Chapter 16

The open and sunny interval still stretched away from the river sometimes by two or more terraces, to the distant hill-country, and when we climbed the bank we commonly found an irregular copse-wood skirting the river, the primitive having floated down-stream long ago to——the “King’s navy.” Sometimes we saw the river-road a quarter or half a mile distant, and the particolored Concord stage, with its cloud of dust, its van of earnest travelling faces, and its rear of dusty trunks, reminding us that the country had its places of rendezvous for restless Yankee men. There dwelt along at considerable distances on this interval a quiet agricultural and pastoral people, with every house its well, as we sometimes proved, and every household, though never so still and remote it appeared in the noontide, its dinner about these times. There they lived on, those New England people, farmer lives, father and grandfather and great-grandfather, on and on without noise, keeping up tradition, and expecting, beside fair weather and abundant harvests, we did not learn what. They were contented to live, since it was so contrived for them, and where their lines had fallen.

Our uninquiring corpses lie more low Than our life’s curiosity doth go.

Yet these men had no need to travel to be as wise as Solomon in all his glory, so similar are the lives of men in all countries, and fraught with the same homely experiences. One half the world _knows_ how the other half lives.

About noon we passed a small village in Merrimack at Thornton’s Ferry, and tasted of the waters of Naticook Brook on the same side, where French and his companions, whose grave we saw in Dunstable, were ambuscaded by the Indians. The humble village of Litchfield, with its steepleless meeting-house, stood on the opposite or east bank, near where a dense grove of willows backed by maples skirted the shore. There also we noticed some shagbark-trees, which, as they do not grow in Concord, were as strange a sight to us as the palm would be, whose fruit only we have seen. Our course now curved gracefully to the north, leaving a low, flat shore on the Merrimack side, which forms a sort of harbor for canal-boats. We observed some fair elms and particularly large and handsome white-maples standing conspicuously on this interval; and the opposite shore, a quarter of a mile below, was covered with young elms and maples six inches high, which had probably sprung from the seeds which had been washed across.

Some carpenters were at work here mending a scow on the green and sloping bank. The strokes of their mallets echoed from shore to shore, and up and down the river, and their tools gleamed in the sun a quarter of a mile from us, and we realized that boat-building was as ancient and honorable an art as agriculture, and that there might be a naval as well as a pastoral life. The whole history of commerce was made manifest in that scow turned bottom upward on the shore. Thus did men begin to go down upon the sea in ships; _quæque diu steterant in montibus altis, Fluctibus ignotis insultavêre carinæ;_ “and keels which had long stood on high mountains careered insultingly (_insultavêre_) over unknown waves.” (Ovid, Met. I. 133.) We thought that it would be well for the traveller to build his boat on the bank of a stream, instead of finding a ferry or a bridge. In the Adventures of Henry the fur-trader, it is pleasant to read that when with his Indians he reached the shore of Ontario, they consumed two days in making two canoes of the bark of the elm-tree, in which to transport themselves to Fort Niagara. It is a worthy incident in a journey, a delay as good as much rapid travelling. A good share of our interest in Xenophon’s story of his retreat is in the manœuvres to get the army safely over the rivers, whether on rafts of logs or fagots, or sheep-skins blown up. And where could they better afford to tarry meanwhile than on the banks of a river?

As we glided past at a distance, these out-door workmen appeared to have added some dignity to their labor by its very publicness. It was a part of the industry of nature, like the work of hornets and mud-wasps.

The waves slowly beat, Just to keep the noon sweet, And no sound is floated o’er, Save the mallet on shore, Which echoing on high Seems a-calking the sky.

The haze, the sun’s dust of travel, had a Lethean influence on the land and its inhabitants, and all creatures resigned themselves to float upon the inappreciable tides of nature.

