Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1888-07-28

place than old Castine, which you come up
on in your lazy half-day's cat-boat sail up
the Penobscot from the soiled splendors of
Bar Harbor and Mount Eesertl The trip up
the bay is a continuous picture of dreamland
isles. Pompkin, Green Ledge, Pond, Colts
Head, Mark, Thumpcap, Spectacle, Beech,
great and little Spruce Head islands, with
their pretty settlements, their. dainty vii
lages, their splendid headlands and glorious
yerdure, all WOO to rsvery and rest. But
Castine itself, not yet much de6led by the
brazen hand of summer-resort gain, rests be-
hind its shores homely and demurely in its
own winsome beauty and boandless back
ground of romance and history. Here the
famous Plymouth colony had q trading house
as early as 1925. Here the redonbtsble
d'Aulnay located himself in 1910, defying
the combined powers of the English colo
nies. From this point for century, in
spired at Quebec, were set in motion the
great movements against the English by the
swarthy hordes of Tarantines and their
French allies. And ruins of most ancient
forts are here, within and without whose
ramparts myriads of infinitely greater TRACE
dies than the death of that shining martyr
to wifely loyalty, the grandly brave and
beautiful Madame La Tour, have bssn
wrought. We're all this not so, its olden
houses with Clipped" roofs and great gabled
windows, its antiquated streets and queer
old shops, its wealth of cool sfsparen and
square rooms, its grand old-fashioned porch
es and brass door-knockers, Its ruined
wharves and prim old churches, its lanes
thyme-laden and tremulous with songs of
birds, its shops from one to two centuries
old, its SAVIOR of all things winsome ashore
and favor of ali the magic of the sea, would
make the enchanting spell complete. But
here lived the most remarkable man of that
day and time, the Baron de St. Castins.
Born under the shadow of the Pyraneeg,
rE Ii L =
the wars of Louis XIV, he unaccountably
chose the life of reeluEeeamo the Abena-
kis, powerful tribe of the Tarantines,
whose villages and counsel-grounds lay
along the Penobseot, and so won their love
and respect that, according to La Hontan,
"they looked upon him as their tuteIar God"
He married among them, after their fashion,
beautiful Indian princess. daughter of
Chief Madoekwando. In time he became
their king and leader, and his power and
sway were equalled by no other living man
in American during the sixteenth century.
,"He worked himself into such fortune"
says the old chronicler, (which any man but
he would have made use of to draw out of
the country. above two or three hundred
thousand crowns, which he has now in his
pocket in good dry good" Aud SO In many
wondrous ways one finds how this good bar
on lived, loved and ruled. The governor
general of Canada must needs ''keep in with
afraid of him." His constancy to his Indian
wife in those days of brutal puritanic con-
tempt for sacredness of the lives or persons
of indian women, leaves a positive halo
about his memory. Though every futter of
the wind-whipped trees was a shuddering
"Castine!-and his Indiansp to the English
settlers, no captive returned to his people
| without tale of Castine's mercy and tender
ness. The little surely recorded and the
| numberless legends lingering here shame
/ history in its lack of tribute to the one grand
figure that ever trod our soil, whose life
among or dealings with the American Indi-
an was luminous with grandeur of upright
| life and character. The English were his
foes. He fought them with savage ferocity
But his life among these simple children OF
nature was poem of purity and nobility.
| Go where you will about the drsamful
/ spot which bears his name, the memory of
that spotless life in the dim old savage days
| seems to murmur from brook, pipe in song
| of bird, call fervently in soughing of spruce
and pine, shine in sun and air and flower,
| and beat trumpet-calls to him who will listen
from out the sonorous sounds of the rythmic
sea. EDGAR L. WAKEMAN.