"98 FORCE OF THE WATERS.
have been highly gratified, and in particular at one, of which I still have
a strong recollection, and which took place a few miles from the fair and
hospitable city of Boston. There I saw fifty or more ploughs drawn by
as many pairs of oxen, which performed their work with so much accuracy
and regularity, without the infliction of whip or rod, but merely
guided by the verbal mandates of the ploughmen, that I was perfectly astonished.
After surmounting all obstacles, the lumberers with their stock arrive
at the spot which they have had in view, and immediately commence
building a camp. The trees around soon fall under the blows of their
axes, and before many days have elapsed, a low habitation is reared and
fitted within for the accommodation of their cattle, while their provender
is secured on a kind of loft covered with broad shingles or boards. Then
their own cabin is put up ; rough bedsteads, manufactured on the spot,
are fixed in the corners; a chimney, composed of a frame of sticks plastered
with mud, leads away the smoke ; the skins of bears or deer, with some
blankets, form their bedding, and around the walls are hung their changes
of home-spun clothing, guns, and various necessaries of life. Many prefer
spending the night on the sweet-scented hay and corn-blades of their
cattle, which are laid on the ground. All arranged within, the lumberers
set their " dead-falls," large " steel-traps," and " spring-guns," in suitable
places around their camp, to procure some of the bears that ever prowl
around such establishments.
Now the heavy clouds of November, driven by the northern blasts,
pour down the snow in feathery flakes. The winter has fairly set in, and
seldom do the sun's gladdening rays fall on the wood-cutter's hut. In
warm flannels his body is enveloped, the skin of a racoon covers his head
and brow, his moose-skin leggins reach the girdle that secures them around
his waist, while on broad moccasins, or snow-shoes, he stands from the
earliest dawn until night, hacking away at the majestic pines that for a
century past have embellished the forest. The fall of these valuable trees
no longer resounds on the ground ; and, as they tumble here and there,
nothing is heard but the rustling and crackling of their branches, their
heavy trunks sinking into the deep snows. Thousands of large pines thus
cut down every winter afford room for the younger trees, which spring up
profusely to supply the wants of man.
Weeks and weeks have elapsed; the earth's pure white covering has
become thickly and firmly crusted by the increasing intensity of the
FORCE OF T H E WATERS. 99
cold, the fallen trees have all been sawn into measured logs, and the long
repose of the oxen has fitted them for hauling them to the nearest frozen
streams. The ice gradually becomes covered with the accumulating mass
of timber, and, their task completed, the lumberers wait impatiently for the
breaking up of the winter.
At this period, they pass the time in hunting the moose, the deer, and
the bear, for the benefit of their wives and children; and as these men
are most excellent woodsmen, great havoc is made among the game.
Many skins of sables, martins, and musk-rats they have procured during
the intervals of their labour, or under night. The snows are now giving
way, as the rains descend in torrents, and the lumberers collect their utensils,
harness their cattle, and prepare for their return. This they accomplish
in safety.
From being lumberers they now become millers, and with pleasure
each applies the grating file to his saws. Many logs have already reached
the dams on the swollen waters of the rushing streams, and the task commences,
which is carried on through the summer, of cutting them up into
boards.
The great heats of the dog-days have parched the ground; every creek
has become a shallow, except here and there, where in a deep hole the
salmon and the trout have found a retreat; the sharp slimy angles of multitudes
of rocks project, as if to afford resting places to the wood-ducks
and herons that breed on the borders of these streams. Thousands of
" saw logs" remain in every pool, beneath and above each rapid or fall.
The miller's dam has been emptied of its timber, and he must now resort
to some expedient to procure a fresh supply.
It was my good fortune to witness the method employed for the purpose
of collecting the logs that had not reached their destination, and I
had the more pleasure that it was seen in company with my little family.
I wish for your sake, reader, that I could describe in an adequate manner
the scene which I viewed; but, although not so well qualified as I could
wish, rely upon it, that the desire which I feel to gratify you, will induce
me to use all my endeavours to give you an idea of it.
I t was the month of September. At the upper extremity of Dennisville,
which is itself a pretty village, are the saw-mills and ponds of the
hospitable Judge Lincoln and other persons. The creek that conveys
the logs to these ponds, and which bears the name of the village, is interrupted
in its course by many rapids and narrow embanked gorges. One
c. 3