moss-covered cross, deep in the forest, about the simple record of which Whittier wrought his poem of "Norembega." As late as the latter half of the same century credulous spirits still yearned for a realization of the old dreams, just as some of us in childhood have clung to the reality of all the beautiful Arthurian legends. Soon, however, the sturdy, practical English colonist planted his foot on the Atlantic coast and held his ground with the tenacity of his race. The mists amid which rose "the domes and towers of Norumbega town" were rolling away, and men who had little of the dreamer in their stern makeup taught the world the real meaning of that struggle with a wild and unwilling nature which the New World of the North offered to those who sought Commercial rivalries and the inevitable clash of French and English gave a new and practical interest to Penob it. Croix. In this part of the Duke's grant, however, the French had done most to establish themselves; and indeed the population, whether French or English, was neither numerous, permanent nor desirable. In 1613 a party of Jesuits under La Saussaye had arrived off the Maine coast, with the idea of establishing a settlement at Pentagoët, which included the present Castine and its vicinity; but, fog bound near Grand Manan, they found a refuge on Mount Desert, and made there a settlement, which they named, in gratitude, St. Sauveur. Reminders of the French Occupancy are found to-day in Frenchman's Bay, Frenchman's Camp, and other similarly named localities. The settlement of St. Sauveur was broken up, in time of peace between France and England, by the notorious Captain Samuel Argal, sailing as the representative of the new English colony at Jamestown. Argal entered Penobscot Bay and landed at Pentagoët (Castine), where he perhaps found a small French post and made a short stay. His presence, however, adds little interest to the region; for this semi-piratical disturber of the peace was very far from being a heroic fig scot Bay history. No more the homeland of myth, it was still a seat of romance, sometimes weird and often tragic, as the dusky children of the forest, the wild gallants of France and the sad-garmented Pilgrims and Puritans mingled in the mad game for wealth and power. When the Duke of York in 1664 received his blanket grant of the northern possessions of England in America, that grant included the territory between Pemaquid and the St. Isaac Allerton, representing the Plymouth colony, established in 1629 a settlement at "Matchebiguatus,' without much doubt on the site of Castine, which was broken up IN THE QUARRIES AT VINAL HAVEN. by the Sieur d'Aulnay in 1635. The chief interest of the seventeenth century annals of the Bay gathers about the episode of D'Aulnay and La Tour, in which the Massachusetts Puritans became considerably involved; and about the wild, romantic character of Jean Vincent Castin de St. Castin, whose name is forever preserved in one of the most charming, and by far the most interesting historically, of all the Bay towns. The story of the struggle of the rival lords of Acadia on the Penobscot and the St. John, of the deliberate and careful bargaining of the Puritans of Boston with the impatient Huguenot who invoked their aid against his Papist rival, a story made heroic by the noble figure of the unfortunate Lady of Fort St. John, has been too often narrated in history and fiction, since John Winthrop wrote his record, to need retelling. Some of its incidents may be recalled to us, together with those of Baron Castin, when by and by we stand in the quaint old town where they lived and fought, looking out on Bagaduce water. The busy city of Rockland is the distributing centre for the whole Bay region. Not only do the principal steamboat lines for Boston, Bangor and Bar Harbor-make their various connections there, but smaller boats ply in all directions across the Bay and among the islands. The omnipresent electric railway has found its way to Rockland and connects that city with Thomaston, where the Maine state prison is located, and with Camden. Thomaston claims nobler fame as the home of General Knox, the friend of Washington and first Secretary of War of the United States; but a singular disregard has been shown for the memory of its most distinguished townsman, and his fine old mansion was allowed long ago to fall into irretrievable ruin. The present state of this historic residence, if indeed it still exists, I do not know. It is many years since I last saw it, in the tumbledown condition shown by the picture, but bearing evidence of former dignity. If you walk from the main street in Rockland down to the Boston NORTH CASTINE FERRY. wharf, you will find all the cosmopolitanism of a seaport. The street is lined with sailors' boarding houses, small tenements and ship supply stores, and you will meet in its somewhat squalid precincts people of many nationalities. But across the harbor at the Breakwater stands the Bay Point Hotel, by which Rockland seeks to gather some of the fruits of its scenery and to become a summer resort, as well as the point from which all summer visitors must take their departure. The traveller with a few hours on his hands can hardly spend them better than by taking the electric car and running over the eight miles of shore road between Rockland and Camden; for Camden, with its hills, its lake and its pleasant harbor, is the gem of the western side of the Bay. The road keeps the Bay and the Camden Hills in view for nearly the whole distance, and passes through the pretty village of Rockport. A few years ago Camden was a rather shabby village, unkempt and attractive only from the beauty of its natural features; but in 1892 it passed through the ordeal of fire; the rows of ram one of shackle structures that lined its main street were swept away, and it was left to play the phoenix or to give an illustration of weakness and inefficiency. The decision was prompt, and the revivification of Camden was many illustrations of the sterling pluck of the people of these Maine coast towns. It was no cheap makeshift which rose from the ashes, but a series of substantial business buildings of brick and stone; and now, with its fine streets and its pleasant homes, with neat and well-kept grounds, Camden is as attractive, comfortable and prosperous a village as may be found on the New England coast. Nature has poured its beauties lavishly into the lap of this little township. The visitor can make his way by a plain path from the village to the top of Mount Beattie, silently watching over the town from year to year. Over against Beattie, as one looks from the summit, frowns the stern mass of the loftier Megunticook; below them both Megunticook Lake, low-lying in the valley of Camden and Lincolnville; and between it and the mountains the thread-like line of the Turnpike, offering a drive hardly to be equalled in New England for its rare elements of picturesque beauty. This road runs close to the shore of the lake, while on the other hand rise the sheer heights of Megunticook's extended cliffs. Turning eastward the village lies at one's feet, with its small sheltered harbor, and beyond the broad expanse of the bay. Far to the eastward rises the solitary height of Blue Hill, and southeast, over a broken area of rocky islands and blue waters, the range of the Mount Desert hills lies low on the horizon. Northward from Camden along the water front one can trace the shore road which is becoming, with the handsome villas of summer residents, Brown's Head and approaches the little city of Belfast, wealthy, energetic and famous for its production of patent medicines. That it is the home of a certain well-known compound becomes painfully apparent as the steamer runs into Belfast Bay. Here, as elsewhere in this free land, we are reminded, no landscape architect controls advertising methods. But not even the brush of the sign painter, displaying his art in hideous colors on sundry detached sections of TRASK'S ROCK, CASTINE. the Newport end of Camden. The driver by the Turnpike can swing to the eastward under Bald Knob, an eminence of the Megunticook range, and return to the village over six miles of this shore road, within full view of the Bay, thus giving a sixteen-mile drive presenting such a variety of natural scenery as can be found but seldom. Travellers from Rockland up the west shore to points beyond Camden go by steamboat, passing Lincolnville and Northport, with its many-cottaged Methodist camp-ground. Beyond Northport the steamer rounds board fence, can destroy the attractiveness of the handsome little city on the green slope, rising in terraces from the water and backed by low hills. The history of Belfast gives an example even more notable than Camden's of the energy, courage, and public spirit of Maine coast towns. It is certainly a remarkable community of which its historian can write: "Belfast -a community of but six thousand inhabitants, which sent over eight hundred of its sons to engage in the conflict for the Union; which, almost unaided, has built a railroad costing nearly a million of dollars; which has twice had the larger portion of its business territory swept over by fire, and which is to-day more prosperous and enterprising than ever before." Surely this is an excellent record of a |