the clouds, or could scarcely be distinguished except when it was seen against some white and glowing cumulus. I think it was at least half a mile high, or three quarters, and yet I distinctly heard it scream up there each time it came round, and with my glass saw its head steadily bent toward the ground, looking for its prey.
Its head, seen in a proper light, was distinctly whitish, and I suspect it may have been a white headed eagle. It did not once flap its wings up there, as it circled and sailed, though I watched it for nearly a mile. How fit that these soaring birds should be haughty and fierce, not like doves to our race!
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 22, 1858
The boat is like a plow drawn by a winged bull. See
August 24, 1858 ("Under my new sail the boat dashes off like a horse with the bits in his teeth."). See also
July 29, 1851 ("The boat is such a living creature, even this clumsy one sailing within five points of the wind. The sailboat is an admirable invention, by which you compel the wind to transport you even against itself. It is easier to guide than a horse; the slightest pressure on the tiller suffices. I think the inventor must have been greatly surprised, as well as delighted, at the success of his experiment.");
May 8, 1854 ("I look round with a thrill on this bright fluctuating surface on which no man can walk, whereon is no trace of footstep, unstained as glass. I feel exhilaration, mingled with a slight awe, as I drive before this strong wind over the great black-backed waves, cutting through them, and hear their surging and feel them toss me.");
April 29, 1856 ("It is flattering to a sense of power to make the wayward wind our horse and sit with our hand on the tiller. Sailing is much like flying, and from the birth of our race men have been charmed by it.")
Now that the mikania begins to prevail, the button-bush has done [and] the pontederia is waning ...I should say that the brim of the river was in its prime about the 1st of August this year, when the pontederia and button-bush and white lilies were in their glory. See
September 7, 1857 ("It occurred to me some weeks ago that the river-banks were not quite perfect. It is too late then, when the mikania is in bloom, because the pads are so much eaten then.")
See one or two blue herons every day now. See
August 19, 1858 ("The blue heron has within a week reappeared in our meadows,");
August 22, 1854 ("See a blue heron — apparently a young bird, of a brownish blue — fly up . . . and the feathers they had shed, — some of the long, narrow white neck-feathers of the heron. The tracks of the heron are about six inches long.") See also
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,
the Blue Heron
