Over the highest hill behind Bangor.

September 23

Friday. Walked down the riverside this forenoon to the hill where they were using a steamshovel at the new railroad cut, and thence to a hill three quarters of a mile further. 

Saw Aster undulatus, Solidago nemoralis, fragrant everlasting, silvery cinquefoil, small white birch, Lobelia inflata, both kinds of primrose, low cudweed, lactuca, Polygonum cilinode (apparently out of bloom), yellow oxalis.

I returned across the fields behind the town, and over the highest hill behind Bangor, and up the Kenduskieg, from which I saw the Ebeeme Mountains in the northwest and hills we had come by. 

The arbor-vitæ is the prevailing shrub.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 23, 1853

Friday. Walked down the riverside. See September 21, 1853 ("Reached Bangor at dark."); September 22, 1853 ("Behind one house, an Indian had nearly finished one canoe and was just beginning another, outdoors")

Aster undulatus. See September 20, 1852 ("Aster undulatus, or variable aster, with a large head of middle-sized blue flowers."); October 6, 1858 ("the Aster undulatus is now very fair and interesting. Generally a tall and slender plant with a very long panicle of middle-sized lilac or paler purple flowers, bent over to one side the path. "); October 19, 1856 ("The A. undulatus is, perhaps, the only [aster] of which you can find a respectable specimen. I see one so fresh that there is a bumblebee on it."); October 25, 1858 ("The Aster undulatus is now a dark purple (its leaves), with brighter purple or crimson under sides.");November 7, 1858 ("Aster undulatus and several goldenrods, at least, may be found yet.")

Solidago nemoralis. See note to September 12, 1859 ("One dense mass of the bright golden recurved wands of the Solidago nemoralis, waving in the wind and turning upward to the light hundreds, if not a thousand, flowerets each.")

Fragrant everlasting, See August 11, 1858 (“I smell the fragrant everlasting concealed in the higher grass and weeds there, some distance off.”); September 19, 1852 ("The fall dandelion and the fragrant everlasting abound")

I saw the Ebeeme Mountains in the northwest and hills we had come by. See Book for the Children of Maine, 19 (1831)   ("The Ebeeme mountains nearly south of Ktaadn, are about four thousand feet high.")

To see what was primitive about our Concord River.

September 19.    

Monday. [The Maine Woods]

I looked very narrowly at the vegetation as we glided along close to the shore, and now and then made Joe turn aside for me to pluck a plant, that I might see what was primitive about our Concord River.

H. D Thoreau, Journal, September 19, 1853 

See September 21, 1856 ("I have within a week found in Concord two of the new plants I found up-country. Such is the advantage of going abroad, — to enable to detect your own plants. I detected them first abroad, because there I was looking for the strange.") See also August 30, 1856 ("I shall never find in the wilds of Labrador any greater wildness than in some recess in Concord"); September 2, 1856  ("It commonly chances that I make my most interesting botanical discoveries when I am in a thrilled and expectant mood, . . .  prepared for strange things."); July 31, 1857 ("A new plant, the halenia or spurred gentian, which I observed afterward on the carries all the way down to near the mouth of the East Branch,"); November 20, 1857 ("We only need travel enough to give our intellects an airing."); November 23, 1860 ("I sail the unexplored sea of Concord")

The untouched white pine timber which comes down the Penobscot.

September 25. 

Sunday.

Dined with Lowell.

Said the largest pine Goddard's men cut last winter scaled in the woods forty-five hundred feet board measure, and was worth ninety dollars at the Bangor boom, Oldtown.

They cut a road three miles and a half for this alone. They do not make much of a path, however.

From L. I learned that the untouched white pine timber which comes down the Penobscot waters is to be found at the head of the East Branch and the head waters of the Allegash, about Eagle Lake and Chamberlain, etc., and Webster Stream.

But Goddard had bought the stumpage in eight townships in New Brunswick. They are also buying up townships across the Canada line.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 25, 1853

The untouched white pine timber which comes down the Penobscot waters is to be found at the head of the East Branch and the head waters of the Allegash, See The Maine Woods, July 29, 1857 ("I passed one white pine log, which had lodged, in the forest near the edge of the stream, which was quite five feet in diameter at the butt") See also November 18, 1852 ("Measured a stick of round timber, probably white pine, on the cars this afternoon, -- ninety-five feet long, nine and ten-twelfths in circumference at butt, and six and two-twelfths in circumference at small end, quite straight. From Vermont."); July 8, 1857 ("Counted the rings of a white pine stump, sawed off last winter at Laurel Glen. It was three and a half feet diameter and has one hundred and twenty-six rings")

A library of nearly nine hundred volumes, over seven hundred of which I wrote myself.

October 28

Rain in the night and this morning, preparing for winter.

