Nooks and Corners of the New England Coast Part 4

The sea rolls in great waves that overwhelm every thing within their reach. More than once I started back at the approach of one of them.

Just outside the first line of breakers rode a flock of wild fowl, and occasionally the mournful cry of a loon, or shriller scream of a sea-gull, mingled with the roar of the surf. Farther out, at the distance of a mile, a wicked-looking rock and ledge was flinging off the seas, flecking its tawny flanks with foam, like a war-horse impatiently champing at his bit.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GREAT HEAD.]

Looking off from Great Head to the eastward, the main-land is perceived trending away until it loses itself in the ocean. At the extremity of this land is Schoodic Point and Mountain, with Mosquito Harbor indenting it. The water between is not the true "Baye Francoise" of Champlain, Lescarbot, and others. The appellation belongs of right to the Bay of Fundy, perpetuating as it does the misadventure of Nicolas Aubri, one of the company of De Monts, who was lost in the woods there. As this is not the only historic anachronism by many that may be met with on our coasts, I do not propose to quarrel with it, the less that a Frenchman was the first white here. The name has been current for about a century, though on old French maps it is found to lie farther east.

The north wind was beating down yesterday's sea, sweeping over the billows, and whirling their crests far away to leeward. Along the rocks the foam lay like wool-fleeces, or was whisked about, dabbling the grim face of the cliff with creamy spots. Other headlands were mailed in ice.

Mount Desert Rock is about twenty miles south-south-east of the island and from fourteen to eighteen from the nearest land. It has a light-house, built upon naked, shapeless ledges. There is another on Baker's Island, off the entrance to Somes's Sound.

Natural sea-marks, like Great Head Cliff, are preferred by mariners to artificial buoys or beacons. No one that has seen them will be likely to forget the Pan of Matanzas, or the Cabanas of Havana. Before the excellent system inaugurated by the United States Coast Survey, trees, standing singly or in groups, often gave direction how to steer on a dangerous coast. Sometimes they were lopped on one side, or made to take some peculiarity of shape that would distinguish them from all others.

Thus some solitary old cedar becomes a guide-board known to all who travel on ocean highways.

The next point of interest will be found at Otter Creek, which may be reached in good weather by sailing, by the direct road from Bar Harbor, already mentioned, or by crossing the lower ridge of Newport Mountain from Great Head.

After a last look at the sea, which was of a dingy green, and broke angrily as far as the eye could reach in the offing, I entered the trail that was to bring me to Otter Creek.

Newport's southern peak was just overhead, its sharp protuberances made smooth by k.n.o.bs of ice that resembled the bosses of a target. There reached me occasional rapid glimpses of the sea in ascending, but I walked chiefly in a dense growth that excluded all light, except when the glint of the sun through the tree-tops fell in golden bars across my way. Prostrate and uselessly rotting was wood enough to have kept a good-sized village through the winter. The air was light and elastic. I do not think a pleasanter ramble is to be had on the island than this forest-walk.

"O'er windy hill, through clogged ravine, And woodland paths that wound between Low drooping pine-boughs winter-weighed."

At Otter Creek is a scattered settlement and an inlet of the sea, into which the creek empties. The island traditions say the place was once the favorite retreat of the otter. There are cliffs to admire or study on the sea-sh.o.r.e, and Thunder Cave is there to explore.

In this pocket-edition of Somes's Sound we find ourselves once more under the shadow of Green Mountain, and upon looking back up the valley a pa.s.s opens between it and Newport, through which the road finds its way to Bar Harbor.

The dwellings here, as elsewhere on the island, are humble, and bespeak, in many instances, a near approach to poverty. In the larger villages there are comfortable and even substantial residences, but the impression of unthrift is a.s.sociated with the proper population. The reasons are obvious. The first inhabitants got their livelihood by fis.h.i.+ng, and formerly many vessels were fitted out from the Sound.

Perhaps not a few went for the Government bounty. With the failure of this industry little was left on which to depend. A scanty subsistence at most could be wrung from the soil, though Williamson, the historian of Maine, avers this was once strong and fertile in the valleys. The land, by the removal of crops without restoring the elements essential to it, has been growing poorer year by year. A little hay is cut on the uplands, and at Pretty Marsh are some hundreds of acres of salt meadow.

The mountains have been stripped of their wood to the last merchantable tree. At this unpromising juncture the island became suddenly famous, and is now among the most frequented of American summer resorts. None could be more astonished at their own prosperity than these islanders, who, being, as a whole and in a marked degree, incapable of appreciating the grandeur of the scenes with which they have from infancy been familiar, look with scarce concealed disdain upon the admiration they inspire in others.

