138 NEW BRUNSWICK. 



kingdom. Continuing on to the Tobique Kiver, we will 

 prepare for a canoe voyage to the Nepissiguit, albeit we 

 are secluded from fishing, for salmon. When we have 

 crossed the heights of land by the portage, and de- 

 scended to the Great Falls of Nepissiguit, we shall 

 doubtless receive an invitation from some of the lessees in 

 camp there to "wet a line." Years ago, it was a glorious 

 sight, at the mouth of the Tobique, to see the Indians spear- 

 ing salmon , by torchlight. At a distance, in the night, the 

 torches looked like fire-flies flitting. There is an Indian 

 village here, and often there were not less than fifty men 

 spearing at once. Eight glorious pastime is it to the novice 

 to sit in the middle of the canoe, when so fortunate as to 

 receive such a privilege, and watch the birch-bark torches 

 glinting and flashing over the surface of the stream, and 

 casting their lurid glare into the darksome depths. With a 

 motion that is wholly noiseless, and never lifting his paddle 

 from the water, the Indian in the stern slowly and cautiously 

 propels the little craft across the dark pools where the salmon 

 rest. Under the streaming smoke and showering sparks of 

 the torch in the bow, the spearman kneels motionless as a 

 statue, with spear at poise. And although the midges, or 

 minute sand-flies, swarm so thickly as to cast a sort of halo 

 about the torch, stinging his face and hands like nettles or 

 red-hot pepper, not a muscle moves. Down at the bottom, 

 twenty feet below, we can see every pebble. There are 

 salmon lying there too, but too deep down to strike, for the 

 spear-handle is no more than twelve feet in length. Once 

 in a while a big fish sculls slowly along nearer the surface. 

 Ha! what's that? A subaqueous shadow shot by like a 

 rocket! Larry had raised his spear, but the fish was too 

 quick for him. Slower and more cautiously we move. The 

 progress is scarcely perceptible. More motionless than ever 

 the statue in the bow appears. No salmon yet. Now we 

 are at the head of the " reach," and turning ever so silently, 

 glide down stream with the current. The paddle in the 



