NOVA SCOTIA. 121 



and Indian villages of primitive bark ; and there are numer- 

 ous other lakes and streams in the vicinity of various de- 

 grees of excellence as fishing-grounds. The angler can go 

 forth arrayed in the full panoply of the aristocratic sports- 

 man's livery, and cast his line in pleasant places, where he 

 can have the most assiduous attention of well-instructed 

 servants at table and in the field, with mine host to titillate 

 his fastidious palate with all the tidbits of the season ; or he 

 can attire himself in ordinary service suits and take civilized 

 pot-luck at wayside farm houses ; or he can eschew all comforts 

 and rough it in the bush, regaling himself on hard tack, 

 fish, and frizzled pork. Army officers especially have a pen- 

 chant for " a day's fishing." Some of them are no common- 

 place manipulators of fine tackle ; and when they can se- 

 cure a short furlough from the commanding officer of the 

 garrison, they summon their retinue of servants, and with a 

 wagon-load of tents, tackle, relishes, and fine wines, sally 

 forth to favorite haunts on Indian Eiver and other neigh- 

 boring salmon-streams that empty into Margaret's Bay, some 

 twenty miles from Halifax. Here are famous sporting- 

 houses the "Alma," the "Inkerman," and "Mason's," 

 where, if report be true, there is more flirting done than 

 fishing. For mine hosts have pretty daughters, whom a 

 proximity to town has initiated into the mysteries of the 

 toilet and the heart more attractive to Her Majesty's sus- 

 ceptible defenders than all the allurements of leafy woods 

 and sylvan streams. Nevertheless, there are a few devotees to 

 rod and reel who heed not the wooings of the sirens, but ex- 

 tend their journey to that other region of superior sport, the 

 third, which now remains to be noticed. 



This district, which I shall call the Shelburne district, em- 

 braces nearly the whole of Shelburne, Queens, and Lunen- 

 burg counties, the same being the southern half of a wilder- 

 ness tract some sixty miles by ninety in extent. It is em- 

 phatically the lake region of Nova Scotia. All that it lacks 

 is the grand old mountains to make it physically as attractive 



