A PERILOUS ADVENTURE AT KAXAWHA FALLS. 65 



about Kanawha Falls. I passed a pleasant week there with Mr. Beckley, landlord, 

 I think the name was, and every morning during my stay my young wife and I 

 would pull our skiff from the boat-house landing up river into the spray of the 

 cataract, and letting it drift into the eddies, cast deft lines at the edge of the 

 swirl where the still water meets the rough ; and oh ! brethren of the angle, as 

 sure as I live, the black bass which sport in the Kanawha are full of game and 

 pride of life, and the water has that odorous woodsy smell which savors of the 

 lotion which naiads use in their baths. The sunbeams flashing on the wavelets are 

 the reflection of their bright glances, I ween, and the soft summer zephyrs seem to 

 waft to our mortal ears the whispers of their amours. Oh, my heart ! What a 

 blessed lot it is to be a naiad ! Sometimes I would look into my wife's bright 

 eyes, as she sat in the stern sheets, and almost wish that we two were both naiads 

 together, at home with the brook trout and shiners, and newts, and batrachians. 

 and gos?amerflies, and all the other quaint creatures which populate the falls and 

 the pools in the glens. Then, in a happy-go-lucky sort of way, with nothing to 

 think of or fear, we might toss up the spray with our hands, and join in the 

 roundelay of the opalled denizen when he exclaims : 



"I am Salmon Fontinalis, 



To the sparkling fountain born, 

 And my home is where oxalis, 



Heather bell and rose adorn 

 The crystal basin in the dell; 

 Undine, the wood nymph, knows it well, 

 That is where I love to dwell." 



Ye:, after all, the pleasure of a summer vacation depend more upon one's 

 own moods than upon environment. Nature is a potential accessory, but if we are 

 gross-grained or morose, all the naiads in Undine's realm could not make us happy. 

 Toads, tarantulas and blue devils would appear under every turned-up stone, nez 



fCJli'f 



As I was saying of the Kanawha bass : They are large and comely, and heavy 

 of weight, and they pull on the line like the stroke oar of a Harvard crew. They 

 leap, dive, plunge, sulk, sprint, gyrate and perpetrate all those perfunctory gymnas- 

 tics which are set down in the fish books, not only bass, but wall-eyed pike, yclept 

 jack salmon on the Allegheny- slope, running sometimes to twenty pounds in 

 weight, which are caught best in deep water when the wind is blowing briskly, 

 with cut fish-bait or minnow, but sometimes with gaudy fly or spoon, for they are 

 capricious, both as to food and feeding grounds, seldom being found in the same 

 location or depth of water. There is no better table fish when dressed off with 

 a hatchet, sccundcm artem, a chop at the head and a clip at the tail, two slits along 

 the length of the backbone with the keen edge to take out the dorsal, a flip of the 

 skin from the body like drawing off a glove, and lo ! the thing is done ! The 

 entrails follow the gills and a clean chunk of boneless meat results. A Minnesota 

 half-breed taught me that little trick at Detroit Lake, but I wonder how long it 

 will take me to learn to do it half as well? 



The whole mountain region in this section is full of game fish. There are 

 speckled trout in Cherry Creek, which flows into the Little Kanawha not far from 

 Ronceverte; in Falling Springs, Anthony's Creek, near Quinnamont, in Rawey 

 County; in Lost Creek, Glade Creek and several other clear-water streams quite 

 accessible from points on the railroad. Jackson's River, New River, the Green- 

 briar and the Gawley harbor black bass, pickerel, perch and suckers, with Coving- 

 ton, Clifton Forge, Talcott and Lowell as eligible starting points. Get off at Alder- 

 son, West Virginia, and fish east to Fort Springs and west to the Greenbrier stock 