We noticed in a great many places the narrow paths by which the moose came down to the river, and sometimes, where the bank was steep and somewhat clayey, they had slid down it.  The holes made by their feet in the soft bottom in shallow water are visible for a long time.

Joe told me that, though they shed their horns annually, each new pair has an additional prong. They are sometimes used as an ornament in front entries, for a hat-tree (to hang hats on).

Cedar bark appeared to be their commonest string.

These first beginnings of commerce on a lake in the wilderness are very interesting, — these larger white birds that come to keep company with the gulls, - if they only carry a few cords of wood across the lake. 

***

April 28, 1855 ("A a bird of many colors")

Just saw in the garden, in the drizzling rain, little sparrow-sized birds flitting about amid the dry corn stalks and the weeds, — one, quite slaty with black streaks and a bright-yellow crown and rump, which I think is the yellow-crowned warbler, but most of the others much more brown, with yellowish breasts and no yellow on crown to be observed, which I think the young of the same.

One flew up fifteen feet and caught an insect. They uttered a faint chip. Some of the rest were sparrows. I did not get good sight of the last. I suspect the former may be my tull-lulls of the Moosehead Carry. [No they were.] 

For a year or two past, my publisher, falsely so called, has been writing from time to time to ask what disposition should be made of the copies of "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers" still on hand, and at last suggesting that he had use for the room they occupied in his cellar.

So I had them all sent to me here, and they have arrived to-day by express, filling the man's wagon, — 706 copies out of an edition of 1000 which I bought of Munroe four years ago and have been ever since paying for, and have not quite paid for yet. The wares are sent to me at last, and I have an opportunity to examine my purchase. 

They are something more substantial than fame, as my back knows, which has borne them up two flights of stairs to a place similar to that to which they trace their origin.

Of the remaining two hundred and ninety and odd, seventy-five were given away, the rest sold.

I have now a library of nearly nine hundred volumes, over seven hundred of which I wrote myself. Is it not well that the author should behold the fruits of his labor? My works are piled up on one side of my chamber half as high as my head, my opera omnia.

This is authorship; these are the work of my brain.

There was just one piece of good luck in the venture. The unbound were tied up by the printer four years ago in stout paper wrappers, and inscribed, —

H. D. Thoreau's 

Concord River 

50 cops. 

So Munroe had only to cross out 'River’ and write 'Mass.' and deliver them to the expressman at once.

I can see now what I write for, the result of my labors.

Nevertheless, in spite of this result, sitting beside the inert mass of my works, I take up my pen to-night to record what thought or experience I may have had, with as much satisfaction as ever.

Indeed, I believe that this result is more inspiring and better for me than if a thousand had bought my wares. It affects my privacy less and leaves me freer. 


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 28, 1853 

The yellow-crowned warbler . . . my tull-lulls of the Moosehead Carry.  See September 20, 1853 ("I saw the Fringilla hyemalis; also a bird a little smaller  maybe, brownish and yellowish  with some white tail-feathers, which I think makes the tull-lull sound, hopping on the wood-pile. Is not this the myrtle-bird? Their note interested me because I formerly had many a chase in a spring morning in the direction of this sound, in vain, to identify the bird.");  April 26, 1854 ("The woods are full of myrtle-birds this afternoon , more common and commonly heard than any, especially along the edge of woods on oaks , etc. , - their note an oft - repeated fine jingle , a che ' che , che ' che , che ' che , or a tweedle tweedle tweedle tweedle - twe . As I heard the tull lull from the same quarter from time to time , I think it came from it . Perhaps it may be written , a tea le , tea le , tea le . "); April 28, 1855 ("The myrtle-birds flit before us in great numbers, yet quite tame, uttering commonly only a chip, but some times a short trill or che che, che che, che che. Do I hear the tull-lull in the afternoon? It is a bird of many colors, — slate, yellow, black, and white, — singularly spotted."); October 3, 1859 ("I see on a wall a myrtle-bird in its October dress, looking very much like a small sparrow."); October 10, 1859 ("White-throated sparrows in yard and close up to house, together with myrtle-birds (which fly up against side of house and alight on window-sills)");  October 14, 1855 ("Some sparrow-like birds with yellow on rump flitting about our wood-pile. One flies up against the house and alights on the window-sill within a foot of me inside. Black bill and feet, yellow rump, brown above, yellowish-brown on head, cream-colored chin, two white bars on wings, tail black, edged with white, — the yellow-rump warbler or myrtle-bird without doubt. "); October 15, 1859 ("I think I see myrtle-birds on white birches, and that they are the birds I saw on them a week or two ago, — apparently, or probably, after the birch lice."); October 19, 1856 ("See quite a flock of myrtle-birds, — which I might carelessly have mistaken for slate-colored snowbirds, — flitting about on the rocky hillside under Conantum Cliff. They show about three white or light-colored spots when they fly, commonly no bright yellow, though some are pretty bright."); October 21, 1857 ("I see many myrtle-birds now about the house this forenoon, on the advent of cooler weather. They keep flying up against the house and the window and fluttering there, as if they would come in, or alight on the wood-pile or pump. They would commonly be mistaken for sparrows, but show more white when they fly, beside the yellow on the rump and sides of breast seen near to and two white bars on the wings."). See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Myrtle-bird; A Book of the Seasons by Henry Thoreau, Birds in the Rain

No thicket will seem so unexplored now that I know that a stake and stones may be found in it.

