YIELDING TO CIRCUMSTANCES. 231 



turn to the tents there were no signs of life but an occasional 

 snore, the noises of hares, porcupines, and squirrels in the 

 grove hard by, and the two songsters singing so merrily as 

 to drown the music of the musquitoes. On examining my 

 watch I learned that it was five o'clock. I therefore deter- 

 mined on arousing the cook and the gaffers. They arose 

 with reluctance, rubbed their eyes, washed their faces and 

 hands in the river, and that was all the toilet-making needed, 

 for they had slept with their boots an.d shoes on as protec- 

 tion against flies. John, the captain of the gang, because of 

 his superior Milesian intelligence, who could speak equally 

 well bad English and villainous French, informed me that it 

 never had been the custom under Dr. Bluff, of the First -Fusi- 

 leers, or any gentleman who had previously fished that river, 

 to rise before seven, or to commence fishing before nine. 

 Well, then, I replied, we Yankees will teach you a new lesson. 

 But, upon ascertaining that my friends were opposed to ris- 

 ing early, or fishing before breakfast, I yielded ; and thence- 

 forward the cook and guides suited their own comfort about 

 rising, and we did riot get started for angling until the sun 

 had scorched the toes and dried the whistles of the musqui- 

 toes. 



But it seemed that the noise caused from mustering the 

 men had awakened the doctor, who crawled out of his tent 

 with modest care for fear of arousing the other two inmates, 

 when he mildly saluted me with " Good morning; how came 

 your eye out ?" I replied that my eyes were good enough 

 to perceive that three or four bites from black flies had 

 changed his phiz into a picture of a Chinese monstrosity. 

 " You don't say so !" he ejaculated. " Where ?" I pointed 

 to one of his eyes, his bare caput, his face, etc. On examin- 

 ing them, he forthwith applied ammonia to the bites, and 

 bathed mine also with it. 



Smudge fires were at once made before our tents and ex- 

 temporized breakfast-place. Our cuisinier was soon engaged 

 at frying pork and Bermuda onions, broiling salmon, making 



