SEA-TROUT. 



BY 



FITZ JAMES FITCH. 



Sunday morning, August 2, 1874, found us, Mr. A. 

 R. Macdonough and me, at Tadousac, a French Canadian 

 village, very small for its age, situated on the northeast 

 shore of the Saguenay River, one and a half miles from 

 the junction of its dark and mighty waters with the 

 turbid and mightier St. Lawrence. This day was the 

 beginning of the culmination of four months of prepa- 

 ration for a month's release from the business world, 

 its toil, care and worry. The preparations began with 

 the payment of $150 in gold— $171.20 currency— the 

 rent named in a lease securing to us the exclusive right 

 to fish a river on the north shore of, and emptying into, 

 the St. Lawrence many miles below the Saguenay. "We 

 left New York sweltering in a temperature that sent 

 the mercury up to the nineties ; were fanned by the 

 cool evening breeze of the Hudson, and later by the 

 cooler breath of the old Catskills, around which cluster 

 the recollections and associations of thirty years of my 

 life. We had travelled by rail to Montreal, 412 miles, 

 and spent a day there ; by steamboat to Quebec, 

 180 miles, where we passed twenty-four hours. "We 