January 1.

Deer beds
January 1, 2018

There are many words which are genuine and indigenous and have their root in our natures, not made by scholars, and as well understood by the illiterate as others. There are also a great many words which are spurious and artificial, and can only be used in a bad sense, since the thing they signify is not fair and substantial, – such as the church, the judiciary, to impeach, etc., etc. They who use them do not stand on solid ground. It is in vain to try to preserve them by attaching other words to them as the true church, etc. It is like towing a sinking ship with a canoe. 

I have lately been surveying the Walden woods so extensively and minutely that I now see it mapped in my mind's eye – as, indeed, on paper – as so many men’s wood-lots, and am aware when I walk there that I am at a given moment passing from such a one's wood-lot to such another's. I fear this particular dry knowledge may affect my imagination and fancy, that it will not be easy to see so much wildness and native vigor there as formerly. No thicket will seem so unexplored now that I know that a stake and stones may be found in it. 

In these respects those Maine woods differed essentially from ours. There you are never reminded that the wilderness which you are threading is, after all, some villager's familiar wood-lot from which his ancestors have sledded their fuel for generations, or some widow’s thirds, minutely described in some old deed, which is recorded, of which the owner has got a plan, too, and old bound marks may be found every forty rods if you will search. 

What a history this Concord wilderness which I affect so much may have had! How many old deeds describe it, — some particular wild spot, — how it passed from Cole to Robinson, and Robinson to Jones, and Jones finally to Smith, in course of years! Some have cut it over three times during their lives, and some burned it and sowed it with rye, and built walls and made a pasture of it, perchance. All have renewed the bounds and reblazed the trees many times. 

Here you are not reminded of these things. 'T is true the map informs you that you stand on land granted by the State to such an academy, or on Bingham's Purchase, but these names do not impose on you, for you see nothing to remind you of the academy or of Bingham.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 1, 1858

Words which are genuine and indigenous and have their root in our natures See December 16, 1859 (“How much better to describe your object in fresh English words rather than in conventional Latinisms!”)

I have lately been surveying the Walden woods so extensively and minutely that I now see it mapped in my mind's eye and am aware when I walk there that I am at a given moment passing from such a one's wood-lot to such another’s. See November 25, 1850 ("I feel a little alarmed when it happens that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without getting there in spirit . . . the thought of some work, some surveying, will run in my head, and I am not where my body is, I am out of my senses. In my walks I would return to my senses like a bird or a beast."); August 21, 1851 ("You must walk sometimes perfectly free, not prying nor inquisitive, not bent upon seeing things"); November 18 1851 ("\ A man can hardly be said to be there if he knows that he is there, or to go there if he knows where he is going."); March 5, 1852 ("The habit of looking at things microscopically, as the lichens on the trees and rocks, really prevents my seeing aught else in a walk"); February 12, 1860("Surrounded by our thoughts or imaginary objects, living in our ideas, not one in a million ever sees the objects which are actually around him.")

Circle round the moon.

October 30

Another, the eighth, day of cloudy weather, though no rain to-day.

P. M. — Near the island, in my boat, I scare up a bittern (Ardea minor), and afterward half a dozen ducks, probably summer ducks.

Saw a large flock of blackbirds yesterday. 

There’s a very large and complete circle round the moon this evening, which part way round is a faint rainbow. It is a clear circular space, sharply and mathematically cut out of a thin mackerel sky. You see no mist within it, large as it is, nor even a star. 

I find thousands of ants now apparently gone into winter quarters in my stumps, large black ones, red in the middle, partly dormant even this warm weather, yet with white grubs or young. Some are winged. . . . 

The clintonia was perfectly at home there [in the Maine woods]. Its leaves were just as handsomely formed and green and disposed commonly in triangles about its stem, and its berries were just as blue and glossy as if they grew by some botanist's favorite walk in Concord. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 30, 1857

There’s a very large and complete circle round the moon this evening. . . See February 27, 1852 ("To-night a circle round the moon.”)

Unless you look for reflections, you commonly will not find them.

October 7. 

October 7, 2017

P. M. — To Cliffs and Walden. 

Little chincapin oaks are partly turned, dull scarlet or yellow as it may happen, nearly in prime, not fallen. Some of their leaves (as well as of the white oak) are gnawed into lace regularly about the edges. 

