vigorous civic life. Perhaps its qualities may be in part attributed to the sturdy Scotch-Irish stock from which its early settlers sprung. The early settlers of Belfast were descendants of those Scotch-Irish who emigrated from County Ulster at the beginning of the eighteenth century and founded in New Hampshire the towns of Londonderry, Derry and Windham. In 1768 the thirty-five proprietors who planned the settlement of Belfast met in Londonderry and, true to the traditions of their race and creed, "adopted articles of government." So Belfast was begun, and the town was incorporated by act of the Massachusetts Assembly 1773. Its sturdy history has shown it always true to the same inherited traditions which guided the beginnings of its

life.

Belfast Bay is a broad embouchure, marked at the southwest by the steep promontory of Brown's Head; and

across this bay the town looks out toward Islesboro, its northern point just four miles east of Brown's Head, and toward Castine lying farther off across Penobscot Bay. Beyond Belfast, looking southward down Penobscot Bay, lie Searsport and Stockton; and around Fort Point in Stockton, where stood from 1759 to 1775 Fort Pownall, built by Governor Pownall to close the river against the French, the steamer turns into the Penobscot River on its way to Bangor.

From the time of rounding the light at the entrance of Camden harbor, the eastern boundary of the course up the Bay is marked by the ragged outline of Long Island and some smaller satellites, better known by its appropriate corporate name of Islesborough. The island was first permanently settled in 1768, and the town was incorporated twenty years later. In Islesborough are several summer colonies, approached on the eastern

side of the island; for this thirteenmile rib of land in the midst of the Bay, open to all the winds that blow, with glorious views in every direction, its rolling surface and indented shores presenting many sites for summer homes, has become popular as a resort in the easiest and most natural way. Notable among its summer settlements is Dark Harbor, where a number of wealthy Philadelphians are creating a delightful abiding place for those months when the City of Brotherly Love resembles a baking oven.

There are other routes from Rockland which the traveller who wishes to really know Penobscot Bay should not fail to follow in one way or another. None of these many routes offers a greater number of beautiful and characteristic views than that to Mount Desert through the Fox Island Thoroughfare, between North Haven and Vinal Haven. Astern in a northwesterly direction the Camden

CLIFFS FROM TURNPIKE HILL.

THE OLD KNOX MANSION AT THOMASTON.

Hills rise in majestic, rolling masses; on either side are vistas of gray rock, green wood and blue water, with here and there a home-like summer cottage occupying some point of vantage. Ahead the noble hills of Mount Desert loom ever clearer and grander on the horizon.

North Haven and Vinal Haven are large islands, separated only by the narrow channel through which the steamer winds its way; yet they present a striking contrast. North Haven is a rich farming island, on which no trace of granite has been found. Vinal Haven, with the islands gathered around it on three sides, is a solid mass of granite looking southward across the open ocean, to the attacks of which it offers an immovable rampart. The village of Vinal Haven is an interesting community, having three or four thousand inhabitants. The larger part of this population clusters around the harbor on the southern side of the island. Here are the little fishing fleet and the schooners which transport the town's most notable product, granite,- for the business of the town, like its houses, is built on granite. Here are immense granite-working shops and extensive quarries. "There is hardly a large city in the country," the people of Vinal Haven are able to boast,

"which hasn't a part of Vinal Haven in it." Large contracts are handled on this little sea-girt island, for buildings public and private, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The stone is cut and finished, numbered and shipped, ready to put in place. Not only is the local product, an excellent gray granite, thus handled, but SO wellequipped are the finishing shops on the island with machinery and skilled workmen that the great Bodwell Granite Company brings to Vinal Haven to be worked the beautiful red granite taken out of its quarries at Jonesport, near Machias. Over six hundred hands are regularly employed in the Vinal Haven quarries and shops, and the number has been increased to eighteen hundred when special contracts have been on hand.

This isolated village out at sea, without railroads or telegraphs, protected by natural conditions from the wearisome whir of the trolley, has a virile, intelligent life of its own, born of that alertness, energy and independence which come from close contact with the sea. The people are sober, industrious and contented. There is no wealth on the island, as wealth is known in cities or in large mainland towns; nor is there any

poverty. The people have enough; they pay their bills when they are due, and build little homes, plain and unostentatious, but such as they can pay for and maintain. The schools of Vinal Haven are the pride of its people, and calls for school appropriations are responded to ungrudgingly. It is unnecessary to lock the doors, for the road to Vinal Haven is not frequented by tramps; honesty among the inhabitants is a matter of course, and no constabulary is needed. Roads are said to be an index of the civilization of a people; and it is to be added to the list of virtues of this remarkable town that it has an excellent system of roads, extending through and around the island, roads on which the bicycle rider can enjoy himself. There are some cottages on the north shore of the island along the Thoroughfare; but Vinal Haven has not yet been invaded to any great extent by the summer seeker after rest and air; but some day, as the various sections of the coast are developed, the restfulness and tonic breezes of this isle of the sea will win to it lovers of old ocean and seekers for relief from our nineteenth century nerve exhaustion. The votaries of fashion are never likely to take possession of it.

Southeast of Vinal Haven and farther out at sea is the Isle au Haut. This island was visited and named by Champlain in 1604.

After leaving Fox Island Thoroughfare, the eastward bound steamer crosses a stretch of open water and, passing Mark Island light on the starboard, enters the Deer Isle Thoroughfare, through numerous islands and islets, south of Deer Isle. Soon after entering the Thoroughfare a landing is made at Green's Harbor, the principal village of Deer Isle. It is built on the rugged rocks around the small harbor, and only a glance is needed to show that it depends for life upon the sea. Deer Isle is seven or eight miles in extreme length and almost cut in two by deep

TURNPIKE ROAD TO MEGUNTICOOK.

GOOSE FALLS, BROOKSVILLE.

indentations in its shore line on the east and west. It has attained national, if not international, fame from the fact that Captain Haff chose to man the Defender in 1895 with a hardy crew of Deer Isle sailors. The exploits of the fastest yacht which America has produced are a family matter with Deer Isle men. Rounding the southeastern point of Deer Isle and turning to the northwest, leaving the Mount Desert hills on our right, we enter Eggemoggin Reach,-or Algemoggin, as an older, and it is said a better, spelling has it, a famous. highway for yachts, steamers and coasting craft of all kinds. This is the main thoroughfare for boats bound between Bar Harbor and Bangor or points up the Bay. North of Deer Isle, Little Deer Isle continues the Reach to Pumpkin Island Light,. where one enters the open bay under the wooded heights of Cape Rozier.. The Reach, thus bounded, is about ten miles in length and from one to two in width, a sheltered deep water channel, excellent for passage or harborage. The water holds its depth close to the shore, so that it may be said, as it is of Puget Sound, that an ocean steamer could tie up at the shore in many places. The scenery of the Reach, though less striking than that of some parts of the Bay, has a character and beauty of its own. From most points those ever-present