Campobello: An Historical SketchWells, Kate Gannett
History
Campobello: An Historical Sketch
Wells, Kate Gannett
Campobello Island (N.B.)
Yet these are not all the drives. Subdivisions of them lead you into
marshes, plains, and woods, though they are preferable as bridle paths
or walks. They began as cow-paths, and may end as country roads.
Adventures can still be sought over dangerous cliffs. It is more than
easy to get lost in the woods. Still, no matter where you go, you cannot
help coming out somewhere near water and a fisherman's hut; for
Campobello,--in Indian dialect _Ebauhuit_, signifying by or near the
mainland,--having an area of twenty square miles, and a circumference of
twenty-five miles, is ten miles long and two to three miles wide.
Remember in all these drives to turn to the left, and when you walk not
to be afraid of cows.
Perhaps it is the water excursions which render Campobello most famous.
Among these is the sail to St. Andrews, which offers modern Wedgewood
ware for sale, and where is the far-famed Algonquin Hotel and Cobscook
Mountain. The West Isles and Le Tete Canal make another pleasant sail.
To go around the Island on a calm day is delightful. Very exquisite in
its limited beauty is the sail up St. George's River, the trees on
either side arching their branches over the little steamer. St. George's
Falls and the stone quarry should also be visited on landing at the
pier.
=Johnson's Bay.= For a short outing, row across Friar's Bay to Johnson's
Bay; climb the little hill to the pleasant, neat, and hospitable
farm-house; go through a grove to the wooden look-out, and clamber
upwards. For wondrous beauty of beach and land-locked bay, of great
headlands and brown hay-cocks, of the mystery of nature's secretiveness
in South Bay, the view is unsurpassed.
=South Bay.= Then, inspired by its loveliness, come home to the hotel,
engage Tomar and his canoes, paddle across the wide bay, and in and out
of the islands and crannies of South Bay, the happiest, sunniest,
cosiest bay on the Maine coast. Go through the canal at high tide;
paddle everywhere around till the tide turns, and you can pass back
through this narrow and again water-filled canal into Friar's Bay, the
cottages at Campobello serving as guide in steering the homeward course.
=The Tides.= But truly there never is any guide among the tides and
currents setting in from the different islands and headlands save that
of correct knowledge of their ways. To lose an oar in these waters might
mean drifting for hours; and then if the fog sets in! That fog, which is
the basis of conversation on first acquaintance, the spoiler of picnics,
and the promoter of a beauty of landscape so infinite and varied that
one only wonders how any summer place can be without it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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