Page:The first and last journeys of Thoreau - lately discovered among his unpublished journals and manuscripts.djvu/95

 length been led by an Indian instinct. We could see rising before us a dark conical eminence called Hooksett Pinnacle. The Pinnacle is a small hill rising sharply some two hundred feet above the river near the bank at Hooksett Falls, affording the best view of the Merrimac as a river. Thoreau said of it, and the view therefrom:

"I have sat upon its summit, a precipitous rock only a few rods long, when the sun was setting and filling the river valley with a flood of light. You can see up and down the Merrimac several miles each way. The broad and straight river, full of light and life, with its sparkling and foaming falls, the islet which divides the stream, the village of Hooksett on the shore almost directly under your feet,—so near that you can converse with its inhabitants, or throw a stone into its yards,—the woodland lake at its western base, and the mountains in the north and northeast, make a scene of rare beauty and completeness."

These northern and eastern mountains are those in Strafford and Rockingham counties; while at the south, near by is the graceful Uncannunuc, which Thoreau thought the best point from which to view the Merrimac valley. Its Indian name signifies "Two breasts," and it is visible from high hills in Concord, as Wachusett and Monadnoc are. The brothers left their boat "safe in its harbor under Uncannunuc Mountain," instead of taking it with many difficulties to "New Concord" as Thoreau calls the capital of New Hampshire, which in fact was named for the Massachusetts town where the British were repulsed, while Rumford was the name of the Indian region known as Penacook. This capital, Thoreau says, "would have been the proper place to conclude our voyage, uniting Concord with Concord by these meandering rivers; but our boat was moored some miles below its port." Before the building of railroads there was much commerce on the river, and Concord was the head of rather a difficult navigation. This [47]