they were frequently different; descending voyageurs "shot" many rapids about which it was necessary to make a portage when ascending.
As a meeting place the portage must have been anticipated with an interest inconceivable to us who know comparatively nothing of woodland journeying. Eager eyes were often strained to catch first sight across the water of the opening where the portage path entered the woods. And when this opening was lost to the sight of the departing traveler, the last hope of meeting friends had vanished. What this meant in a day when friends were few and far to seek and enemies quite the reverse, it would be difficult even to hint. Even in the good old colonial days in the heart of New England, friends met at the tavern, when a neighbor was to make a little journey on horseback, to drink his health. Pioneers moving from New York City to what is now Utica spent an afternoon previous to starting in prayer with clergymen.[1] What, then, did partings and meetings mean in the earliest days on the Great
- ↑ William E. Dodge's Old New York, p. 36.
