Nooks and Corners of the New England CoastDrake, Samuel Adams
History
Nooks and Corners of the New England Coast
Drake, Samuel Adams
New England -- Description and travel
This old soldier, Lincoln, who had passed very creditably through the
Revolution, was, like the fat boy in "Pickwick," afflicted with
somnolency. In the old Hingham church, in conversation at table, and it
is affirmed also while driving himself in a chaise, he would fall sound
asleep. During his campaign against Shays and the Massachusetts
insurgents of 1786, he snored and dictated between sentences. He
considered this an infirmity, and his friends never ventured to speak to
him of it.
Another charming picture is the approach to the Camden Hills. I saw
their summits peering above fog-drifts, flung like scarfs of gossamer
across their breasts. Heavier masses sailed along the valleys,
presenting a series of ever-shifting, ever-dissolving views, dim and
mysterious, with transient glimpses of church-spires and white
cottages, or of the tops of trees curiously skirting a fog-bank.
Sometimes you caught the warm color of the new-mown hill-sides, or the
outlines of nearer and greener swells. These hills are a noted landmark
for seamen, and the last object visible at sea in leaving the Penobscot.
The highest of the Megunticook peaks rises more than fourteen hundred
feet, commanding an unsurpassed view of the bay.
After touching at Camden, the steamer continued her voyage. The menial
warmth of the sun, with the beauty of the panorama unrolled before them,
had brought the passengers to the deck to gaze and admire. I chanced on
one family group making a lunch off a dry-salted fish and crackers, the
females eating with good appetites. Near by was a German, breakfasting
on a hard-boiled egg and a thick slice of black bread. My own
compatriots preferred the most indigestible of pies and tarts, with
pea-nuts _à discretion_. Relics of these repasts were scattered about
the decks. The good-humor and jollity that had returned with a few rays
of sunshine led me to think on the depression caused by the long nights
of an Arctic winter, as related by Franklin, Parry, Kane, and Hayes. A
greeting to the sun! May he never cease to shine where I walk or lie!
Driving her sharp prow onward, the boat soon entered Belfast Bay. Many
vessels, some of them fully rigged for sea, were on the stocks in the
ship-yards of Belfast. The Duke of Rochefoucauld Liancourt, during his
visit in 1797, noticed that some houses were painted. The town then
contained the only church in the Waldo patent. As might be inferred, the
name is from Belfast, Ireland![23]
[Illustration: FORT POINT.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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