The Maine Woods The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, Volume 03 (of 20)

Two steps from the water on either side, and you come to the abrupt bushy and rooty if not turfy edge of the bank, four or five feet high, where the interminable forest begins,...

I rushed down from this precipice to the canoe in order to fire the Indian’s gun, but found that my companion had the caps. I was still thinking of getting it off when the India...

I did not regret my not having seen this before, since I now saw it under circumstances so favorable. I was in just the frame of mind to see something wonderful, and this was a...

Having gone about a mile, and got into low ground again, I heard a noise like the note of an owl, which I soon discovered to be made by the Indian, and, answering him, we soon c...

They have even descended to smaller game. They have lately, as I hear, invented a machine for chopping up huckleberry bushes fine, and so converting them into fuel!--bushes whic...

We hastily reloaded, putting the dishes loose in the bows, that they might be at hand when wanted, and set out again. The western shore, near which we paddled along, rose gently...

The carry around Pockwockomus Falls was exceedingly rough and rocky, the batteau having to be lifted directly from the water up four or five feet on to a rock, and launched agai...

We made a second carry on the west side, around some falls about a mile below this. On the mainland were Norway pines, indicating a new geological formation, and it was such a d...

I was here first introduced to Joe. He had ridden all the way on the outside of the stage, the day before, in the rain, giving way to ladies, and was well wetted. As it still ra...

This canal, so called, was a considerable and extremely rapid and rocky river. The Indian decided that there was water enough in it without raising the dam, which would only mak...

When it rained hardest, we returned to the house, and took down a tract from the shelf. There was the “Wandering Jew,” cheap edition, and fine print, the “Criminal Calendar,” an...

Again and again Joe called the moose, placing the canoe close by some favorable point of meadow for them to come out on, but listened in vain to hear one come rushing through th...

I give more of their definitions, for what they are worth,--partly _because_ they differ sometimes from the commonly received ones. They never analyzed these words before. After...

Polis had evidently more curiosity respecting the few settlers in those woods than we. If nothing was said, he took it for granted that we wanted to go straight to the next log-...

Here, just at the head of the murmuring rapids, Joe now proceeded to skin the moose with a pocket-knife, while I looked on; and a tragical business it was,--to see that still wa...

At last we glided past the “green isle,” which had been our landmark, all joining in the chorus; as if by the watery links of rivers and of lakes we were about to float over unm...

We had designed to go on at evening up the Caucomgomoc, whose mouth was a mile or two distant, to the lake of the same name, about ten miles off; but some Indians of Joe’s acqua...

I judged from this account that their every camp was a camp-meeting, and they had mistaken their route,--they should have gone to Eastham; that they wanted an opportunity to pre...

It was unusual for the woods to be so distant from the shore, and there was quite an echo from them, but when I was shouting in order to awake it, the Indian reminded me that I...

When we reached the Millinocket opposite to Tom’s house, and were waiting for his folks to set us over,--for we had left our batteau above the Grand Falls,--we discovered two ca...

“Chaos and ancient Night, I come no spy With purpose to explore or to disturb The secrets of your realm, but ... . . . . . . as my way Lies through your spacious empire up to li...

Before our companions arrived, we rode on up the Houlton road seven miles to Molunkus, where the Aroostook road comes into it, and where there is a spacious public house in the...

The Maine Woods was the second volume collected from his writings after Thoreau’s death. Of the material which composed it, the first two divisions were already in print. “Ktaad...

A bat on West Branch; beaver skull at Grand Lake; Mr. Thatcher ate beaver with moose on the Caucomgomoc. A muskrat on the last stream; the red squirrel is common in the depths o...

The most common flowers of the _river_ and _lake shores_ were: _Thalictrum cornuti_ (meadow-rue); _Hypericum ellipticum_, _mutilum_, and _Canadense_ (St. John’s-wort); horsemint...

Moosehead Lake, 45, 46, 73, 95, 97, 99; steamers and sail-boats on, 100; 104, 108, 117, 145, 150, 152; Indian name for, 155; 159, 175, 176, 181; extent of, 183; 184, 188, 193, 2...