George Strong Nares

“ We bring with us a large stock of that glorious fresh feeling which ever so slight a taste of bush-life gives, and some wonder why so few fishing men in England find their way to the splendid rivers and lakes of North America, and fish enough to live on for weeks (if they would but keep) for the especial gratification of those of our friends who care for such luxuries as trout. ”

“ A large fir, borne down, probably, by the weight of years, has fallen exactly across our road, with its dead branches sticking out to meet us like a natural chevaux de frise. We begin by a vigorous attack on the protruding branches, till we reduce the part which has to be crossed to a bare trunk, raised some three or four feet from the ground. ”

“ The road has been getting worse for some time, and I am paying more attention to the sky than to what is exactly underneath us, when bang! bang—with a quick jerk or two which makes one tremble for the springs, independently of almost throwing us out of the waggon—rouses us to a sense of our position. ”

“ We proceed painfully along a road which is formed, in different places, in addition to its native soil, of planks, faggots, and sometimes of nothing less than trunks of trees, placed side by side with a small space between. We are getting accustomed to all these varieties of road, and have crossed the fifth rickety bridge (we count the bridges, for our hearts rejoice at the fishing prospect held out by the brooks below them) , when a fresh obstacle makes its unwelcome appearance. ”

“ Some ten minutes’ driving, up a hill or two, while lamps grow less and less frequent, and we are out of the town, rolling along a road which is as good as an ordinary English turnpike-road—passing every now and then through spots of perfect darkness, where clumps of firs overhang the road on each side, and new again looking over a broad spread of water stretching away from our feet, with a row of distant wooded slopes appearing more and more clearly as the moon slowly rises. ”

“ There is, too, at the door of almost every alternate hut, a peculiarly black matron with some more or less gaudy cotton, wound, turban fashion, about her head, occupied (in addition to staring at us) in squalling at either pig or children, and in nursing an admirable likeness, on a small scale, of herself. ”

“ Up the stream we go, wading, scrambling, slipping off rocks, catching flies and line in the boughs, which effectually prevent any but the most crafty kind of “cast;” but all this time catching trout, weighing from half a-pound to three times that weight, which we do not bother ourselves with carrying, but string together on thin sticks, and leave on rocks till we return again. ”

“ The horse is unharnessed, and “led” across, and with much exertion, and putting of shoulders to the wheel, literally, we succeed in lifting the waggon over it. Nothing further stops us, till we come suddenly on an open space, which, pretty as it is, has a borrowed beauty from its contrast to the dark, almost impenetrable, shade we have been passing through lately. Just to the right of us is a low, substantial-looking, hut—built entirely of roughly sawn planks, with plastered clay to fill up the interstices between them. ”

“ We must fix our camp before we eat, and here is the very place—in a “fork” made by a small stream—where several young firs growing in a sort of circle, make an apology for a roof with their branches. Now for half-an-hour’s work with our knives and axes to cut away the boughs, and to make a thick mattrass of small spruce branches for our bed, as well as to get logs for our fire. Out come thousands of fireflies as it grows darker, as if they mean to help us, but soon we shall have fire enough. ”

“ I try what can be done with the blue veil I have provided myself with; but my unfeminine eyes are unable to penetrate successfully through its maziness, so I return in despair to the rocks, use my hands in keeping off the mosquitos, and wait patiently till we start for our evening’s fishing. At eight o’clock we leave off, having slaughtered, with two rods, nine and a-half dozen trout of all sizes, from three pounds and a-half downwards ”