Hornbeam generally green still, but becoming yellowish brown and falling. Black alder still green. Elder is greenish-yellow. 

I see some panicled andromeda dark red or crimson. Swamp-pink a dark reddish purple where exposed. Beach plum begins to turn a clear pale yellow in dry places. Sage willow is fairly yellowing and some even falling. 

Crossing Depot Brook, I see many yellow butterflies fluttering about the Aster puniceus, still abundantly in bloom there. 

I go across Bartonia Meadow direct to Bear Garden Hill-side. Approaching the sand-slide, I see, some fifty rods off, looking toward the sun, the top of the maple swamp just appearing over the sheeny russet edge of the hill, - a strip, apparently twenty rods long and ten feet deep, of the most intensely brilliant scarlet, orange, and yellow, equal to any flowers or fruits or any tints ever painted. As I advance, lowering the edge of the hill, which makes the firm foreground or lower frame to the picture, the depth of this brilliant grove revealed steadily increases, suggesting that the whole of the concealed valley is filled with such color.

As usual, there is one tree-top of an especially brilliant scarlet, with which the others contrast. 

One wonders that the tithing-men and fathers of the town are not out to see what the trees mean by their high colors and exuberance of spirits, fearing that some mischief is brewing. I do not see what the Puritans did at that season when the maples blazed out in scarlet. They certainly could not have worshipped in groves then. Perhaps that is what they built meeting-houses and surrounded them with horse-sheds for. No wonder we must have our annual cattle-show and fall training and perhaps Cornwallis, our September courts, etc.

Nature holds her annual fair and gala days in October in every hollow and on every hill side. 

Look into that hollow all aglow, where the trees are clothed in their vestures of most dazzling tints. Does it not suggest a thousand gypsies beneath, rows of booths, and that man’s spirits should rise as high, that the routine of his life should be interrupted by an analogous festivity and rejoicing?

It is the reign of crickets now. You see them gliding busily about over all sunny surfaces. They sometimes get into my shoes; but oftener I have to empty out the seeds of various shrubs and weeds which I have been compelled to transport. 

Looking toward the sun from Lupine Bank, I see bloody patches of blackberry vines amid the fine hoary and sheeny grass of the pasture. Since the frosts such pastures are already a hoary russet. Some shrub oaks are yellow, others reddish. 

When I turn round half-way up Fair Haven Hill, by the orchard wall, and look northwest, I am surprised for the thousandth time at the beauty of the landscape, and I sit down to behold it at my leisure. I think that Concord affords no better view. 

It is always incredibly fair, but ordinarily we are mere objects in it, and not witnesses of it. 

I see, through the bright October air, a valley extending southwest and northeast and some two miles across, – so far I can see distinctly, — with a broad, yellow meadow tinged with brown at the bottom, and a blue river winding slowly through it northward, with a regular edging of low bushes on the brink, of the same color with the meadow. Skirting the meadow are straggling lines, and occasionally large masses a quarter of a mile wide, of brilliant scarlet and yellow and crimson trees, backed by and mingled with green forests and green and hoary russet fields and hills; and on the hills around shoot up a million scarlet and orange and yellow and crimson fires amid the green; and here and there amid the trees, often beneath the largest and most graceful of those which have brown-yellow dome-like tops, are bright white or gray houses; and beyond stretches a forest, wreath upon wreath, and between each two wreaths I know lies a similar vale; and far beyond all, on the verge of the horizon, are half a dozen dark-blue mountain-summits. 

Large birds of a brilliant blue and white plumage are darting and screaming amid the glowing foliage a quarter of a mile below, while smaller blue birds warble faintly but sweetly around me. 

Such is the dwelling-place of man; but go to a caucus in the village to-night or to a church to-morrow, and see if there is anything said to suggest that the inhabitants of those houses know what kind of world they live in. But hark! I hear the tolling of a distant funeral bell, and they are conveying a corpse to the churchyard from one of the houses that I see, and its serious sound is more in harmony with this scenery than any ordinary bustle could be. It suggests that a man must die to his present life before he can appreciate his opportunities and the beauty of the abode that is appointed him. 

I do not know how to entertain one who can’t take long walks. The first thing that suggests itself is to get a horse to draw them, and that brings us at once into contact with stablers and dirty harness, and I do not get over my ride for a long time. I give up my forenoon to them and get along pretty well, the very elasticity of the air and promise of the day abetting me, but they are as heavy as dumplings by mid-afternoon. If they can’t walk, why won’t they take an honest nap and let me go in the afternoon? But, come two o'clock, they alarm me by an evident disposition to sit. In the midst of the most glorious Indian-summer afternoon, there they sit, breaking your chairs and wearing out the house, with their backs to the light, taking no note of the lapse of time.

