ing channel, in search of a good anchorage. It is safer to retain the chaloupe during all the angler's stay. If she is dismissed, there is no certainty of her arriving again within a week of the appointed day, and with the possibility of illness or accident in these solitudes,-though these are mishaps the sportsman never counts on,-it is well to have the means of immediate return at hand. Besides, the vessel serves as a convenient store-house, to be visited from up-stream for fresh supplies, and for relieving the camp of accumulating fish. Higher than the flow of the tide it is not possible to carry the chaloupe, and about this point she is moored and the canoes then unlashed, loaded with the tents and a day's rations, and headed against the current for a six miles tug to the lower camp.

With a sweep round the first point hiding the chaloupe, you take possession of the wilderness, or rather the wilderness of you. The sense of loneliness descends suddenly, oppressively, yet with a charm. Stretched along the bottom of the canoe, reclining against cushions of well stuffed canvas sacks, with pipe alight, the quiet movement, the profound stillness, the lifeless aspect of nature, lull you into dreamy delight. The river is not pictur-. esque, in the usual sense-its beauty is a stern beauty of its own. For some distance the rocks stretch along the bank, alternating with precipitous masses of clay, and sinking gradually into ranges of bowlders, then spreading out in pebbly beaches, where the first murmur of the rapids touches the ear from a distance.

The hills are clothed with tall spruces, here descending rank on rank to the edge, there shattered and piled across gaps in the clay ramparts. Birches, some of noble height, are intermixed, and at the rim stout alders thrust their snaky branches in. At some points the shore falls level, sweeping back for a tract covered with bushes and such

forest trees as the climate spares. But the pervading effect is somber-the prevailing color gloomy. Grays of the rocks, bluish browns of the clay, and the mournful hue of the spruce, shadow the water, which struggles in vain with its crisp breaks of white foam to brighten their reflections. Under the trees the color of the stream is dull olive, paling into brownish yellow in the open reaches, but with no tone of the brandy tint that often stains waters flowing from spruce forests. While the tide holds, the rapids are drowned, but a mile or two up they begin to show their teeth, and sound their dash. Shifting the paddle for the setting-pole, we work through the first of these, and glide into a still stretch of deep water covering great scattered rocks. In such pools salmon lie on their way up, but the trout prefer smaller and less smooth ones. From the break of the current among the surface rocks it can easily be seen what the height of the water in the river is,-whether

EN ROUTE.

the stream is so shrunken as to need tediously careful treatment, or so swollen that the turbid wave cheats both fish and fisher, or at that happy just medium in which the latter will go most safely, and the former most in danger. The guide slackens his stroke now and then, peering over the side to catch a glimpse of trout flitting like a

shade through the depths if they have yet begun their wandering up, and often is able to say that they are moving in numbersas often says it when none are seen. In his good-nature and eagerness to make it pleasant, this dear guide sees many things that are invisible, counts much more game than is caught, and never permits the puni: est trout to be hooked without shouting "quel saumon !" Now and then whirling round a point, the river races down on us with the fierceness of a torrent, tossing in waves along a clay escarpment towering fifty feet, which it has cut down square and sheer as if with a razor. The rocks and pebbles are all shot off to the other bank, where the passenger may walk and wade while David gives the canoe rope, and plashes towing her alongside in the shallows. It is usual to refrain from casting the line on the way up, not only for the sake of avoiding delays -but, since the camp looks down on the choicest pool in all the river, why take the edge from the rapture of landing the best the first? As we ascend, the rapids grow more frequent-twenty have been counted from tide to camp, and all the number not told. More level spaces and denser trees succeed, the channel breaks up in places with islets of rock; and at last, rounding a

CLAY BANK AND RAPIDS.

curve, one of these lifts its feathery point of willows, David reverses his pole to hush the clang of the iron shoe on the stones, a few

strong thrusts force the boat up against the rush of the narrowing outlet, and she touches the bank at the foot of the Homer Pool. Before anything is unloaded, the angler springs out, rigs a cast, and hurrying to the head of the pool, drops his first fly. That moment is crowded with the expectation of the whole past year. Two of us once so landed and so stood, and four large fish for each were raised and netted before the men had cleared the canoes of their load. that year there was much grass in the place, and the multitudes of mosquitoes sat on it, being in number about a million, each having also compressed twelve months' expectation into that moment. The thirst for blood on our side was soon satisfied, while the insects, far from taking off their keen edge, grew industrious in putting it on.