Woof of the sun, ethereal gauze, Woven of Nature’s richest stuffs, Visible heat, air-water, and dry sea, Last conquest of the eye; Toil of the day displayed sun-dust, Aerial surf upon the shores of earth. Ethereal estuary, frith of light, Breakers of air, billows of heat Fine summer spray on inland seas; Bird of the sun, transparent-winged Owlet of noon, soft-pinioned, From heath or stubble rising without song; Establish thy serenity o’er the fields

The routine which is in the sunshine and the finest days, as that which has conquered and prevailed, commends itself to us by its very antiquity and apparent solidity and necessity. Our weakness needs it, and our strength uses it. We cannot draw on our boots without bracing ourselves against it. If there were but one erect and solid standing tree in the woods, all creatures would go to rub against it and make sure of their footing. During the many hours which we spend in this waking sleep, the hand stands still on the face of the clock, and we grow like corn in the night. Men are as busy as the brooks or bees, and postpone everything to their business; as carpenters discuss politics between the strokes of the hammer while they are shingling a roof.

This noontide was a fit occasion to make some pleasant harbor, and there read the journal of some voyageur like ourselves, not too moral nor inquisitive, and which would not disturb the noon; or else some old classic, the very flower of all reading, which we had postponed to such a season

“Of Syrian peace, immortal leisure.”

But, alas, our chest, like the cabin of a coaster, contained only its well-thumbed “Navigator” for all literature, and we were obliged to draw on our memory for these things.

We naturally remembered Alexander Henry’s Adventures here, as a sort of classic among books of American travel. It contains scenery and rough sketching of men and incidents enough to inspire poets for many years, and to my fancy is as full of sounding names as any page of history,—Lake Winnipeg, Hudson Bay, Ottaway, and portages innumerable; Chipeways, Gens de Terres, Les Pilleurs, The Weepers; with reminiscences of Hearne’s journey, and the like; an immense and shaggy but sincere country, summer and winter, adorned with chains of lakes and rivers, covered with snows, with hemlocks, and fir-trees. There is a naturalness, an unpretending and cold life in this traveller, as in a Canadian winter, what life was preserved through low temperatures and frontier dangers by furs within a stout heart. He has truth and moderation worthy of the father of history, which belong only to an intimate experience, and he does not defer too much to literature. The unlearned traveller may quote his single line from the poets with as good right as the scholar. He too may speak of the stars, for he sees them shoot perhaps when the astronomer does not. The good sense of this author is very conspicuous. He is a traveller who does not exaggerate, but writes for the information of his readers, for science, and for history. His story is told with as much good faith and directness as if it were a report to his brother traders, or the Directors of the Hudson Bay Company, and is fitly dedicated to Sir Joseph Banks. It reads like the argument to a great poem on the primitive state of the country and its inhabitants, and the reader imagines what in each case, with the invocation of the Muse, might be sung, and leaves off with suspended interest, as if the full account were to follow. In what school was this fur-trader educated? He seems to travel the immense snowy country with such purpose only as the reader who accompanies him, and to the latter’s imagination, it is, as it were, momentarily created to be the scene of his adventures. What is most interesting and valuable in it, however, is not the materials for the history of Pontiac, or Braddock, or the Northwest, which it furnishes; not the _annals_ of the country, but the natural facts, or _perennials_, which are ever without date. When out of history the truth shall be extracted, it will have shed its dates like withered leaves.

The Souhegan, or _Crooked_ River, as some translate it, comes in from the west about a mile and a half above Thornton’s Ferry. Babboosuck Brook empties into it near its mouth. There are said to be some of the finest water privileges in the country still unimproved on the former stream, at a short distance from the Merrimack. One spring morning, March 22, in the year 1677, an incident occurred on the banks of the river here, which is interesting to us as a slight memorial of an interview between two ancient tribes of men, one of which is now extinct, while the other, though it is still represented by a miserable remnant, has long since disappeared from its ancient hunting-grounds. A Mr. James Parker, at “Mr. Hinchmanne’s farme ner Meremack,” wrote thus “to the Honred Governer and Council at Bostown, _Hast, Post Hast”:_—

“Sagamore Wanalancet come this morning to informe me, and then went to Mr. Tyng’s to informe him, that his son being on ye other sid of Meremack river over against Souhegan upon the 22 day of this instant, about tene of the clock in the morning, he discovered 15 Indians on this sid the river, which he soposed to be Mohokes by ther spech. He called to them; they answered, but he could not understand ther spech; and he having a conow ther in the river, he went to breck his conow that they might not have ani ues of it. In the mean time they shot about thirty guns at him, and he being much frighted fled, and come home forthwith to Nahamcock [Pawtucket Falls or Lowell], wher ther wigowames now stand.”

