Portland and Vicinity (Classic Reprint)

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Excerpt from Portland and Vicinity The early voyagers, as they skirted along the shores of Maine, in the twilight hours of discovery, were charmed with its secure harbors and noble rivers, where sheltered groves and grassy banks lured them to the land. In the attractions of calm waters, and sunny isles clothed with a luxuriant forest, the bay of which we write excelled all others. Captain John Smith, the first of Maine tourists, in his account of his famous summer trip along our shores, in 1614, thus describes it: "Westward of Kennebec is the Country of Aucocisco, in the bottom of a deep bay full of many great isles, which divide it into many great harbors." This was Casco Bay, the present name of which is a corruption of the Indian word Aucocisco, which, according to some authorities, signifies "a resting place, " though others give it the interpretation of crane or heron. In view of the many halcyon retreats from toil and care which its islands afford, the former would seem to be the more appropriate designation, though the water fowl indicated by the latter still frequent the bay. One can imagine the delight, when this land was new and clothed with the glamour of surprise, of sailing from the surges of the Atlantic into the sheltered roadsteads of this bay, along the green shores of its forest-crowned islands and out-reaching peninsulas, far into the heart of the land, where the placid waters reflected in their cool depths the verdant foliage which overhung them, in the silence and seclusion of a solitude unbroken save by the songs of birds of varied plumage flitting through "the forest primeval." No element of beauty was wanting to this miniature archipelago, and the native inhabitants, who had an eye for sunny spots and grassy glades, made it a place of frequent resort. They found in its waters an inexhaustible supply of provisions, and the evidences of their feasts still remain in the heaps of clam-shells found on the shores of the islands. Here is a little bay, extending from Cape Elizabeth to Cape Small Point, a distance of about twenty-five miles, with a depth of about fifteen miles, more thickly studded with islands than any water of like extent on the coast of the United States. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.