“A terrible pooty mountain,” Cancut observed; and so it is.

Not to fail in topographical duty, I record, that near this lakelet flows in the river Sowadehunk, and not far below, a sister streamlet, hardly less melodiously named Ayboljockameegus.  Opposite the latter we landed and encamped, with Katahdin full in front, and broadly visible.

CHAPTER XII.

CAMP KATAHDIN.

Our camping-place was worthy of its view.  On the bank, high and dry, a noble yellow birch had been strong enough to thrust back the forest, making a glade for its own private abode.  Other travellers had already been received in this natural pavilion.  We had had predecessors, and they had built them a hut, a half roof of hemlock bark, resting on a frame.  Time had developed the wrinkles in this covering into cracks, and cracks only wait to be leaks.  First, then, we must mend our mansion.  Material was at hand; hemlocks, with a back-load of bark, stood ready to be disburdened.  In August they have worn their garment so long that they yield it unwillingly.  Cancut’s axe, however, was insinuating, not to say peremptory.  He peeled off and brought great scales of rough purple roofing, and we disposed them, according to the laws of forest architecture, upon our cabin.  It became a good example of the renaissance.  Storm, if such a traveller were approaching, was shut out at top and sides; our blankets could become curtains in front and completely hide us from that unwelcome vagrant, should he peer about seeking whom he might duck and what he might damage.

Our lodge, built, must be furnished.  We need a luxurious carpet, couch, and bed; and if we have these, will be content without secondary articles.  Here, too, material was ready, and only the artist wanting, to use it.  While Cancut peeled the hemlocks, Iglesias and I stripped off armfuls of boughs and twigs from the spruces to “bough down” our camp.  “Boughing down” is shingling the floor elaborately with evergreen foliage; and when it is done well, the result counts among the high luxuries of the globe.  As the feathers of this bed are harsh stems covered with leafage, the process of bed-making must be systematic, the stems thoroughly covered, and the surface smooth and elastic.  I have slept on the various beds of the world,—­in a hammock, in a pew, on German feathers, on a bear-skin, on a mat, on a hide; all, all give but a feeble, restless, unrecreating slumber, compared to the spruce or hemlock bed in a forest of Maine.  This is fragrant, springy, soft, well-fitting, better than any Sybarite’s coach of uncrumpled rose-leaves.  It sweetly rustles when you roll, and, by a gentle titillation with the little javelin-leaves, keeps up a pleasant electricity over the cuticle.  Rheumatism never, after nights on such a bed; agues never; vigor, ardor, fervor, always.