As I sat on the high bank at the east end of Walden this afternoon, at five o’clock, I saw, by a peculiar intention or dividing of the eye, a very striking subaqueous rainbow-like phenomenon. A passer-by might, perhaps would, have noticed that the bright-tinted shrubs about the high shore on the sunny side were reflected from the water; but, unless on the alert for such effects, he would have failed to perceive the full beauty of the phenomenon. 

Unless you look for reflections, you commonly will not find them. Those brilliant shrubs, which were from three to a dozen feet in height, were all reflected, dimly so far as the details of leaves, etc., were concerned, but brightly as to color, and, of course, in the order in which they stood, - scarlet, yellow, green, etc.; but, there being a slight ripple on the surface, these reflections were not true to their height though true to their breadth, but were extended downward with mathematical perpendicularity, three or four times too far, forming sharp pyramids of the several colors, gradually reduced to mere dusky points. The effect of this prolongation of the reflection was a very pleasing softening and blending of the colors, especially when a small bush of one bright tint stood directly before another of a contrary and equally bright tint. It was just as if you were to brush firmly aside with your hand or a brush a fresh line of paint of various colors, or so many lumps of friable colored powders. There was, accordingly, a sort of belt, as wide as the whole height of the hill, extending downward along the whole north or sunny side of the pond, composed of exceedingly short and narrow inverted pyramids of the most brilliant colors intermixed. I have seen, indeed, similar inverted pyramids in the old drawings of tattooing about the waists of the aborigines of this country. 

Walden, too, like an Indian maiden, wears this broad rainbow-like belt of brilliant colored points or cones round her waist in October. The color seems to be reflected and re-reflected from ripple to ripple, losing brightness each time by the softest possible gradation, and tapering toward the beholder, since he occupies a mere point of view. This is one of the prettiest effects of the autumnal change.

The harvest of leaves is at hand in some valleys, and generally the young deciduous trees on hillsides have the brilliant tint of ripe fruits. Already many windfalls strew the ground under the maples and elms, etc. I see one or two maple shrubs quite bare, while many large maples are still quite green. 

In that rainbow belt we have color, which is commonly so rare and precious and confined to precious stones, in the utmost profusion. The ripples convey the reflection toward us, till all the color is winnowed out and spilled between them and only the dusky points reach near to this side where we stand. It is as if a broad belt (or waist-cloth) of sharp and narrow inverted cones or pyramids of bright colors, softly blended like fairy worsted work, their bases rising to a line mathematically level about the waist of the pond. That fall river Indian, like the Almouchicois generally, wore a belt of hollow tubes. 

It was strange that only the funeral bell was in harmony with that scene, while other sounds were too frivolous and trivial, as if only through the gate of death would man come to appreciate his opportunities and the beauty of the world he has abused. In proportion as death is more earnest than life, it is better than life. 

The sun set just before I reached the railroad causeway on my return, but then there was not a cloud to be seen in the horizon. Coming through the Irish field, the mountains were purple, much redder than a grape. 

. . . 

[July 24, 1857 Moosehead Lake "he commenced a slow, somewhat nasal, yet musical chant, in his own language" ] That simple and mild nasal chant affected me like the dawn of civilization to the wilderness. I thought of “Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutored mind,” etc. There is always a slight haze or mist on the brow of the Indian. The white man’s brow is clear and distinct. It is eleven o’clock in the forenoon with him. It is four o'clock in the morning with the Indian.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 7, 1857

I see looking toward the sun the top of the maple swamp just appearing over the hill, - a strip of the most intensely brilliant scarlet, orange, and yellow, equal to any flowers or fruits or any tints ever painted. See October 7, 1852 (“Now is the time to behold the maple swamps, one mass of red and yellow, all on fire, as it were; ”)

When I turn round half-way up Fair Haven Hill, by the orchard wall, and look northwest, I am surprised for the thousandth time at the beauty of the landscape. . . I think that Concord affords no better view.  See  May 17, 1853 ("I was surprised, on turning round, to behold the serene and everlasting beauty of the world.”); May 22, 1854 ("How many times I have been surprised  thus, on turning about on this very spot, at the fairness of the earth!”);  March 18, 1858 ("When I get two thirds up the hill, I look round and am for the hundredth time surprised by the landscape of the river valley and the horizon with its distant blue scalloped rim. “);.July 21, 1856 ("This has been a peculiarly fine afternoon. When I looked about casually, was surprised at the fairness of the landscape") See also   February 21, 1855 (“I look at the Peterboro mountains with my glass from Fair Haven Hill. I think that there can be no more arctic scene than these mountains in the edge of the horizon completely crusted over with snow, with the sun shining on them, seen through a telescope over bare, russet fields and dark forests”)

We take an afternoon walk to the view and return via the double chair not stopping there. It rained earlier. We hear crickets the whole time if we listen. At the view the sound of jay’s screaming and, just as we leave, a raven in a nearby tree. The sky is cloudy and it looks like twilight all afternoon. Just before we leave the whole lake to the south is illuminated yellow. There are no fresh leaves on the trail and generally there is no color in the woods or overlooking the valley. It seems late this year. Hiking to the double chair the understory of striped maples is bright yellow; a single branch of a red small red maple is in full color. An owl hoots beyond the middle pond. We arrive at the lower view just as the sun sets  to the south in the trees– the air is full of moisture and is glowing orange over Shelburne pond and beyond. 

