226 THE HALCYON IN CANADA. 



one could have knocked them over with poles. We 

 passed many beautiful lakes ; among others the Twe 

 Sisters, one on each side of the road. At noon wo 

 paused at a lake in a deep valley, and fed the horse 

 and had lunch. I was not long in getting ready 

 my fishing tackle, and upon a raft made of two logs 

 pinned together floated out upon the lake and quickly 

 took all the trout we wanted. 



Early in the afternoon, we entered upon what is 

 called La Grand Brulure, or Great Burning, and to 

 the desolation of living woods succeeded the greater 

 desolation of a blighted forest. All the mountains 

 and valleys, as far as the eye could see, had been 

 swept by the fire, and the bleached and ghostly skel- 

 etons of the trees alone met the gaze. The fire had 

 come over from the Saguenay, a hundred or more 

 miles to the east, seven or eight years before, and 

 had consumed or blasted everything in its way. We 

 saw the skull of a moose said to have perished in 

 the fire. For three hours we rode through this valley 

 and shadow of death. In the midst of it, where the 

 trees had nearly all disappeared, and where the 

 ground was covered with coarse wild grass, we came 

 upon the Morancy River, a placid yellow stream 

 twenty or twenty-five yards wide, abounding with 

 trout. We walked a short distance along its banks 

 and peered curiously into its waters. The mountains 

 on either hand had been burned by the fire until in 

 places their great granite bones were bare and white. 



At another point we were within ear-shot for a 



