The slow sale of Agassiz's works in Europe decided him to pass fifteen months in the United States; and the revolution of 1848 changed this intention into a purpose of permanent residence. Agassiz was tall, corpulent, bent, rather by continual study than with age. His forehead was broad, high, and a little retreating; his countenance conspicuously Swiss, by the largeness of his features, the gravity and benevolence of his expression. His hair was gray, and little abundant. He spoke German and English with facility, but had to some extent unlearned his French. Although his conversation was without volubility, when he grew animated in talking upon great questions his expression became noble and majestic. "There was in him a remarkable force of thought and will. He appeared like a man who makes haste slowly; but notwithstanding the adage, no one can withhold an involuntary astonishment at the great works he has been able to achieve." Agassiz belonged to the noblesse of science and of literature. When such men die they can not be said to leave legitimate successors.
Mount Desert has itself produced a man of marked usefulness in David Wasgatt Clark, D.D., a Wesleyan divine, who was elected bishop in 1864. He accomplished extensive literary labors, was intrusted with high and responsible positions, and although a puny boy, the jest of his companions of a more robust mould, completed nearly three-score years of a laborious and eventful life.
From Schooner Head I pursued my way by the road to Great Head. And while en route I should not forget the Lynam Homestead, to which Cole, Church, Gifford, Hart, Parsons, Warren, Bierstadt, and others renowned in American art have from time to time resorted to enrich their studios from the abounding wealth of the neighborhood.
One of the first artists to come to the island was Fisher. Church, whose name is associated with its rediscovery, did not always come for work. On one occasion, as leader of a merry party, he was lost on Beech Mountain, and passed the night there. With rare prevision he had provided an axe, with plenty of robes and wraps. At the foot of the mountain the carriage was sent back to the village. Church was too good a woodman not to use his axe to make a shanty of boughs, while the robes, when spread upon fragrant heaps of spruce, made excellent couches for the laughing girls that were under his protection. Meanwhile consternation reigned at Somesville. Messengers were sent hither and thither in haste; but no tidings arrived of the absent ones until the next morning, when they entered the village as if nothing unusual had happened.
Great Head is easily found. The road we have been pursuing comes to an abrupt ending at a house within a short half-mile of it. Follow the shore backward toward Schooner Head, and you will stand in presence of the boldest headland in all New England. I saw that no foot-print but my own had lately passed that way. There was something in thus having it all to one's self.
To appreciate Great Head one must stand underneath it; but the descent, always difficult, was rendered perilous by the newly-formed ice. By dint of perseverance I at last stood upon the ledge beneath, that extends out like a platform for some distance toward deep water. It was the right stage of the tide. I looked up at the face of the cliff. It was bearded with icicles, like the Genius of Winter. Along the upper edge appeared the interlacing roots of old trees grasping the scanty soil like monster talons. Stunted birches, bent by storms, skirted its brow, and at sea add to its height. From top to bottom the face of the cliff is a mass of hard granite, overhanging its foundations in impending ruin, shivered and splintered as if torn by some tremendous explosion. I could only think of the last sketch of Delaroche.
The sea rolls in great waves that overwhelm every thing within their reach. More than once I started back at the approach of one of them. Just outside the first line of breakers rode a flock of wild fowl, and occasionally the mournful cry of a loon, or shriller scream of a sea-gull, mingled with the roar of the surf. Farther out, at the distance of a mile, a wicked-looking rock and ledge was flinging off the seas, flecking its tawny flanks with foam, like a war-horse impatiently champing at his bit.
Looking off from Great Head to the eastward, the main-land is perceived trending away until it loses itself in the ocean. At the extremity of this land is Schoodic Point and Mountain, with Mosquito Harbor indenting it. The water between is not the true "Baye Françoise" of Champlain, Lescarbot, and others. The appellation belongs of right to the Bay of Fundy, perpetuating as it does the misadventure of Nicolas Aubri, one of the company of De Monts, who was lost in the woods there. As this is not the only historic anachronism
by many that may be met with on our coasts, I do not propose to quarrel with it, the less that a Frenchman was the first white here. The name has been current for about a century, though on old French maps it is found to lie farther east.
The north wind was beating down yesterday's sea, sweeping over the billows, and whirling their crests far away to leeward. Along the rocks the foam lay like wool-fleeces, or was whisked about, dabbling the grim face of the cliff with creamy spots. Other headlands were mailed in ice.
Mount Desert Rock is about twenty miles south-south-east of the island and from fourteen to eighteen from the nearest land. It has a light-house, built upon naked, shapeless ledges. There is another on Baker's Island, off the entrance to Somes's Sound.
Natural sea-marks, like Great Head Cliff, are preferred by mariners to artificial buoys or beacons. No one that has seen them will be likely to forget the Pan of Matanzas, or the Cabanas of Havana. Before the excellent system inaugurated by the United States Coast Survey, trees, standing singly or in groups, often gave direction how to steer on a dangerous coast. Sometimes they were lopped on one side, or made to take some peculiarity of shape that would distinguish them from all others. Thus some solitary old cedar becomes a guide-board known to all who travel on ocean highways.
The next point of interest will be found at Otter Creek, which may be reached in good weather by sailing, by the direct road from Bar Harbor, already mentioned, or by crossing the lower ridge of Newport Mountain from Great Head.
After a last look at the sea, which was of a dingy green, and broke angrily as far as the eye could reach in the offing, I entered the trail that was to bring me to Otter Creek.
Newport's southern peak was just overhead, its sharp protuberances made smooth by knobs of ice that resembled the bosses of a target. There reached me occasional rapid glimpses of the sea in ascending, but I walked chiefly in a dense growth that excluded all light, except when the glint of the sun through the tree-tops fell in golden bars across my way. Prostrate and uselessly rotting was wood enough to have kept a good-sized village through the winter. The air was light and elastic. I do not think a pleasanter ramble is to be had on the island than this forest-walk.
"O'er windy hill, through clogged ravine,
And woodland paths that wound between
Low drooping pine-boughs winter-weighed."
At Otter Creek is a scattered settlement and an inlet of the sea, into which the creek empties. The island traditions say the place was once the favorite retreat of the otter. There are cliffs to admire or study on the sea-shore, and Thunder Cave is there to explore.
In this pocket-edition of Somes's Sound we find ourselves once more under the shadow of Green Mountain, and upon looking back up the valley a pass opens between it and Newport, through which the road finds its way to Bar Harbor.
The dwellings here, as elsewhere on the island, are humble, and bespeak, in many instances, a near approach to poverty. In the larger villages there are comfortable and even substantial residences,