y
done. But we were to camp somewhere, "anywhere out of the world" of
railroads. The Penobscot glimmered winningly. Our birch looked wistful
for its own element. Why not marry shallop to stream? Why not yield
to the enticement of this current, fleet and clear, and gain a few
beautiful miles before nightfall? All the world was before us where to
choose our bivouac. We dismounted our birch from the truck, and laid its
lightness upon the stream. Then we became stevedores, stowing cargo.
Sheets of birch-bark served for dunnage. Cancut, in flamboyant shirt,
ballasted the after-part of the craft. For the present, I, in flamboyant
shirt, paddled in the bow, while Iglesias, similarly glowing, sat _a
la Turque_ midships among the traps. Then, with a longing sniff at the
caldron of Soggysampcook, we launched upon the Penobscot.

Upon no sweeter stream was voyager ever launched than this of our
summer-evening sail. There was no worse haste in its more speed; it
went fleetly lingering along its leafy dell. Its current, unripplingly
smooth, but dimpled ever, and wrinkled with the whirls that mark an
underflow deep and shady, bore on our bark. The banks were low and
gently wooded. No Northern forest, rude and gloomy with pines, stood
stiffly and unsympathizingly watching the graceful water, but cheerful
groves and delicate coppices opened in vistas where level sunlight
streamed, and barred the river with light, between belts of lightsome
shadow. We felt no breeze, but knew of one, keeping pace with us, by a
tremor in the birches as it shook them. On we drifted, mile after mile,
languidly over sweet calms. One would seize his paddle, and make our
canoe quiver for a few spasmodic moments. But it seemed needless and
impertinent to toil, when noiselessly and without any show of energy the
water was bearing us on, over rich reflections of illumined cloud and
blue sky, and shadows of feathery birches, bearing us on so quietly that
our passage did not shatter any fair image, but only drew it out upon
the tremors of the water.

So, placid and beautiful as an interview of first love, went on our
first meeting with this Northern river. But water, the feminine element,
is so mobile and impressible that it must protect itself by much that
seems caprice and fickleness. We might be sure that the Penobscot would
not always flow so gently, nor all the way from forests to the sea
conduct our bark without one shiver of panic, where rapids broke noisy