"Through the chapel's narrow doors, And through each window in the walls, Round the priest and warrior pours The deadly shower of English balls. Low on his cross the Jesuit falls: While at his side the Norridgewock With failing breath essays to mock And menace yet the hated foe,-- Shakes his scalp-trophies to and fro Exultingly before their eyes,-- Till cleft and torn by shot and blow, Defiant still, he dies." The Kennebec, turning grandly to the eastward, five miles below pours over the falls of Skowhegan, descending twenty-eight feet upon rough ledges, having a picturesque island ending at the crest of the cataract, with the stream beyond compressed within the high, rocky walls of a canyon. Here are numerous factories and a population of six thousand. Eighteen miles beyond, the river, having resumed its southern course, tumbles down the Taconic Falls at Waterville, a town of seven thousand people and extensive cotton-mills, also having the Colby College of the Baptist Church where General Benjamin F. Butler was a student. Farther down the Kennebec are the ruins of Fort Halifax, near the confluence with Sebasticook River, draining various lakes to the northeastward. This was one of the chain of forts built in the middle eighteenth century to defend the Puritan coast towns from French and Indian raids, and large Indian settlements formerly occupied the broad intervales in the neighborhood. Twenty miles below Waterville is Augusta, the Maine capital, situate at the head of navigation, the city being beautifully located upon the high hills and their slopes bordering the river. Just above the town is the great Kennebec dam, built at an expense of $300,000 to make an admirable water-power, and rising fifteen feet above high water. Here are over ten thousand people, among whom lived for many years James G. Blaine, who died in 1893. There are large textile factories giving employment to the inhabitants, and the chief building is the State House, of white granite, fronted by a Doric colonnade, standing upon a high hill and surmounted by a graceful dome. Across the Kennebec is the fine granite Insane Hospital in extensive ornamental grounds, while down by the bank are the remains of Fort Western, built as a defensive outpost in 1754, being then surrounded by palisaded outworks garnished with towers. It was here that Benedict Arnold gathered his expedition against Quebec in 1775, going up the Kennebec, crossing the border wilderness and enduring the greatest hardships, before he appeared like an apparition with his army of gaunt heroes under the walls of that fortress.