Penacooks and Mohawks! _ubique gentium sunt?_ In the year 1670, a Mohawk warrior scalped a Naamkeak or else a Wamesit Indian maiden near where Lowell now stands. She, however, recovered. Even as late as 1685, John Hogkins, a Penacook Indian, who describes his grandfather as having lived “at place called Malamake rever, other name chef Natukkog and Panukkog, that one rever great many names,” wrote thus to the governor:—

“May 15th, 1685.

“Honor governor my friend,—

“You my friend I desire your worship and your power, because I hope you can do som great matters this one. I am poor and naked and I have no men at my place because I afraid allwayes Mohogs he will kill me every day and night. If your worship when please pray help me you no let Mohogs kill me at my place at Malamake river called Pannukkog and Natukkog, I will submit your worship and your power. And now I want pouder and such alminishon shatt and guns, because I have forth at my hom and I plant theare.

“This all Indian hand, but pray you do consider your humble servant,

JOHN HOGKINS.”

Signed also by Simon Detogkom, King Hary, Sam Linis, Mr. Jorge Rodunnonukgus, John Owamosimmin, and nine other Indians, with their marks against their names.

But now, one hundred and fifty-four years having elapsed since the date of this letter, we went unalarmed on our way without “brecking” our “conow,” reading the New England Gazetteer, and seeing no traces of “Mohogs” on the banks.

The Souhegan, though a rapid river, seemed to-day to have borrowed its character from the noon.

Where gleaming fields of haze Meet the voyageur’s gaze, And above, the heated air Seems to make a river there, The pines stand up with pride By the Souhegan’s side, And the hemlock and the larch With their triumphal arch Are waving o’er its march To the sea. No wind stirs its waves, But the spirits of the braves Hov’ring o’er, Whose antiquated graves Its still water laves On the shore. With an Indian’s stealthy tread It goes sleeping in its bed, Without joy or grief, Or the rustle of a leaf, Without a ripple or a billow, Or the sigh of a willow, From the Lyndeboro’ hills To the Merrimack mills. With a louder din Did its current begin, When melted the snow On the far mountain’s brow, And the drops came together In that rainy weather. Experienced river, Hast thou flowed forever? Souhegan soundeth old, But the half is not told, What names hast thou borne, In the ages far gone, When the Xanthus and Meander Commenced to wander, Ere the black bear haunted Thy red forest-floor, Or Nature had planted The pines by thy shore?

During the heat of the day, we rested on a large island a mile above the mouth of this river, pastured by a herd of cattle, with steep banks and scattered elms and oaks, and a sufficient channel for canal-boats on each side. When we made a fire to boil some rice for our dinner, the flames spreading amid the dry grass, and the smoke curling silently upward and casting grotesque shadows on the ground, seemed phenomena of the noon, and we fancied that we progressed up the stream without effort, and as naturally as the wind and tide went down, not outraging the calm days by unworthy bustle or impatience. The woods on the neighboring shore were alive with pigeons, which were moving south, looking for mast, but now, like ourselves, spending their noon in the shade. We could hear the slight, wiry, winnowing sound of their wings as they changed their roosts from time to time, and their gentle and tremulous cooing. They sojourned with us during the noontide, greater travellers far than we. You may frequently discover a single pair sitting upon the lower branches of the white-pine in the depths of the wood, at this hour of the day, so silent and solitary, and with such a hermit-like appearance, as if they had never strayed beyond its skirts, while the acorn which was gathered in the forests of Maine is still undigested in their crops. We obtained one of these handsome birds, which lingered too long upon its perch, and plucked and broiled it here with some other game, to be carried along for our supper; for, beside the provisions which we carried with us, we depended mainly on the river and forest for our supply. It is true, it did not seem to be putting this bird to its right use to pluck off its feathers, and extract its entrails, and broil its carcass on the coals; but we heroically persevered, nevertheless, waiting for further information. The same regard for Nature which excited our sympathy for her creatures nerved our hands to carry through what we had begun. For we would be honorable to the party we deserted; we would fulfil fate, and so at length, perhaps, detect the secret innocence of these incessant tragedies which Heaven allows.

