Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/337

 JET. 38.] TO DANIEL RICKETSON. 313

and his squaw, Sepits, &quot; Sharper.&quot; I find my map of the State to be the best I have seen of that district. It is a question whether the islands of Long Pond or Great Quitticus offer the great est attractions to a Lord of the Isles. That plant which I found on the shore of Long Pond chances to be a rare and beautiful flower, the Sabattia chloroides, referred to Plymouth.

In a Description of Middleborough in the Hist. Coll., vol. iii., 1810, signed Nehemiah Ben- net, Middleborough, 1793, it is said: &quot;There is on the easterly shore of Assawampsitt Pond, on the shore of Betty s Neck, two rocks which have curious marks thereon (supposed to be done by the Indians), which appear like the steppings of a person with naked feet which settled into the rocks ; likewise the prints of a hand on sev eral places, with a number of other marks ; also there is a rock 011 a high hill a little to the east ward of the old stone fishing wear, where there is the print of a person s hand in said rock.&quot;

It would be well to look at those rocks again more carefully ; also at the rock on the hill.

I should think that you would like to explore Sinpatuct Pond in Rochester, it is so large and near. It is an interesting fact that the ale- wives used to ascend to it, if they do not still, -both from Mattapoisett and through Great Quitticus.