232 FRANK forester's field sports. 



on Sporting subjects, should republish my labors for their own 

 advantage, as the selection of such articles implies preference, 

 and is therefore in some sort a complimenr. I do, however, 

 most seriously protest, both in my own name, and in that of the 

 Sporting brotherhood here, whether imported — like myself — or 

 to the manor born, against being transmogrified into some 

 strange fish which we never pretended to be, and against having 

 our writings converted into silly balderdash, by glaring misap- 

 plication of names and places. What would not be the roar of 

 laughter at home, should it be discovered that an American pe- 

 riodical had quoted part of Mr. Scrope's fine work on " Deer 

 Stalking," ascribed to a " Gentleman of Whitechapel," and 

 represented as having come off on Highgate Hill, or in Epping 

 Forest % Yet this is pretty much the way in which Mr. Carle- 

 ton has dealt by me, and one or two others of my fellow-scrib- 

 blers here. 



But, to return to our muttons ! The first thing to be done, in 

 general, on a tramp after Moose or Cariboo, is to encamp for 

 the first night, since it- is rare that a single day's march carries 

 the sportsman to the scene of action ; and this process of en- 

 campment is one of the most exciting and spirit-stirring things 

 conceivable, being by no means untinctured with a soit of rude, 

 half-poetical romance. 



The arms are stacked, or hung from the branches of the giant 

 pines around the camp ; the goods are piled ; the snow is 

 scraped away from a large area, and heaped into banks to wind- 

 ward ; a tree or two is felled, and a fire kindled, v.liich might 

 roast a Moose entire ; beds are prepared of tlie soft and fra- 

 grant tips f)f cedar and hemlock brnnclies ; and the party gathers 

 about the cheerful blaze, keeping to windward of the mimic 

 Vesuvius, while the collops are hissing in the frying-pan, the 

 coffee is simmering in the camp kettle, and the fish or game — if 

 the Indians have found time to catch a salmon-trout or two 

 through the ice of some frozen lake, or the sportsmen have 

 brought down a brace or two of Ruffed or Canada Grouse — is 

 roasting on wooden spits before the fire, with the rich gravy 



