54 



M'.MMKR DAYS ON 



THE RIVER ' MANHOOD '. 



pools, not made for the angler's delight expressly, but incidentally 

 serving his purpose. They are structures built by the lumber-men 

 for facilitating the driving of logs, provided with a gate in the 

 centre, and with sides set sloping to the stream, furnishing a sort <>f 

 funnel or bottle-neck pool, and backing up the water to a depth 

 which the salmon dearly loves anywhere between two and three 

 feet and somehow correcting the speed of the current exactly to 

 his taste. Should any reader wish to construct an artificial salmon 

 pool here is a valuable model, for above these so-called ' \ving- 

 dams ' the salmon will surely rest for a long time. A fish hooked and 

 lost here on June 12 of last year was taken with the cast in his 

 jaws by another fisherman at exactly the same spot on June 27. 

 He had remained in the pool for all that time. 



For two whole weeks this pleasing river had been to me com- 

 panion and a friend. Life by its waters had bestowed the power 

 to enjoy simple things. ' The gliding of the stream, and the birds 

 singing, and the soft blue sky, seem like life passing in a summer 

 dream, as though no winter stress could e'er come nigh a scene lik- 

 this, or any human deeds seem louder than the whisper of the 

 reeds/ Oh. happy state of mind, when mere sky and running water, 

 rocks and trees, the fluttering leafage, the glory of a summer eve, 

 the notes of birds from the tree-tops, can make one forget that life 