But

At this point, the stream, spreading out to a hundred and fifty feet in width, wheels to the right, striking a turtle-shaped rock nearly flush with the surface which splits it in two, hollowing on the near side a deep pool, the breadth of a fair cast, and some sixty feet long. The farther side of this depression is a shelving wall, full of crevices and nooks, and the camp side a grassy bank four or five feet high, fringed at either end with bushes. Into the pool, above the turn, dashes a pretty run of swift water, three feet deep, with excellent wading ground. This little promontory is the only cleared spot on the stream. The trees were felled more than twenty years ago by an English baronet, who encamped with a retinue on this plateau, and has left traditions of famous sport. His forest lodge was chosen with the eye of a Nimrod, whose other eye must have been a landscape painter's. This basin is very seldom empty of trout. Last season eleven fish weighing seventeen pounds were taken from it within an hour before breakfast by one rod, and the whole yield of the pool during the four days for which it was vexed only with a few casts at morning and evening was seventy-two fish.

A description of the peculiarities of a lodge in this vast wilderness, and of the obstacles to penetrating it and the devices for surmounting them, will probably not interest woodsmen, who are familiar with them all. But the greater part of readers have rather vague notions of a camp, a canoe, or a rapid; and to them a rough sketch of these features of a life in the woods may be interesting.

We "build our light town of canvas with the precision of Roman camp-pitching. Removed from the bank so far that no back

were sketched out rather than finished by rough carpentry of adze and auger many summers ago, and have wintered often in these thickets. Farther back, at the edge of the trees, stands an A tent for the men, and another to cover the provisions, with a space for the camp-fire between. Such a canvas house, with its outside fly stretched over, gives perfect shelter from heavy rains, and has nothing to fear except from sudden gusts that may rip out the tent-pins. Its inside furnishing is simple but complete. First, the bedstead demands the attention due to arrangements for inviting tired nature's sweet restorer during nine good hours out of the twenty-four. Four stout crotches, kept apart by cross-pieces, and sunk deep in the ground, lift, at a height of two feet above it, two poles run through the broad hems of a canvas sacking, which may be double and stuffed with hemlock twigs. They give a springy support to buffalo robes and blankets. The upper one of these is to be doubled down its length, and a wide sheet, folded in the same way, laid between. An air-pillow, and pillow-case, complete a bed as trim as any ever spread by a neat-handed Hibernian Phillis. On the other side of the tent a neat wardrobe with ample ventilation is built up with similar rods, on taller crotches. The dress needed is of thick woolen through

40° and 74° but toward the end of August, and especially while aboard ship, the air is constantly chilly. Next, a sideboard rises against the rear tent pole, piled up of empty boxes, the upper one of which holds the library,-pegs being set in the pole for thermometer, spring-balance, and looking-glass if you will. The wine-cellar and spirit-vault are established outside the tent, under the fly. Add a block candlestick, strew the ground thickly with sapin covered by an India rubber cloth for carpet, and one is better lodged than many a tenant of a log-cabin. Next day after arriving, the guides go down again with all the canoes to bring a fortnight's stores from the chaloupe. This burden loads their light craft so deep that care and skill are needed to twist through the rapids, and it will be late in the afternoon before the ring of their iron-shod poles against the stones, heard in measured cadence half a mile off, gives the signal of their return.

The time of their absence may be improved to review tackle and perfect it for serious work. The prudent angler will take at least three rods. Two of these should not be very light for they may be called on, as has happened, to handle a salmon. In any case, the fish are so plentiful that it is not worth while to waste time over the smaller ones, and the most useful rod is one stiff enough

to snub a pound trout, and bring him promptly to net. A duplicate reel and line are of course provided. As to flies, the in

KINGFISHER'S NEST.

difference of sea-trout about kind, when they are in the humor to take any, almost warrants the belief of some anglers that they leap in mere sport at whatever chances to be floating. It is true they will take incredible combinations, as if color-blind and blind to form. But experiments on their caprice are not safe. If their desire is to be tempted, that may most surely be done with three insects, adapted to proper places and seasons. One need not go beyond the range of a red-bodied fly with blue tip and wood duck wings for ordinary use, a small all-gray fly for low water in bright light, and a yellowish fly, green-striped and winged with curlew feather, for a fine cast under alders after the patriarchs. By all means make your own flies, or learn to do so, for the sake of practicing a delicate art, and amusing some idle hours on the stream. Besides, one's own handiwork is stronger than that of most shops, and with a pocketbook full of material, it will be easy to replace a loss, by no means infrequent, caused by the tipping of a canoe.

