River bar

“ There are rich harvests for the hungry on these wide reaches of the sandflats, and even a glutton bird could gorge his fill upon the prey entrapped in the fish-weirs that dot the inner coast.
There, at one point, the tide marches out a long mile to the Great Bar and back again, by appointed channels, unhurrying, punctual to the minute, to keep its tryst with the shore. Sailors, unless they have a care to the time, are likely to be “hung up” on the Bar; but for one ashore who looks out to the white line of breaking foam, every moment of the ebb and turn has its special beauty. ”

“ Bar Harbor lies beneath a mighty mountain, a great, bare, black mountain that sleeps above the town; but as you leave, it rises suddenly, threateningly, until far away on Frenchman's Bay it looms above the town in withering vastness, as if to call all that little world petty save itself. Beneath the cool, wide stare of that great mountain, men cannot live as giddily as in some lesser summer's playground. Before the unveiled face of nature, as it lies naked on the Maine coast, rises a certain human awe. ”

“ The scenery along the coast is bold and impressive, stupendous cliffs rising abruptly to the height of several hundred feet. Bar Harbor is plentifully supplied with hotels, and their facilities are often utilized by the throngs of artists and pleasure-seekers who make summer pilgrimages in search of the beautiful, the art galleries and studios of the country testifying to the success of the former in transferring to canvas the gems of scenery which have formed the basis of so many studies and afforded so much delight. ”

“ He passed a commodious-looking hotel, built of wood, typically western in style, with hitching posts at the side of the road, a broad sidewalk and a few steps up to a wide veranda which led into an airy and busy saloon.
For want of anything better to occupy his attention, Phil strolled in. He called for a glass of beer at the bar. While waiting service, he took in his surroundings.
Several men were lounging at the bar talking loudly, smoking, spitting carelessly and drinking. ”

“ Three practical men went strolling West,
Out into the West as the Bar came down;
Each said to the workmen, “May you be blest,
For moving this obstacle out of the town!
For cabs still crawl, and ’busses still creep—
While stultified aldermen vainly weep,
Their ancient Bar bemoaning.”
Three barmaids stood in their gas-lit bower,
And filled each glass as the Bar came down;
And the practical gentlemen looked at the shower,
And the mud that was rolling up slimy and brown,
For men will drink, and women must keep
Replenishing beakers, while potions deep
Are quaffed to the Bar and its “boning.” ”

“ We were out in the open. Roofs and smoking chimneys were silhouetted on the sky, and, halfway up a hill, we could see the candle-lights of the red tavern. There, in the bar, before blazing logs in a great fireplace, for the evening had come chilly, a table was laid for us, and we sat down with hearty happiness to tankards of old ale and a smoking haunch. ”

“ It is a town of summer hotels and boarding-houses, built upon what was a treeless plain, the outskirts being a galaxy of cottages, many of great pretensions. Here will congregate ten to twenty thousand visitors in the season, and Bar Harbor has become one of the most fashionable resorts 272 on the Atlantic coast. Its bane, however, is the fog, a frequent sojourner in the summer, though even fogs, in their way, have charms. ”

“ Ay, and when the shades of evening are falling over mountain and valley, river, lake, and bay, when the smoke from the chimney of our inn, rising from amongst the trees which surround it, suggests busy doings at the huge peat-fire in the kitchen, pleasant is the walk or drive back to that snug hostelry, and jovial the dinner—with salmon and trout fresh from lake and river, grouse not quite so fresh from the mountain, and snipe from the marsh. ”

“ An exception is the bar, which, of course, was a fixture and part of the inn structure. Our modern bar with its almost invariable ugliness, its row of vertical handles for drawing beer, and its aggressive [Pg 245] cash register, is a poor survival of the Jacobean bar, an example of which is still in existence at the Maid’s Head, Norwich. It is worthy of recollection that the high stools which enable one to sit at a bar are quite of modern origin. Bar lounging evidently did not become a habit until the nineteenth century. People sat down and had their refreshments at ease. ”

