fence or rider reaching over the stream, twirling a green nut with one paw, as in a lathe, while the other held it fast against its incisors as chisels.  Like an independent russet leaf, with a will of its own, rustling whither it could; now under the fence, now over it, now peeping at the voyageurs through a crack with only its tail visible, now at its lunch deep in the toothsome kernel, and now a rod off playing at hide-and-seek, with the nut stowed away in its chops, where were half a dozen more besides, extending its cheeks to a ludicrous breadth,—­as if it were devising through what safe valve of frisk or somerset to let its superfluous life escape; the stream passing harmlessly off, even while it sits, in constant electric flashes through its tail.  And now with a chuckling squeak it dives into the root of a hazel, and we see no more of it.  Or the larger red squirrel or chickaree, sometimes called the Hudson Bay squirrel (Scriurus Hudsonius), gave warning of our approach by that peculiar alarum of his, like the winding up of some strong clock, in the top of a pine-tree, and dodged behind its stem, or leaped from tree to tree with such caution and adroitness, as if much depended on the fidelity of his scout, running along the white-pine boughs sometimes twenty rods by our side, with such speed, and by such unerring routes, as if it were some well-worn familiar path to him; and presently, when we have passed, he returns to his work of cutting off the pine-cones, and letting them fall to the ground.

We passed Cromwell’s Falls, the first we met with on this river, this forenoon, by means of locks, without using our wheels.  These falls are the Nesenkeag of the Indians.  Great Nesenkeag Stream comes in on the right just above, and Little Nesenkeag some distance below, both in Litchfield.  We read in the Gazetteer, under the head of Merrimack, that “The first house in this town was erected on the margin of the river [soon after 1665] for a house of traffic with the Indians.  For some time one Cromwell carried on a lucrative trade with them, weighing their furs with his foot, till, enraged at his supposed or real deception, they formed the resolution to murder him.  This intention being communicated to Cromwell, he buried his wealth and made his escape.  Within a few hours after his flight, a party of the Penacook tribe arrived, and, not finding the object of their resentment, burnt his habitation.”  Upon the top of the high bank here, close to the river, was still to be seen his cellar, now overgrown with trees.  It was a convenient spot for such a traffic, at the foot of the first falls above the settlements, and commanding a pleasant view up the river, where he could see the Indians coming down with their furs.  The lock-man told us that his shovel and tongs had been ploughed up here, and also a stone with his name on it.  But we will not vouch for the truth of this story.  In the New Hampshire Historical Collections for 1815 it says, “Some time after