Some handsome cottages have already sprung out of the prevailing ugliness at Bar Harbor. At Great Head a tract of considerable extent has been inclosed. The star of Mount Desert is clearly in the ascendant, as, however prudent the city man may be at home, all purse-strings are loosened at the sea-side. The French proverb, "_Il faut faire ou se taire_" is usually construed into the modern barbaric "play or pay" at the sh.o.r.e. Not one of these worthy landlords was ever known to fall, like Vatel, on his own sword because there was not enough roast meat.

Nevertheless, at the risk of forfeiting the reader's good opinion, I will say that there are landlords with consciences, and I have both seen and spoken with such on Mount Desert.

Another of my excursions, which afforded new entertainment with new scenes, was a pedestrian jaunt from Otter Creek to North-east Harbor.

This route commands fine ocean views in the direction of the entrance to the Sound and of the outlying islands. You first open Seal Cove, and, crossing the s.h.i.+ngle road at its head, in two miles and a half of farther progress skirting the eastern sh.o.r.e of the Sound, arrive at the head of North-east Harbor, an inconsiderable village, in which Williamson conjectures La Saussaye finally landed.

Seven miles more along the eastern base of Brown's Mountain, in the sombre shadows of which the road nestles, brings us back to the tavern door at Somesville. This road crosses a limb of Hadlock's Pond, and is skirted for some distance by a fine grove of beeches. In summer-time this part of the route is traversed under a canopy of overarching branches, whose dense foliage excludes all but a few straggling rays that let fall a s.h.i.+mmer of delicious sunlight, for the moment glorifying all that pa.s.s beneath.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE OVENS, SAULSBURY'S COVE.]

It may chance that the visitor will first pa.s.s over the section already traversed in these pages; or it may so fall out that he will decide to undertake a run by the sh.o.r.e north of Bar Harbor in advance of other excursions. In this case Salisbury's Cove and the "Ovens" become his objective.

I have already fore-warned the reader that it is six or seven miles from any initial point to any other given point on Mount Desert Island. This equality of distance sometimes makes a choice embarra.s.sing, since in selecting from two routes the preference is usually given to the shorter. But it will sometimes happen that he will find these longer than statute miles, or that when pursuing his way with all imaginable confidence, it is suddenly blocked by a mountain or a precipice. These contingencies make walking preferable. A horse is no doubt a very useful animal where there are roads.

It is practicable at low tide to reach the Ovens by the beach, but as this involves many difficulties, it is better to take the road beyond Hull's Cove, two miles from Bar Harbor. The cove is said to have been named for a brother of General William Hull. It was resorted to quite early in the settlement of the island. Here was the dwelling-place of the Gregoires, to whom Ma.s.sachusetts ceded the whole island upon proof, exhibited in 1787, that Madame Gregoire was the lineal descendant of Cadillac, who claimed under his grant from Louis XIV. in 1688.[18] The meditative reader may ponder upon this resumption under a French t.i.tle as an evidence that time at last makes all things even. It would not seem inappropriate, inasmuch as two women have had so prominent a share in the history of Mount Desert, to perpetuate the names of Guercheville and Gregoire. The graves of the Gregoires may be seen near the north-east corner of the burial-ground. Monsieur is a.s.serted to have been a _bon-vivant_.

The Ovens are caverns hollowed out by the waves in the softer ma.s.ses of the cliffs. When the tide is completely down a pebbly beach shelves away to low-water mark. The feldspar and porphyry of which the rocks are composed impart a cheerfulness to the walls of these grottoes more pleasing after descending into the gloomy recesses of the south sh.o.r.e.

Near the Ovens is a pa.s.sage driven through a projecting cliff, known as _Via Mala_.

In pa.s.sing, the reader will give me leave to mention another woman whose influence was felt in the affairs of Acadia. It was Henrietta, d.u.c.h.esse d'Orleans, and aunt of Louis XIV., who obtained the relinquishment of Acadia by her husband, Charles I. of unfortunate memory, under the peace of 1632. The fate of the widowed queen is involved in one of the most repulsive chapters of history. According to contemporary accounts, she fell a victim to the reign of the poisoners in the time of Louis. By the testimony of the Marquis Dangeau and other annalists of the times, the poison had been sent by the Chevalier De Lorraine, her lover, then in England.

The reader may now complete the circuit of the island at leisure. In taking leave of these hills, I would observe that although not every one is possessed of a knowledge of woodcraft, or of the muscles of a mountaineer, it is far better to depart the beaten paths and to seek out new conquests. For my own part, I may safely guarantee that in finding himself for the first time on Mount Desert, the visitor will be as thoroughly surprised as impressed in the presence of natural scenes so p.r.o.nounced in character, and so unique in their relation to and environment by the sea.

In my way to and from this remote corner of New England, it was my fortune to encounter a single instance of that inquisitorial propensity known the world over as Yankee curiosity. On arriving at a late hour at Ellsworth, the landlord, a great burly fellow, drew a chair close to mine, pushed his hat back from his brows--every body here wears his hat in the house--spat in the grate, smote his knees with his big palms, and said,

"Look a here, mister! I know 'tan't none o' my business; but what might you be agoin' to Mount Desart arter?" And in the same breath, "I'm from Mount Desart."

"Certes," thought I, "if it's none of your business, why do you ask?"

The same publican afterward let a fellow-wayfarer and myself a sick horse that proved unfit to travel when we were well upon our journey. I forgave him all but the making me the unwilling instrument of his cruelty to a dumb beast.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

FOOTNOTES:

[18] See Williamson, vol. i., p. 79; "Resolves of Ma.s.sachusetts," July and November, 1787; "New York Colonial Doc.u.ments," vol. ix., p. 594. Mr.

De Costa has given a summary of these in his pleasant little book.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CASTINE, APPROACHING FROM ISLESBORO.]

CHAPTER IV.

CASTINE.

"A wind came up out of the sea, And said, 'O mists, make room for me.'"

LONGFELLOW.

Whoever has turned over the pages of early New England history can not fail to have had his curiosity piqued by the relations of old French writers respecting this extreme outpost of French empire in America. The traditions of the existence of an ancient and populous city, going far beyond any English attempt in this corner of the continent, are of themselves sufficient to excite the ardent pursuit of an antiquary, and to set all the busy hives of historical searchers in a buzz of excitement.

That scoffer, Lescarbot, would dispose of the ancient city of Norumbega as Voltaire would have disposed of the Christian religion--with a sarcasm; but, if there be truth in the apothegm that "seeing is believing," the forerunners of Champlain came, saw, and made a note of it. "Now," says the advocate, "if that beautiful city was ever in nature, I should like to know who demolished it; for there are only a few cabins here and there, made of poles and covered with the bark of trees or skins; and both habitation and river are called Pemptegoet, and not Agguncia."[19]

I approached the famed river in a dense fog, in which the steamer cautiously threaded her way. Earth, sky, and water were equally indistinguishable. A volume of pent steam gus.h.i.+ng from the pipes hoa.r.s.ely trumpeted our approach, and then streamed in a snow-white plume over the taffrail, and was lost in the surrounding obscurity. The decks were wet with the damps of the morning; the few pa.s.sengers stirring seemed lifeless and unsocial. Here and there, as we floated in the midst of this cloud, the paddles impatiently beating the water, were visible the topmasts of vessels at anchor, though in the dimness they seemed wonderfully like the protruding spars of so many sunken craft. Hails or voices from them sounded preternaturally loud and distinct, as also did the noise of oars in fog-bewildered boats. The blast of a fog-horn near or far occasionally sounded a hoa.r.s.e refrain to the warning that issued from the brazen throat of the t.i.tan chained in our galley.

At this instant the sun emerging from his dip into the sea, glowing with power, put the mists to flight. First they parted on each side of a broad pathway in which sky and water re-appeared. Then, before brighter gleams, they overthrew and trampled upon each other in disorderly rout.

A few scattered remnants drifted into upper air and vanished; other ma.s.ses clung to the sh.o.r.es as if inclined still to dispute the field.

Owl's Head light-house came out at the call of the enchanter, blinking its drowsy eyes; then sunlit steeples and lofty spars glanced up and out of the fog-cloud that enveloped the city of Rockland.

The vicinity of a town had been announced by c.o.c.k-crowing, the rattling of wheels, or occasional sound of a bell from some church-tower; but all these sounds seemed to heighten the illusions produced by the fog, and to endow its impalpable ma.s.s with ghostly life. Vessels under sail appeared weird and spectral--phantom s.h.i.+ps, that came into view for a moment and dissolved an instant after--masts, shrouds, and canvas melting away--

"As clouds with clouds embrace."