“ It is all sorted out, the larger pieces at the top, and the smaller bits trailing along toward the pool. All the light sand is arranged by itself next the pool of still water. This bar was thrown up on top of the beach by a storm, yet it serves to show how the sand-bars made under water look. Even on shore you can hear the bars roaring and moaning all day and night, as the great work of the sea goes on, never stopping, never hurrying, for centuries after centuries.
ON CIGARETTE SMOKING. BY AN OLD SMOKER
I am an old smoker, that is past all doubt; but I was a young smoker as well. ”

“ Many old wagoners were fond of fun and frolic, but very few of them were intemperate, although they had the readiest opportunities for unrestrained drinking. Every old tavern had its odd shaped little bar, ornamented in many instances with fancy lattice work, and well stocked with whiskey of the purest distillation, almost as cheap as water. In fact all kinds of liquors were kept at the old taverns of the National Road, except the impure stuff of the present day. ”

“ Those who dwell here the year round find most satisfaction when the summer guests have gone and they are alone with freaky nature. “Yes,” said the woman in charge of one of the cottages, “I've lived here the year round for sixteen years, and I like it. After we get fixed up comfortable for winter, kill a critter, have pigs, and make my own sassengers, then there ain't any neighbors comin' in, and that's what I like.”
VII. BAR HARBOR
The attraction of Bar Harbor is in the union of mountain and sea; the mountains rise in granite majesty right out of the ocean. ”

“ The Town-pier—having superseded the old and unpleasant process of boating—is a structure of vast convenience as a landing place, and is besides of excellent design and execution. It consists of insulated columns, or piles of cast-iron, supporting a floor or stage, and extends into the river about fifty feet beyond low-water-mark. In summer this stage is covered with an awning, under which visitors can promenade, sheltered from sun or shower, and enjoy the entertainment furnished by an excellent band of music, which takes its daily station on the Pier. ”

“ This river finds its only outlet in a cavern which it has gradually cut out of the rocks, and into which it falls with the impetuosity of a tide-race or a whirlpool. Where does it go as it passes under the town? No one knows. ”

“ This resort was a hundred feet long by forty wide, well floored, and given over to drinking, dancing, and gambling. The sumptuous bar provided refreshment much desired in a dry alkali country; all the games known to the professional gambler were in full blast; women, often fair and well-dressed, were there to gather in what the bartender and faro-dealer missed. ”

“ While we are still steaming along this beautiful river, past widening valleys, through thickets of dense shrubberies interlaced with gigantic vines, night closes in and shuts the wild picturesque scenery from our view. All wise people retire to the saloon, where somebody makes a feeble attempt to get up a concert ”

“ In the dark recesses of this cavern you reach a river, an ornamental boat approaches, and you are rowed silently through great arches of gloomy caverns, winding hither and thither, apparently into the innermost bowels of the earth, until you begin to fear the guide may have lost his way, when suddenly the boat shoots forth upon the bosom of a charming little lake, surrounded by objects of interest and beauty on every side. ”

“ There are a number of interesting walks, drives and automobile trips which may be taken from the Tavern, besides the lakeshore walks which are always interesting. Indian Camp is half a mile away; Tahoe City, a little further, and here the interesting Frémont howitzer, to whose history I have devoted a separate chapter, may be seen; Tavern Spring, a beautiful walk through the woods, one and a quarter miles; the Fish Hatchery, a mile away, where all the processes of hatching various kinds of trout before they are distributed to the different lakes and streams may be witnessed. ”

“ There is undeniably a public opinion in Bar Harbor in favor of it, and the visitor would better coincide with it. He is anxiously asked at every turn how he likes it, and if he does not like it he is an object of compassion. Countless numbers of people who do not own a foot of land there are devotees of the place. ”

“ On the ground-floor there is a spacious and scrupuluously clean bar, and the bar space in front is partly occupied by a bagatelle-table for the innocent amusement of those who have neither taste nor talent for dancing. ”

