This river too was at length discovered by the white man,
"trending up into the land," he knew not how far, possibly an
inlet to the South Sea. Its valley, as far as the Winnipiseogee,
was first surveyed in 1652. The first settlers of Massachusetts
supposed that the Connecticut, in one part of its course, ran
northwest, "so near the great lake as the Indians do pass their
canoes into it over land." From which lake and the "hideous
swamps" about it, as they supposed, came all the beaver that was
traded between Virginia and Canada,--and the Potomac was thought
to come out of or from very near it. Afterward the Connecticut
came so near the course of the Merrimack that, with a little
pains, they expected to divert the current of the trade into the
latter river, and its profits from their Dutch neighbors into
their own pockets.

Unlike the Concord, the Merrimack is not a dead but a living
stream, though it has less life within its waters and on its
banks. It has a swift current, and, in this part of its course,
a clayey bottom, almost no weeds, and comparatively few fishes.
We looked down into its yellow water with the more curiosity, who
were accustomed to the Nile-like blackness of the former river.
Shad and alewives are taken here in their season, but salmon,
though at one time more numerous than shad, are now more rare.
Bass, also, are taken occasionally; but locks and dams have
proved more or less destructive to the fisheries. The shad make
their appearance early in May, at the same time with the blossoms
of the pyrus, one of the most conspicuous early flowers, which is
for this reason called the shad-blossom. An insect called the