CHAPTER XIII. 



THE PRINCESS AND THE SALMON. 



AGAIN the Restigouche! Egad! it is becoming a famous river! For what 

 wielder of the two-handed rod, at home or abroad, has not heard its praises sung 

 anon, if, indeed, he has not himself tasted its delights? What salmon fisher of 

 renown has not whipped some portion of its majestic length the largest, longest 

 and noblest of all Atlantic salmon rivers on either continent? 



And why not the Restigouche? Has its too familiar name become a bore? I 

 grant that there are other rivers wilder and more "wicked," some of them seldom 

 visited, which might inspire a momentary interest by their vagueness or their novelty, 

 but to come down to an authentic, well-tried stream, which is statedly crossed by 

 angler's casts, where can there be found a more captivating stretch of water than 

 the outflow of the Restigouche? Or a wilderness haunt more charming than its 

 source among the alders of the "Waagan?" 



For my own part, as soon as ever the season of green peas comes round my 

 thoughts revert instinctively to this New Brunswick stream, and whether I visit it 

 or abstain, or whatever I do, the old familiar name with its many cherished associa- 

 tions will never grow trite or tiresome. Its impetuous flow may chafe and scour 

 the rounded pebbles on its bottom until the end of time, but this abrasion will only 

 make their polished surfaces all the brighter, and I shall never cease to yearn for 

 the music of its rapids and the crooning of its pines. 



IT HAS A RECORD. 



The Restigouche has a notable record withal. Governor Boucher expatiated on 

 its charms so far back as 1663. 248 years ago, in his engaging "Histoire Naturelle 

 des Oiseaux .et des Poissons de la Nouvelle, France." A century later, in 1761, Mr. 

 Jaffray extolled its attributes as a salmon stream. He was geographer to the Prince 

 of Wales and an accepted authority, having written a large folio on Canadian birds, 

 fishes, woods and rivers, which he entitled "The British Domain." In 1845, after 

 another lapse of nearly one hundred years, Fred Tolfey, a British officer much 

 quoted by Frank Forester, and in fact his chosen guide and mentor, published two 

 illustrated volumes, which were printed in London and received with signal favor. 



More recently, in 1863, J. M. Le Moine, the historian of Canada, described the 

 Restigouche in glowing terms in his "Wilderness Journeyings Through New Bruns- 

 wick." Harper's Monthly took up the favorite refrain in 1868, and Hallock's ''Fish- 

 ing Tourist" continued it in 1873. Since which date the river has become more 

 and more the Mecca of high-grade anglers, until at present all its lower reaches 

 are occupied with stands and cottages, and a fishing privilege along its exclusive 

 borders is valued more than a college diploma, the mere possession thereof being 

 accepted as a warrant of social standing. 



RECOLLECTIONS OF A VETERAN. 



Yet, after all that has been said and printed, how much of its eventful history 

 remains unwritten ! For my own part, I could fill a volume with personal reminis- 

 cences of hard-fought battles, lost leaders, blank scores, and hung-up casting lines 

 which appear as marginalia in the retrospect; and it is upon my pen's point, right 



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