“ Since the bridges have been swept away, I have been to Rich Bar but once. It is necessary to go over the hill now, and the walk is a very wearisome one. It is much more pleasant to live on the hills than on the Bar, and during our walk we passed two or three cozy little cabins, nestling in broad patches of sunlight, and surrounded with ample space for a promenade, which made me quite envious. ”

“ There is no one to be seen. It is a cold, frost-strong, clear morning. There is no one in the bar. We stumble down the dark tunnel passage. The stanza is as if no man had ever set foot in it: very dark, the mats against the wall, the fire-place grey with a handful of long dead ash. Just like a dungeon. The dining-room has the same long table and eternal table-cloth—and [Pg 207] our serviettes, still wet, lying where we shovelled them aside. So back again to the bar.
And this time a man is drinking aqua vitae, and the dirty-shirt is officiating. ”

“ The visitor will notice that drinking bars are invariable and very disagreeable accompaniments of every theatre. One bar is generally just opposite the entrance to the dress circle, an arrangement which is particularly annoying to ladies. ”

“ As evening began to fall, the gambler's unsuccessful pursuers, one after another, found their way to the tavern, and by the time night had fairly closed in, the bar-room was crowded with excited and angry men, chafing over their disappointment, and loud in their threats of vengeance. That Green had made good his escape, was now the general belief ”

“ As its name denotes, the house is frequented by anglers, who, after paying a fee of half-a-crown a day, find exercise for their skill in the rippling shallows and silent pools of the river which flows past not many yards from the road. I am told that the sport is but indifferent.
A short distance beyond the inn there rises sheer from the road a grand limestone cliff, before which you will be tempted to pause. A low grassy slope, bordered by a narrow brook, forms a natural plinth; small trees and ivy grow from the fissures high overhead, and large trees and bush on the ledges ”

“ The splendid crag of the White Cliff towers above the sea, showing the slanting beds of the cherty matter below the dazzling white of the chalk, and from their inclination giving to the whole cliff an appearance of lurching into the waves. Beyond this is Beer, a narrow cleft in the hills, in which are fishermen's cottages, many of them very picturesque, and above them rises a really excellently designed modern church.
A walk up the valley leads to the famous Beer quarries that have been worked for centuries. This splendid building-stone lies below the chalk with flints. ”

“ Up and down hill we then all move and rattle, until gaining the summit of a long ascent, we see “Jordan’s Inn,” and a little beyond, the broad, bright waters of our destined goal, White Lake. Severally alighting at the door of the tavern, our steeds are commended to the tender mercies of the landlord; and we all, with our baskets of eatables and drinkables, pursue our way to the borders of the lovely sheet. How beautifully it is slumbering beneath this rich light and soft heaven. The pictures of the white clouds sail across it like pure thoughts over a happy heart. ”

“ And then the country tavern, whose long shed and sanded hall give surety to the stranger and his beast of a comfortable noon-tide baiting; or, in the more solitary townships, where the places of entertainment are few and far between, the quiet nook by the forest road-side, where the dipper hangs beside the overflowing water-trough, and the guide-board measures out the long miles between him and his evening resting-place; each and all objects of pleasant recollection to the traveller, as he muses upon his journeyings in after life. ”

“ In the tavern, among groups of men collected on shore from wind-bound vessels, at gatherings around the cabin fire, and in those small craft that were constantly going from one part of the bay to another, not only these tales, but others, irrevocably lost, were elaborated and made current in days homely and toilsome yet invested with an atmosphere of romance. ”

“ All surface diggings, when marked out, or laid off in small plats, are called bars; and these bars are known by distinctive names, as, for instance, Rocky Bar, Steep Bar, Sandy Bar, &c. The name is not always derived from a peculiarity of the place. Frequently they are called by the names of the men who first discovered gold on them, as Brown’s Bar, Hall’s Bar, Drake’s Bar; and sometimes they take their names from an important event that occurred at or near them at the time they were opened, as Highwayman’s Bar, Rioter’s Bar, Murderer’s Bar. ”