But wherever it makes a sudden bend it is shallower and
swifter, and asserts its title to be called a river. Compared
with the other tributaries of the Merrimack, it appears to
have been properly named Musketaquid, or Meadow River,
by the Indians. For the most part, it creeps through broad
meadows, adorned with scattered oaks, where the cranberry
is found in abundance, covering the ground like a moss-bed.
A row of sunken dwarf willows borders the stream on one
or both sides, while at a greater distance the meadow is



348 THE CONCORD

skirted with maples, alders, and other fluviatile trees, overrun
with the grape-vine, which bears fruit in its season, purple,
red, white, and other grapes. Still farther from the stream,
on the edge of the firm land, are seen the gray and white
dwellings of the inhabitants.
The sluggish artery of the Concord meadows steals thus
unobserved through the town, without a murmur or a pulse
beat, its general course from south-west to north-east, and
its length about fifty miles; a huge volume of matter,
ceaselessly rolling through the plains and valleys of the
substantial earth with the moccasined tread of an Indian
Warrior, making haste from the high places of the earth to
its ancient reservoir. The murmurs of many a famous
river on the other side of the globe reach even to us here,
as to more distant dwellers on its banks; many a poet's
stream floating the helms and shields of heroes on its bosom.
