Of whatever variety, however, these portage paths were frequently burying-
grounds. Sometimes altars were erected beside them. They were often places
of encampments, of assemblies, and more often of ambuscades. So it came
about, too, that they were made the places of minor forts or gave occasion
for forts farther on the way. In those precivilized Panama days, the
neutrality of the isthmian paths could not be assured, and so they were
fortified.
Celoron tells of the mending of boats at the end of his Chautauqua
portages, and that statement, with other like incidents, has led one
authority to picture the birches--those beautiful white and golden trees
of the sombre northern woods that gave their cloaks to the travellers who
asked and shivered till they grew others--stripped of their bark where
those paths came down to the streams. He has even imagined primitive
carpenter shops and ovens and huts on these paths where the voyageurs must
stop for repairs, food, and rest--the precursors of garage, road-house,
and hotel.
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