“Too quick resolves do resolution wrong, What, part so soon to be divorced so long? Things to be done are long to be debated; Heaven is not day’d, Repentance is not dated.”

We are double-edged blades, and every time we whet our virtue the return stroke straps our vice. Where is the skilful swordsman who can give clean wounds, and not rip up his work with the other edge?

Nature herself has not provided the most graceful end for her creatures. What becomes of all these birds that people the air and forest for our solacement? The sparrows seem always _chipper_, never infirm. We do not see their bodies lie about. Yet there is a tragedy at the end of each one of their lives. They must perish miserably; not one of them is translated. True, “not a sparrow falleth to the ground without our Heavenly Father’s knowledge,” but they do fall, nevertheless.

The carcasses of some poor squirrels, however, the same that frisked so merrily in the morning, which we had skinned and embowelled for our dinner, we abandoned in disgust, with tardy humanity, as too wretched a resource for any but starving men. It was to perpetuate the practice of a barbarous era. If they had been larger, our crime had been less. Their small red bodies, little bundles of red tissue, mere gobbets of venison, would not have “fattened fire.” With a sudden impulse we threw them away, and washed our hands, and boiled some rice for our dinner. “Behold the difference between the one who eateth flesh, and him to whom it belonged! The first hath a momentary enjoyment, whilst the latter is deprived of existence!” “Who would commit so great a crime against a poor animal, who is fed only by the herbs which grow wild in the woods, and whose belly is burnt up with hunger?” We remembered a picture of mankind in the hunter age, chasing hares down the mountains; O me miserable! Yet sheep and oxen are but larger squirrels, whose hides are saved and meat is salted, whose souls perchance are not so large in proportion to their bodies.

There should always be some flowering and maturing of the fruits of nature in the cooking process. Some simple dishes recommend themselves to our imaginations as well as palates. In parched corn, for instance, there is a manifest sympathy between the bursting seed and the more perfect developments of vegetable life. It is a perfect flower with its petals, like the houstonia or anemone. On my warm hearth these cerealian blossoms expanded; here is the bank whereon they grew. Perhaps some such visible blessing would always attend the simple and wholesome repast.

Here was that “pleasant harbor” which we had sighed for, where the weary voyageur could read the journal of some other sailor, whose bark had ploughed, perchance, more famous and classic seas. At the tables of the gods, after feasting follow music and song; we will recline now under these island trees, and for our minstrel call on

ANACREON.

“Nor has he ceased his charming song, for still that lyre, Though he is dead, sleeps not in Hades.”

_Simonides’ Epigram on Anacreon._

I lately met with an old volume from a London bookshop, containing the Greek Minor Poets, and it was a pleasure to read once more only the words, Orpheus, Linus, Musæus,—those faint poetic sounds and echoes of a name, dying away on the ears of us modern men; and those hardly more substantial sounds, Mimnermus, Ibycus, Alcaeus, Stesichorus, Menander. They lived not in vain. We can converse with these bodiless fames without reserve or personality.

I know of no studies so composing as those of the classical scholar. When we have sat down to them, life seems as still and serene as if it were very far off, and I believe it is not habitually seen from any common platform so truly and unexaggerated as in the light of literature. In serene hours we contemplate the tour of the Greek and Latin authors with more pleasure than the traveller does the fairest scenery of Greece or Italy. Where shall we find a more refined society? That highway down from Homer and Hesiod to Horace and Juvenal is more attractive than the Appian. Reading the classics, or conversing with those old Greeks and Latins in their surviving works, is like walking amid the stars and constellations, a high and by way serene to travel. Indeed, the true scholar will be not a little of an astronomer in his habits. Distracting cares will not be allowed to obstruct the field of his vision, for the higher regions of literature, like astronomy, are above storm and darkness.

But passing by these rumors of bards, let us pause for a moment at the Teian poet.

