Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 7).djvu/50

 attempting to gain some idea of the physical effort of old-time traveling, the cost of crossing a difficult portage must be considered as the most expensive in time and strength. The story of Céloron's climb up from Lake Erie to Lake Chautauqua, Hamilton's struggle through the beaver dams and shoals of Petite Rivière on the Maumee–Wabash portage route, Arnold's desperate invasion of Canada over "The Terrible Carrying Place" on the Kennebec–Chaudière route, and the history of the difficulties of the Oneida portage at Rome, New York, present to us pictures of the portages of America that can never fade from our eyes.

At the ends of many of the portage paths were to be found busy out-door work-shops in the old days of pirogues and canoes. The trees nearby and far away stood stark and white against the forest green, having lost their coats of bark; many were fallen, and others were tottering. Here and there were scattered the refuse pieces of bark and wood. The ends of portage paths were famous carpenter shops. There were