I have no
doubt that they lived pretty much the same sort of life in the Homeric
age, for men have always thought more of eating than of fighting; then, as
now, their minds ran chiefly on the "hot bread and sweet cakes"; and the
fur and lumber trade is an old story to Asia and Europe. I doubt if men
ever made a trade of heroism. In the days of Achilles, even, they
delighted in big barns, and perchance in pressed hay, and he who possessed
the most valuable team was the best fellow.
We had designed to go on at evening up the Caucomgomoc, whose mouth was a
mile or two distant, to the lake of the same name, about ten miles off;
but some Indians of Joe's acquaintance, who were making canoes on the
Caucomgomoc, came over from that side, and gave so poor an account of the
moose-hunting, so many had been killed there lately, that my companions
concluded not to go there. Joe spent this Sunday and the night with his
acquaintances. The lumberers told me that there were many moose
hereabouts, but no caribou or deer. A man from Oldtown had killed ten or
twelve moose, within a year, so near the house that they heard all his
guns. His name may have been Hercules, for aught I know, though I should
rather have expected to hear the rattling of his club; but, no doubt, he
keeps pace with the improvements of the age, and uses a Sharpe's rifle
now; probably he gets all his armor made and repaired at Smith's shop.
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