verily believe that in point of intelligence and propriety it has nowhere its equal. This is not said as an idle compliment, but uttered as the consequence of a rooted conviction, the fruit of pretty close observation. Hallo! what is this?a bloated, sottish-looking man drops heavily on the seat beside us. His words are unintelligible, and his actions indecent. Ladies avoid him, and gentlemen court not his company. He has been taking in a supply of the fluids set down in the famous list' Willis had 'some thoughts' about introducing into London. He is, in short, drunk! Alas! alas! my 'laudation' of Boston must be pronounced with a qualification. On a future occasion we shall resume our stroll.

12

MUSINGS BY THE MERRIMACK.

6

BEFORE We examine the Mills let us take a ramble on the banks of the picturesque river, whose waters are such a source of wealth to the City of Spindles.' This stream is too often neglected by tourists who visit Lowell, the factories absorbing all their attention; but I can tell them that there are few objects more interesting in appearance and association.

I had been dining with a gentleman who is extensively connected with the factories, one day last week, at his beautiful residence near the town, and was contemplating from his veranda, or rather piazza, the river which ran far below, when I expressed a regret that strangers like myself were compelled during their stay to be cooped up in the hot, dry city. Ah!' said he, you must go to Now I know no more of the Stone House' than I have known or hope to know of that ugly edifice with which writers of the Jack Sheppard' school have familiarized us, yclept the 'Stone Jug,' but on inquiry I learned that it was an hotel, situated on the banks of the river, within half a mile of the town, and thither I determined to take up my quarters.

the Stone House.'

Now I am not going to write a puff or a paragraph laudatory of this 'Stone House,' for the mere sake of

doing so; but I mention the place because I know many will be glad, as I was, to find that a delightful place of summer residence exists in a locality quite near to Boston. I know of no place so pleasant to reside in for a few days or weeks and for my own part I should infinitely prefer it to any of the sea-bathing places to which people fly from the City of Notions.

I am writing this in my spacious chamber, from the window of which I look down on Pawtucket Falls, which are brawling along just below me. Opposite is the pretty and picturesque little village of Dracut, with its church steeple peeping up from amidst silver-leaved poplars and quivering elms. The bridge which communicates with the Concord Mammoth road is in sight, and far below towards the city, the river, released from its channel of rifted rocks, spreads out into a kind of lake, which is fringed from the water's edge upwards with living green. A bend of the stream conceals the factories, so that they may as well be a thousand miles off. Opposite me, the precipitous banks are wooded with graceful trees, and indented with little bays fitted for fairy fleets to anchor in. Far away in the blue distance are hills faintly shadowed out, and over all this charming landscape hangs a sky of cloudless blue. Such is the prospect I enjoy without quitting my chair.

The Pawtucket Falls long have enjoyed and still enjoy, the reputation of being a fine fishing ground. This very morning a huge salmon was drawn from the stream where it runs by our garden, and at dinner we had an opportunity of dissecting him. Here, therefore, the Indians for a long time lingered, unwilling to resign the advan

tages afforded by the fishing; but they gradually retired before the tread of the white man, and now the race has disappeared from these pathways forever. It is no uncommon thing to find Indian relics in the neighborhood. Since I have been here, arrow heads have been discovered, and other relics may doubtless be found.

Before the hour of public worship on the last Sabbath morning, a friend, well acquainted with the history of the place, accompanied me in a short stroll about the neighborhood. Having arrived at the bridge, just below the Pawtucket Falls, I paused to survey the beautiful scene. The dam just above us looked more picturesque than such contrivances generally do, in consequence of the jagged and numerous rocks which rose from the bed of the river, and between which the waters went boiling and hissing on their course, flinging their spray to the sunbeams. Above the dam the waters spread out a broad smooth surface, strikingly contrasting with the turbulence below. Some graceful boats on the surface of the lake added not a little to the beauty of the scene, which must have been still more beautiful before Art had checked the progress of the waters, and when the Indians alone in their light canoes glanced across the bosom of the stream.

My companion, who it seems had enjoyed peculiar opportunities of learning the early history of the place, informed me that in olden time strawberries were so abundant, that when the ground about Lowell was parcelled out into lots, laws were made that no one should pick 'strawbres' (as the fruit was then spelled) on his neighbor's lot; not that the strawbres' were of any value, but the grass, which was not so abundant, was. It was also

enacted that if one person should see another picking "strawbres" he should incur the penalty of a fine for the omission to inform against him; and once a lawsuit was actually tried to decide whether such information was compulsory or not. The same gentleman also showed me some original Indian deeds of sale of land the signatures of the children of the forest being hieroglyphical. There were the rude drawings of their designators, such as the bounding elk, the great snake, the fox, and others, and I looked on these primitive deeds with no little interest.

Indian stories, always so attractive, are still told in these parts by old people. It was here at the head of the falls, that Captain John Ford, celebrated in the annals of Indian warfare, resided for many years, and his house, somewhat modernized to be sure, yet remains. He was a personage of considerable importance in his day—I believe he was governor of the region round about — and manifested sagacity little inferior to that of the Indians themselves in his battles with them. An Indian trail to him was a thing not to be neglected, and from the fact of his having so often escaped the bullet and the arrow, the red skins superstitiously believed him invulnerable, and attempted to despatch their great enemy by other means.

One day as Ford was walking in the woods, near his house, he chanced to part with his companion. Two Indians, observing him alone and unarmed, surrounded him. One of them was a naked savage, of monstrous proportions, and greased all over-the other Indian went in pursuit of Ford's companion. Ford could not get a hold on his slippery antagonist, and for some time the struggle was fearfully unequal. Over and over they