COURSE OF TRAINING. 233 



for the river again, when I would doff the dry clothes and re- 

 place them by wet wading ones and shoes, with thick woolen 

 half hose sometimes two pairs in a very large pair of shoes. 

 Wide-soled pegged bottoms are the best. This changing of 

 dresses was our daily modus operand* / and I waded, bathed, 

 changed dress, whipped, played salmon, and was bitten by 

 flies until I reduced my weight more than twenty pounds. 

 I therefore suggest salmon-angling as the best training that 

 a person can indulge in whose adiposity preponderates. This 

 system has the advantage of " Banting on Corpulence," be- 

 cause, while it reduces the amount of fat or adipose matter, 

 it hardens the muscles, and thus improves the wind and phys- 

 ical power of a man. If a person desires training so as to 

 endure great fatigue, and render him more active and supple, 

 I advise him to forthwith apply for a salmon-river ; and, aft- 

 er having secured a lease of it for the usual term of nine 

 years, to send a good, trusty man there next April, and let 

 him employ a couple of Canadian half-breeds, buy a couple 

 of bark canoes, to be had for fifteen dollars each, and let your 

 man build a couple of log huts at the foot of each of the prin- 

 cipal rapids or falls, and let him cover them well with birch 

 bark, and line them throughout with the bark, so as to keep 

 out the flies. A chimney is quite unnecessary, as a smudge 

 fire in the middle of the cabin will keep the flies away, if 

 musquito-netting covers each window or aperture left to ad- 

 mit light. Then I should advise visiting the river as early 

 as the 15th of June, and angling until the end of July. This 

 plan will insure a month of good fishing, and no trouble 

 from the effects of flies worth naming. In fact, it will un- 

 bend the mind, invigorate the body, and renew your lease 

 of life. 



Of biting flies, the following, written by the Bishop of 

 Quebec while on a journey up the Red River, in his " Songs 

 of the Wilderness," is truthfully expressive : 



