ny, consisting of the two
commissioners, and two surveyors, and some Indians, as guides and
hunters, started from Concord about the middle of July, and followed the
river on which Concord lies, until they came to the great Falls of the
Merrimac, at Patucket, where they were kindly entertained at the wigwam
of a chief Indian who dwelt there. They then went on to the Falls of
the Amoskeag, a famous place of resort for the Indians, and encamped at
the foot of a mountain, under the shade of some great trees, where they
spent the next day, it being the Sabhath. Mr. Johnson read a portion
of the Word, and a psalm was sung, the Indians sitting on the ground a
little way off, in a very reverential manner. They then went to
Annahookline, where were some Indian cornfields, and thence over a wild,
hilly country, to the head of the Merrimac, at a place called by the
Indians Aquedahcan, where they took an observation of the latitude, and
set their names upon a great rock, with that of the worshipful Governor,
John Endicott. Here was the great Lake Winnipiseogee, as large over as
an English county, with many islands upon it, very green with trees and
vines, and abounding with squirrels and birds. They spent two days at
the lake's outlet, one of them the Sabhath, a wonderfully still, quiet
day of the midsummer. "It is strange," said the Major, "but so it is,
that although a quarter of a century hath passed over me since that day,
it is still very fresh and sweet in my memory. Many times, in my
musings, I seem to be once more sitting under the beechen trees of
Aquedahcan, with my three English friends, and I do verily seem to see
the Indians squatted on the lake shore, round a fire, cooking their
dishes, and the smoke thereof curling about among the trees over their
heads; and beyond them is the great lake and the islands thereof, some
big and others exceeding small, and the mountains that do rise on the
other side, and whose woody tops show in the still water as in a glass.
And, withal, I do seem to have a sense of the smell of flowers, which
did abound there, and of the strawberries with which the old Indian
cornfield near unto us was red, they being then ripe and luscious to the
taste. It seems, also, as if I could hear the bark of my dog, and the
chatter of squirrels, and the songs of the birds, in the thick woods
behind us; and, moreover, the voice of my friend Johnson, as he did call
to mind these words of the 104th Psalm: