LUNCH TIME ON WEBSTER STREAM.
At “Pine Knoll” we were obliged to let our canoes over the falls by long ropes from the cliffs above, and at another, soon after, two of the guides, Weller and Morris, passed safely in our canvas boat, on account of its slight draft of water, although they carried the birch canoes around. So we continued our rapid progress down the stream, running most of the falls, our boat conforming to each situation, and almost seeming a part of us, and taking an interest in our exploits. At noon we stopped for an hour’s rest and lunch on the right bank of the stream, and while disposing of hard tack, canned corned beef, and coffee, our artist plied his profession, and then on we went through other perils.
It was fearfully fascinating, as our four canoes, following each other’s lead, dashed onward through dangers which we could hardly anticipate before they were passed, only to be repeated and repeated at every mile of the stream. But the stimulant to one’s feelings gave strength and courage and even recklessness, which, in the wild surroundings, made one feel as if no danger was too great to dare. An hour after our tarry for lunch, we entered the deep and narrow chasm of swift, dark water above Grand Falls, and swinging our canoe into an eddy on the left, under the shadows of a great rock (some five hundred feet high), we stepped out on the shore, having completed the excitements of a half-day that many years will fail to erase.
Our canoes had suffered less than we had anticipated. A sharp rock had left its mark on Bowley’s birch, which the application of rosin and grease soon rectified. The bottom of the canvas boat had two small cuts about midships, so the use of needle and thread became necessary, the “Quartermaster” and compagnon-du-voyage, choosing for their modus operandi different sides of the canoe, putting the needle back and forth with iron pliers.
IT’S NOT ALL POETRY.
A few moments’ rest, and while the guides were “sacking” the camp kit across “Indian carry,” three-quarters of a mile to the East Branch (at right angles with Webster stream), we gathered up the artist’s camera and plates, and pushed forward to examine the picturesque beauties of Grand Falls, and catch all we could while the light lasted.
Grand Falls is from forty to fifty feet high, seventy feet wide, surrounded on all sides, for half a mile, by ledges of iron-colored rocks of nearly the same height, which decrease in altitude as they near the Penobscot River below. From a point beneath, the scene is grand in its somber magnificence, as the swift torrent, striking midway upon a projecting ledge in the center of the fall, rebounds in foam flakes, which, after the momentary interruption, continue to fall into the dark whirlpool of water below.
We place the tripod upon a prominent ledge, and, mounting the camera, our artist prepares the plates in his mysterious cloth-covered box or “dark room,” while we further exclude the light by covering him with our rubber blankets. But the mist and spray blinds us, and we are obliged to gather up the camera and retreat to another ledge before we can operate.