SPORTING TOURS. 173 



summer of those regions is as beautiful as it is brief, while the 

 sportsman would be brought into contact with an entirely new 

 race of beasts, birds, and fish of chase, I can imagine nothing 

 that would better repay the risk and enterprise of such an 

 expedition. 



All the arrangements of such a tour could be made with 

 greatest ease at Montreal, where every facility could be aiforded 

 to the tourists by the agents of the fur companies, and where 

 the whole of the necessary means are just as well understood, 

 and the necessary outfit just as easily procured, as are those for 

 a fishing excursion into Hamilton County, in New York, or for 

 a Maine Moose-hunt in Boston. 



The prairies of the West have long been explored as hunting 

 grounds, by the sportsmen of the old world as well as by the 

 hunters and trappers of the new — the forests and deserts of 

 Southern Africa have afforded their trophiesof the savage race; the 

 central wilds of Abyssinia have surrendered their fierce denizens ; 

 the forests of Ceylon, and the dark jungles of the farthest India, 

 have become familiar hunting grounds to the English sportsmen ; 

 and I think it is scarcely to be doubted that before many years 

 have elapsed, the Swedish and Norwegian rivers being already 

 overfished, the votaries of the rod and reel from either side of 

 the Atlantic will be found whipping the yet virgin streams of 

 the far north-west. 



Political reasons, too, will have their weight in bringing about 

 such a consummation ; for the disturbed state of the continent 

 is already sufficiently alarming to deter the pleasui'e-seeking 

 yachter from visiting his old haunts in the soft and sunny seas 

 of Southern Europe, while the stormier seas of the Western 



