choke-cherry, now ripe, alternate cornel, and naked viburnum.
Following Joe's example, I ate the fruit of the last, and also of
the hobble-bush, but found them rather insipid and seedy. I looked
very narrowly at the vegetation, as we glided along close to the
shore, and frequently made Joe turn aside for me to pluck a plant,
that I might see by comparison what was primitive about my native
river. Horehound, horsemint, and the sensitive fern grew close to
the edge, under the willows and alders, and wool-grass on the islands,
as along the Assabet River in Concord. It was too late for flowers,
except a few asters, golden-rods, etc. In several places we noticed
the slight frame of a camp, such as we had prepared to set up, amid
the forest by the river-side, where some lumberers or hunters had
passed a night,--and sometimes steps cut in the muddy or clayey bank
in front of it.

We stopped to fish for trout at the mouth of a small stream called
Ragmuff, which came in from the west, about two miles below the
Moosehorn. Here were the ruins of an old lumbering-camp, and a small
space, which had formerly been cleared and burned over, was now
densely overgrown with the red cherry and raspberries. While we were
trying for trout, Joe, Indian-like, wandered off up the Ragmuff on
his own errands, and when we were ready to start was far beyond call.
So we were compelled to make a fire and get our dinner here, not to
lose time. Some dark reddish birds, with grayer females, (perhaps
purple finches,) and myrtle-birds in their summer dress, hopped
within six or eight feet of us and our smoke. Perhaps they smelled
the frying pork. The latter bird, or both, made the lisping notes
which I had heard in the forest. They suggested that the few small
birds found in the wilderness are on more familiar terms with the
lumberman and hunter than those of the orchard and clearing with the