r,
throwing itself fully into the bright sunshine, and then lost to sight
and to pursuit. I saw also a long, flat-bottomed boat go up the river,
with a brisk wind, and against a strong stream. Its sails were of
curious construction: a long mast, with two sails below, one on each
side of the boat, and a broader one surmounting them. The sails were
colored brown, and appeared like leather or skins, but were really
cloth. At a distance, the vessel looked like, or at least I compared it
to, a monstrous water-insect, skimming along the river. If the sails had
been crimson or yellow, the resemblance would have been much closer.
There was a pretty spacious raised cabin in the after part of the boat.
It moved along lightly, and disappeared between the woody banks. These
boats have the two parallel sails attached to the same yard, and some
have two sails, one surmounting the other. They trade to Waterville and
thereabouts,--names, as "Paul Pry," on their sails.

* * * * *

_Saturday, July 15th._--Went with B---- yesterday to visit several Irish
shanties, endeavoring to find out who had stolen some rails of a fence.
At the first door where we knocked, (a shanty with an earthen mound
heaped against the wall, two or three feet thick,) the inmates were not
up, though it was past eight o'clock. At last a middle-aged woman showed
herself, half-dressed, and completing her toilet. Threats were made of
tearing down her house; for she is a lady of very indifferent morals,
and sells rum. Few of these people are connected with the mill-dam,--or,
at least, many are not so, but have intruded themselves into the vacant
huts which were occupied by the mill-dam people last year. In two or
three places hereabouts there is quite a village of these dwellings,
with a clay and board chimney, or oftener an old barrel smoked and
charred with the fire. Some of their roofs are covered with sods, and
appear almost subterranean. One of the little hamlets stands on both
sides of a deep dell, wooded and bush-grown, with a vista, as it were,
into the heart of a wood in one direction, and to the broad, sunny river
in the other: there was a little rivulet, crossed by a plank, at the
bottom of the dell. At two doors we saw very pretty and modest-looking
young women,--one with a child in her arms. Indeed, they all have
innumerable little children; and they are invariably in good health,
though always dirty of face. They come to the