Read "Canoeing in the Wilderness" by Henry David Thoreau online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
I caught two or three large red chivin within twenty feet of the camp, which, added to the moose tongue that had been left in the kettle boiling over night, and to our other stores, made a sumptuous breakfast. The Indian made us some hemlock tea instead of coffee. This was tolerable, though he said it was not strong enough. It was interesting to see so simple a dish as a kettle of water with a handful of green hemlock sprigs in it boiling over the huge fire in the open air, the leaves fast losing their lively green color, and know that it was for our breakfast.
We were glad to embark once more and leave some of the mosquitoes behind. We found that we had camped about a mile above Hunt's, which is the last house for those who ascend Katahdin on this side. We had expected to ascend it from this point, but my companion was obliged to give up this on account of sore feet. The Indian, however, suggested that perhaps he might get a pair of moccasins at this place, and that he could walk very easily in them without hurting his feet, wearing several pairs of stockings, and he said beside that they were so porous that when you had taken in water it all drained out in a little while. We stopped to get some sugar, but found that the family had moved away, and the house was unoccupied, except temporarily by some men who were getting the hay. I noticed a seine here stretched on the bank, which probably had been used to catch salmon.