Zphx 20171007

https://tinyurl.com/HDT571007

The pines now half turned yellow.

October 1. 

October 1, 2017

P. M. — To second stone bridge and down Assabet home. 

The ash trees are a dull red, and some quite mulberry color. Methinks it has to do with the smart frost of yesterday morning; i. e., that after the maples have fairly begun, the young red oaks, ash trees, etc., begin with the first smart frost. 

The pines now half turned yellow, the needles of this year are so much the greener by contrast. 

The arbor-vitae changes with them so completely that it looks as if the lower parts were dead. 

All very much exposed button-bushes are brown and sere; so their yellowish season does not amount to much away from the river. . . . 

[It seemed to me that it was no compliment to their god to suppose that he would not let them go to Ktaadn without so much ado. They’d better have put their shoulders to the wheel and stumped it along at a good round pace. . . . 

I boiled some rice at the carry, for our dinner, in cooking which I consider myself adept, having had a good deal of experience in it. P. said that he some times used it, but boiled it till it all fell apart, and, finding this mess unexpectedly soft though quickly prepared, he asked if it had not been cooked before. 

Washing the dishes, especially the greasy ones, is the most irksome duty of the camp, and it reminded me of that sacred band in Fourier’s scheme, who took upon themselves the most disagreeable services. The consequence is that they do not often get washed.]

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 1, 1857

The pines now half turned yellow, the needles of this year are so much the greener by contrast. See November 9, 1850 ("Just a month ago, I observed that the white pines were parti-colored, green and yellow, the needles of the previous year now falling. Now I do not observe any yellow ones, and I expect to find that it is only for a few weeks in the fall after the new leaves have done growing that there are any yellow and falling, — that there is a season when we may say the old pine leaves are now yellow, and again, they are fallen."); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The October Pine Fall

Pines half turned yellow –

needles of this year so much

greener by contrast.

Heading home from Maine by boat and train.

August 7. 

August 7, 2017

Friday. P. M. — Take cars for Portland, and at evening the boat for Boston. 

A great deal of cat-tail flag by railroad between Penobscot and Kennebec. 

Fine large ponds about Belgrade.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 7, 1857

Trout fishing in Maine.

August 6. 

Thursday. A. M. — To the high hill and ponds in Bucksport, some ten or more miles out.

AUGUST 6, 2017

 A withdrawn, wooded, and somewhat mountainous country. There was a little trout-pond just over the highest hill, very muddy, surrounded by a broad belt of yellow lily pads. 

Over this we pushed with great difficulty on a rickety raft of small logs, using poles thirty feet long, which stuck in the mud. The pond was about twenty-five feet deep in the middle, and our poles would stick up there and hold the raft.

There was no apparent inlet, but a small outlet. The water was not clear nor particularly cold, and you would have said it was the very place for pouts, yet T. said that the only fish there caught were brook trout, at any time of day. You fish with a line only, sinking twenty feet from the raft. 

The water was full of insects, which looked very much like the little brown chips or bits of wood which make coarse sawdust, with legs, running over the submerged part of the raft, etc. 

I suppose this pond owed its trout to its elevation and being fed by springs. It seems they do not require swift or clear water, sandy bottom, etc. Are caught like pouts without any art. 

We had many bites and caught one.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 6, 1857

I suppose this pond owed its trout to its elevation and being fed by springs. Compare August 24, 1860 ("How much this varied temperature must have to do with the distribution of the fishes”)

August 6. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 6

 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality.” 

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2021 

Rode to Pushaw Lake

August 4.

August 4, 2013

Tuesday. A. M. — Rode to Pushaw Lake with Thatcher and Hoar.

Duck-meat, apparently a new kind, there. 

T. thinks there 's little if any red cedar about Bangor.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 4, 1857

Rode to Pushaw. See September 24, 1853 ("Saw Ktaadn from a hill about two miles northwest of Bangor on the road to Pushaw.")

T. thinks there 's little if any red cedar about Bangor. See September 21, 1853 ("A few oaks near Bangor."); September 21, 1853 ("The white pines near Bangor")

August 4. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  August 4 

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2025

It is so much the more desirable at this season to breathe the raspberry air of Maine.

August 3. Monday. 

This was the midst of the raspberry season. We found them abundant on every carry on the East Branch and below, and children were carrying them from all sides into Bangor. I observed that they were the prominent dish on the tables, once a low scarlet mountain, garnishing the head of the table in a dish two feet across. 

