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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
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