Wading drawers of India rubber, reaching well above the waist, are indispensable; and the foot that is shod with anything but a nail-studded sole will surely bring its wearer to great grief when it touches the treacherous clay. Much of the bottom is of this greasy stuff, looking like stone, but as slippery as glass, and unsafe for any foot-gear whatever. In some runs the river-bed is pebbly, but usually strewed with large stones,

and of so swift a current as to render a knee-deep stand unsteady.

The day's work in camp follows quite a regular routine. About six the light wakes you-the guide never will. A dip in the pool, or a bucket dash at the brink tones the nerves for a firm touch of the rod, while the reel sings its morning song over a brace of fish caught for breakfast, which the cookguide is preparing. This need be nothing more substantial than ham and eggs, of which a week's supply can be kept (unless indeed a fondu is prepared, which the guide can be taught to compose very well), fish-balls,and David is an adept at these, the trout, broiled on a wire gridiron, buttered toast or Boston crackers grilled, and marmalade, with tea or coffee. For a change, a partridgechick can now and then be knocked over, or a squirrel or rabbit tried. After that comes the chef-d'œuvre of our wood-cook-crêpes! These are thin rice cakes, fried crisp in a pan, and eaten with maple sugar. Do not grudge the men a good hour over their own breakfast. This month is sunshine in their dull year, and such plain fare sybaritic to them. And a pipe in this air, lit with a wood-ember, is so doubly delicious that it needs no patience to prolong it awhile. About nine the canoe floats off, bearing you sitting flat in the bottom, and the guide upright astern, either to the lower pools to fish from the boat, or to the upper water where landing and wading are more convenient. The fish will rise at almost any hour

over in a glassy curve, the large trout love to lie, watching for insects swept down. Your fly follows the swirl, swimming swifter, till just as it nears the rock at the very cleft of the fall, there is a surge, a tug, and the fish darts up-stream. The large ones seldom break the surface. Turn the rod at once with the reel uppermost, and do not check him till he tries to move down again, and then only gently. If he can be held away from the brink, and it is not often, with care, that he slips over it,-from four to seven minutes should suffice to bring him to net, though if he be fresh run from tide and over three pounds, twice that time may be needed. It

and entered on the score. Usually dinner is at six, the morning's carte being varied only with one of three or four kinds of preserved soup, baked or fried potatoes, boiled rice, sherry and Bordeaux, cheese, raisins, coffee and a chasse. If you ask the best way of cooking the fish-those over two pounds weight deserve the pot; the flavor and juices of smaller ones above a pound, will be kept unwasted by roasting them under the coals; and as to those below a pound, since in this region not St. Anthony, but probably St. Lawrence, is their patron, let them follow his fate and grill on the gridiron. None are small enough to spoil

is well to search the neighborhood of the bushes, too, before descending more than half-way down the pool, or of any great

rocks scattered on the bottom.

While the fisherman is busy, the guide left at home has been cleaning and curing the catch of the day before. No fish are wasted. Coarse salt and barrels always make part of the chaloupe's freight, and the trout not eaten are packed and carried to Tadousac, as an important and welcome addition to the winter's stores for these poor fellows' families. When a larger trout than usual is netted, he is greeted with the cry, "C'est bon pour le baril." The return from the chase must be so timed that the rapids may be passed before dark. Immediately on landing, every fish caught is faithfully weighed (none being small enough to reject),

by frying; but our cordon, with a little superintendence, is quite equal to a stew in claret. After dinner, the plateau is large enough for a quarter-deck promenade of thirty steps to and fro, till, finishing the second cigar, you look up about nine to see the Great Bear just over the tent stealing into the lingering twilight, and call David to make a "smudge" inside the canvas that may completely clear it of mosquitoes, and to tie down the flaps, shutting you in for the night. On Sundays the stream runs undisturbed. Reading, journalizing, and repairs of many kinds fill the time. Last summer the government guardian, an old acquaintance, chanced to arrive on Saturday night, and camped near us,-perhaps needlessly suspicious of a breach of Sunday closetime.