Earlier the strawberries are equally abundant, and we even found a few still deep in the grass. Neither of these abound about Boston, and we saw that they were due to the peculiar air of this higher latitude. 

Though for six weeks before leaving home we had been scarcely able to lie under more than a single sheet, we experienced no hot weather in Maine. The air was uniformly fresh and bracing like that of a mountain to us, and, though the inhabitants like to make it out that it is as warm there as in Massachusetts, we were not to be cheated. It is so much the more desirable at this season to breathe the raspberry air of Maine. 

It was P. who commonly reminded us that it was dinner-time on this excursion, sometimes by turning the prow to the shore. He once made an indirect but lengthy apology, by saying that we might think it strange, but one who worked hard all day was very particular to have his dinner in good season.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 3, 1857

See The Maine Woods ("We started early before breakfast, the Indian being considerably better, and soon glided by Lincoln, and after another long and handsome lake-like reach, we stopped to breakfast on the west shore, two or three miles below this town. . . The small river emptying in at Lincoln is the Matanuncook. . .. So we paddled and floated along, looking into the mouths of rivers. . . .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. . . .We were not obliged to get out of the canoe after this on account of falls or rapids, nor, indeed, was it quite necessary here. We took less notice of the scenery to-day, because we were in quite a settled country. the river became broad and sluggish, and we saw a blue heron winging its way slowly down the stream before us. . . .The Olamon River comes in from the east in Greenbush a few miles below the Passadumkeag. . . .The Sunkhaze, another short dead stream, comes in from the east two miles above Oldtown.. . .Opposite the Sunkhaze is the main boom of the Penobscot, where the logs from far up the river are collected and assorted. . . . We landed opposite his door at about four in the afternoon, having come some forty miles this day. . . P. wanted to sell us his canoe. Said it would last seven or eight years, or, with care, perhaps ten; but we were not ready to buy it . . . This was the last that I saw of Joe Polis. We took the last train, and reached Bangor that night.")

Payt-gum-kiss

August 2. Sunday. 

August 2, 2017
(Avesong)

At a small river coming in from the south a few miles below Nicketow, the Penobscot is crooked and the place is called Payt-gum-kiss, or Petticoat, according to P.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 2, 1857

See The Maine Woods ("Sunday, August 2. Was a cloudy and unpromising morning. . . .Nicketow is called eleven miles from Mattawamkeag by the river. Our camp was, therefore, about nine miles from the latter place. . . .We reached the Mattawamkeag at half past eight in the morning, in the midst of a drizzling rain, and, after buying some sugar, set out again. . . .As a thunder-shower appeared to be coming up, we stopped opposite a barn on the west bank, in Chester, about a mile above Lincoln. Here at last we were obliged to spend the rest of the day and night, on account of our patient, whose sickness did not abate. . . .we camped in the solitary half-open barn near the bank . . .lying on new-mown hay four feet deep. The fragrance of the hay, in which many ferns, etc., were mingled, was agreeable, though it was quite alive with grasshoppers which you could hear crawling through it. This served to graduate our approach to houses and feather beds. In the night some large bird, probably an owl, flitted through over our heads, and very early in the morning we were awakened by the twittering of swallows which had their nests there.")

Botanizing the East Branch (continued)

August 1. 

August 1, 2017

I saw at the end of this carry small Apocynum cannabinum on the rocks, also more of the spurred gentian. . . . 

Here were many Canada blueberries and, on the rocks, a new Allium or garlic, with purple flowers, and the Lobelia Kalmii, both on bare rocks just below the falls. 

On the main land were Norway pines and a sandy soil, and Baeomyces roseus and Desmodium Canadense, — a new soil for this river.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 1, 1857

See The Maine Woods ("We were glad to embark once more, and leave some of the mosquitoes behind. We had passed the Wassataquoik without perceiving it. . . . We found that we had camped about a mile above Hunt's, which is on the east bank, and is the last house for those who ascend Ktaadn on this side. . . .I do not remember that we saw the mountain at all from the river.. . .we stopped early and dined on the east side of a small expansion of the river, just above what are probably called Whetstone Falls, about a dozen miles below Hunt's. There were pretty fresh moose-tracks by the waterside. . . . We carried round the falls just below, on the west side. The rocks were on their edges, and very sharp. The distance was about three fourths of a mile.. . .We made a second carry on the west side, around some falls about a mile below this. . . .On entering the West Branch at Nicketow it appeared much larger than the East. Polis remarked that the former was all gone and lost now, that it was all smooth water hence to Oldtown, and he threw away his pole which was cut on the Umbazookskus. . . .We camped about two miles below Nicketow, on the south side of the West Branch . . .I stirred the soup by accident with a striped maple or moose-wood stick, which I had peeled, and he remarked that its bark was an emetic.")