There is something strangely modern about him. He is very easily turned into English. Is it that our lyric poets have resounded but that lyre, which would sound only light subjects, and which Simonides tells us does not sleep in Hades? His odes are like gems of pure ivory. They possess an ethereal and evanescent beauty like summer evenings, ὅ χρή σε νοεῖν νόου ἄνθει,—_which you must perceive with the flower of the mind_,—and show how slight a beauty could be expressed. You have to consider them, as the stars of lesser magnitude, with the side of the eye, and look aside from them to behold them. They charm us by their serenity and freedom from exaggeration and passion, and by a certain flower-like beauty, which does not propose itself, but must be approached and studied like a natural object. But perhaps their chief merit consists in the lightness and yet security of their tread;

“The young and tender stalk Ne’er bends when _they_ do walk.”

True, our nerves are never strung by them; it is too constantly the sound of the lyre, and never the note of the trumpet; but they are not gross, as has been presumed, but always elevated above the sensual.

These are some of the best that have come down to us.

ON HIS LYRE.

I wish to sing the Atridæ, And Cadmus I wish to sing; But my lyre sounds Only love with its chords. Lately I changed the strings And all the lyre; And I began to sing the labors Of Hercules; but my lyre Resounded loves. Farewell, henceforth, for me, Heroes! for my lyre Sings only loves.

TO A SWALLOW.

Thou indeed, dear swallow, Yearly going and coming, In summer weavest thy nest, And in winter go’st disappearing Either to Nile or to Memphis. But Love always weaveth His nest in my heart….

ON A SILVER CUP.

Turning the silver, Vulcan, make for me, Not indeed a panoply, For what are battles to me? But a hollow cup, As deep as thou canst And make for me in it Neither stars, nor wagons, Nor sad Orion; What are the Pleiades to me? What the shining Bootes? Make vines for me, And clusters of grapes in it, And of gold Love and Bathyllus Treading the grapes With the fair Lyæus

ON HIMSELF.

Thou sing’st the affairs of Thebes, And he the battles of Troy, But I of my own defeats. No horse have wasted me, Nor foot, nor ships; But a new and different host, From eyes smiting me.

TO A DOVE.

Lovely dove, Whence, whence dost thou fly? Whence, running on air, Dost thou waft and diffuse So many sweet ointments? Who art? What thy errand?— Anacreon sent me To a boy, to Bathyllus, Who lately is ruler and tyrant of all. Cythere has sold me For one little song, And I’m doing this service For Anacreon. And now, as you see, I bear letters from him. And he says that directly He’ll make me free, But though he release me, His slave I will tarry with him. For why should I fly Over mountains and fields, And perch upon trees, Eating some wild thing? Now indeed I eat bread, Plucking it from the hands Of Anacreon himself; And he gives me to drink The wine which he tastes, And drinking, I dance, And shadow my master’s Face with my wings; And, going to rest, On the lyre itself I sleep. That is all; get thee gone. Thou hast made me more talkative, Man, than a crow.

ON LOVE.

Love walking swiftly, With hyacinthine staff, Bade me to take a run with him; And hastening through swift torrents, And woody places, and over precipices, A water-snake stung me. And my heart leaped up to My mouth, and I should have fainted; But Love fanning my brows With his soft wings, said, Surely, thou art not able to love.

ON WOMEN.

Nature has given horns To bulls, and hoofs to horses, Swiftness to hares, To lions yawning teeth, To fishes swimming, To birds flight, To men wisdom. For woman she had nothing beside; What then does she give? Beauty,— Instead of all shields, Instead of all spears; And she conquers even iron And fire, who is beautiful.

ON LOVERS.

Horses have the mark Of fire on their sides, And some have distinguished The Parthian men by their crests; So I, seeing lovers, Know them at once, For they have a certain slight Brand on their hearts.

TO A SWALLOW.

What dost thou wish me to do to thee,— What, thou loquacious swallow? Dost thou wish me taking thee Thy light pinions to clip? Or rather to pluck out Thy tongue from within, As that Tereus did? Why with thy notes in the dawn Hast thou plundered Bathyllus From my beautiful dreams?

TO A COLT.