202 LOCUSTS AND WILD HONEY 



Early in the afternoon we entered upon what is 

 called La Grande 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 skeletons of the trees alone met the gaze. 

 The fire had come over from the Saguenay, a hun- 

 dred 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 disap- 

 peared, 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 

 mile or more, of a brawling stream in the valley be- 

 low us, and now and then caught a glimpse of foam- 

 ing rapids or cascades through the dense spruce, — 

 a trout stream that probably no man had ever fished, 

 as it would be quite impossible to do so in such a 

 maze and tangle of woods. 



We neither met, nor passed, nor saw any travelers 

 till late in the afternoon, when we descried far ahead 