Small Apocynum cannabinum on the rocks . See July 11, 1857 ("Apocynum cannabinum, with its small white flowers and narrow sepals ");  August 13, 1856 ("I stripped off a shred of Indian hemp bark and could not break it. It is as strong as anything of the kind I know."); August 16, 1856 ("I find the dog's-bane (Apocynum androsoemifolium) bark not the nearly so strong as that of the A. cannabinum. "); and note to September 2, 1856 ("Some years ago I sought for Indian hemp (Apocynum cannabinum) hereabouts in vain, and concluded that it did not grow here. A month or two ago I read again, as many times before, that its blossoms were very small, scarcely a third as large as those of the common species, and for some unaccountable reason this distinction kept recurring to me, and I regarded the size of the flowers I saw, though I did not believe that it grew here; and in a day or two my eyes fell on it, aye, in three different places, and different varieties of it.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Dogsbane and Indian hemp

More of the spurred gentian. See July 31, 1857 (" . . .a new plant, the halenia or spurred gentian, which I observed afterward on the carries all the way down to near the mouth of the East Branch,")

The only hazel I saw in Maine

July 27

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, as indeed each time that we lay on the shore of a lake, 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. . . This of the loon I do not mean its laugh , but its looning , is a long - drawn call , as it were , sometimes singularly human to my ear , hoo - hoo - ooooo , like the hallooing of a man on a very high key , having thrown his voice into his head . I have heard a sound exactly like it when breathing heavily through my own nostrils , half awake at ten at night , suggesting my affinity to the loon ; as if its language were but a dialect of my own , after all . Formerly , when lying awake at midnight in those woods , I had listened to hear some words or sylla- bles of their language , but it chanced that I listened in vain until I heard the cry of the loon . I have heard it occasionally on the ponds of my native town , but there its wildness is not enhanced by the surrounding scenery.

 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.")

Yellow lilies. See July 27, 1856 ("The yellow lilies stand up seven or eight inches above the water")

In the middle of the night . . .we heard the voice of the loon, loud and distinct, from far over the lake. See June twenty-four two thousand two ("across the dusky lake / the voice of a loon / penetrates lost time")

far over the lake

in the middle of the night

the voice of the loon

July 27, 1857 

(The Maine Woods)

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  July 27, 1857

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

 "A book, each page written in its own season, 

out-of-doors, in its own locality."

 ~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx ©  2009-2024

tinyurl.com/hdt-570727

The very sharp and regular dark tops of the fir trees

July 26. 

Sunday. 

I distinguish more plainly than formerly the very sharp and regular dark tops of the fir trees, shaped like the points of bodkins. These give a peculiarly dark and sombre look to the forest. The spruce-top has a more ragged outline. . . . 

Here are many raspberries on the site of an old logging-camp, but not yet ripe. . . . 

In the meanwhile I observe the plants on the shore: white and black spruce, Hypericum ellipticum, Smilax herbacea, sium, and a strange-looking polygonum. . . . 

As we sit on the bank, two canoes, containing men, women, and children, probably from Chesuncook, return down the stream. We suppose that they had been a-berrying this Sunday morning. . . . 

The canoe implies a long antiquity in which its manufacture has been gradually perfected. It will ere long, perhaps, be ranked among the lost arts. . . .

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 26, 1857

See The Maine Woods ("Sunday, July 26. The note of the white-throated sparrow, a very inspiriting but almost wiry sound, was the first heard in the morning, and with this all the woods rang. This was the prevailing bird in the northern part of Maine. . . . We soon passed the island where I had camped four years before, and I recognized the very spot. . . .As we were pushing away again, a white-headed eagle sailed over our heads. . . . We carried a part of the baggage about Pine Stream Falls, while the Indian went down in the canoe.. . .There were magnificent great purple fringed orchises on this carry and the neighboring shores. I measured the largest canoe birch which I saw in this journey near the end of the carry. It was 14| feet in circumference. . . About noon we turned northward, up a broad kind of estuary, and at its northeast corner found the Caucomgomoc River, and after going about a mile from the lake, reached the Umbazookskus,. . .Rambling about the woods at this camp, I noticed that they consisted chiefly of firs, black spruce, and some white, red maple, canoe birch, and, along the river, the hoary alder (Alnus incana). I name them in the order of their abundance.. . .The Clintonia borealis, with ripe berries, was very abundant, and perfectly at home there.")

Canoe manufacture will ere long, perhaps, be ranked among the lost arts.See September 22, 1853 ("It took him a fortnight or three weeks to complete a canoe after he had got the materials ready. I was much struck by the method of this work, and the process deserves to be minutely described"); July 25, 1857 ("Here was a canoe on the stocks, in an earlier stage of its manufacture than I had seen before")

July 26. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 26

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality."

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2021