suddenly awoke.
It seemed of sable night the cell,
Where, save when from the ceiling fell
An oozing drop, her silent spell
No sound had ever broke.--ALLSTON.

Among the great rivers of Maine the Penobscot and Kennebec stand
preeminent, on account of their maritime importance, their depth and
adaptability to the purposes of internal navigation; but there are
others less known, yet no less essential to the wealth of the country,
which, encumbered with falls and rapids, spurn alike ship and steamer,
but are invaluable for the great purposes of manufacture. The
Androscoggin is one of these, a river, winding, capricious and most
beautiful; just the one to touch the fancy of the poet, and tempt the
cupidity of a millwright. It abounds with scenery of the most lovely
and romantic interest, and falls already in bondage to loom and
shuttle. Lewiston Falls, or Pe-jip-scot, as the aboriginals called
this beautiful place, are, perhaps, among the finest water plunges in
the country. It is not merely the beauty of the river itself, a broad
and lengthened sheet of liquid in the heart of a fine country, but the
whole region is wild and romantic. The sudden bends of the river
present headlands of rare boldness, beneath which the river spreads
itself into a placid bay, till ready to gather up its skirts again,
and thread itself daintily amid the hills. The banks present slopes
and savannas warm and sheltered, in which nestle away finely
cultivated farms, and from whence arise those rural sounds of flock
and herd so grateful to the spirit, and that primitive blast of horn,
winding itself into a thousand echoes, the signal of the in-gathering
of a household. Cliffs, crowned with fir, overhang the waters; hills,
rising hundreds of feet, cast their dense shadows quite across the
stream; and even now the "slim canoe" of the Indian may be seen poised
below, while some stern relic of the woods looks upward to the ancient
hunting sites of his people, and recalls the day when, at the verge of
this very fall, a populous village sent up its council smoke day and
night, telling of peace and the uncontested power of his tribe.

But in the times of our story the region stood in its untamed majesty;
the whirling mass of waters tumbling and plunging in the midst of an
unbroken forest, and the great roar of the cataract booming through
the solitude like the unceasing voice of the eternal deep. Men now
stand with awe and gaz