On the twenty-fourth of July, 1857, I left Concord for Moosehead Lake, accompanied by one companion, intending to trace the West Branch of the Penobscot and cross the height of land into the headwaters of the Allagash. For days the sole sound beside our paddles was the steady rush of cedar water over slate ledges and the distant call of the loon across the mist.
The forest here stands unbroken by road or fence; the white pines rise a hundred and thirty feet above the moss, and at night our birch-bark shelter smelled of balsam fir and woodsmoke while the river murmured ten paces from our feet.
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