As one ascends the Merrimack he rarely sees a
village, but for the most part alternate wood and pasture lands,
and sometimes a field of corn or potatoes, of rye or oats or
English grass, with a few straggling apple-trees, and, at still
longer intervals, a farmer's house. The soil, excepting the best
of the interval, is commonly as light and sandy as a patriot
could desire. Sometimes this forenoon the country appeared in
its primitive state, and as if the Indian still inhabited it,
and, again, as if many free, new settlers occupied it, their
slight fences straggling down to the water's edge; and the
barking of dogs, and even the prattle of children, were heard,
and smoke was seen to go up from some hearthstone, and the banks
were divided into patches of pasture, mowing, tillage, and
woodland. But when the river spread out broader, with an
uninhabited islet, or a long, low sandy shore which ran on single
and devious, not answering to its opposite, but far off as if it
were sea-shore or single coast, and the land no longer nursed the
river in its bosom, but they conversed as equals, the rustling
leaves with rippling waves, and few fences were seen, but high
oak woods on one side, and large herds of cattle, and all tracks
seemed a point to one centre behind some statelier grove,--we
imagined that the river flowed through an extensive manor, and
that the few inhabitants were retainers to a lord, and a feudal
state of things prevailed.
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