BALE DES CHALEUR3. 151 



All the salmon-fishing of the Nepissiguit is included be- 

 tween its mouth and the " Great Falls." At the last locality 

 the river is very much contracted, and the banks are rocky 

 and perpendicular. The total height of the Falls is one 

 hundred and forty feet. There are four separate leaps, but 

 only the two lowest are visible from below. At the foot of 

 each are deep basins, and below them for about a mile a 

 number of gloomy pools and rapids, which seethe with per- 

 petual foam and chafe with deafening roar. And the " con- 

 stantly rising spray keeps ever fresh with a vivid green the 

 foliage that crowns the impinging cliffs. Birds congregate 

 here in the summer heats, and luxuriate in the coolness of 

 the spray and verdure. Here in the spring, when drives of 

 logs come bowling down on the surge of the freshets, they 

 shoot the precipice with a terrific leap, and diving into the 

 projecting angles and ledges of rock end foremost, are often 

 splintered or shattered to pieces. It is a grand sight to see 

 the logs careering on the tumbling billows toward the 

 chasm an ever-shifting, pitching, surging mass and then, 

 charging in close phalanx, or singly, and by twos and threes, 

 leap the frightful brink. Now one strikes its end upon a 

 hidden ledge, and plunges into the abyss with a desperate 

 somerset. Anon a veteran stick, some seventy feet long 

 and straight as an arrow, floats majestically down, scarcely 

 moved by the commotion, and with a stately dignity and 

 tremendous impetus clears the verge at a bound. For an 

 instant its vast length hangs in air, then turning quickly it 

 strikes the pool with a perpendicular fall on end, and direct- 

 ly vanishes from sight. For one long and anxious moment 

 it is lost in the black and unknown depths ; then suddenly 

 it shoots up from the surface like a great rocket, forcing 

 three-fourths of its length out of the water, totters for an 

 instant, and falling with a mighty splash, hurries down 

 stream to mingle with its fellows. I suppose that for wild 

 commotion and- weird effects these falls are unsurpassed by 



