SALMON-SLAYING INDIANS. 137 



exceed the wild excitement with which these men pur- 

 sue it. The sombre night-scene of the forest river 

 seems to delight them. The elder man occupies the 

 stern of the canoe, while the younger takes the * post of 

 honour ' forward. The murmur of waterfalls and rapids 

 drowns their exclamatory ughs, and the frequent splash 

 that would else disturb the pervading stillness. With 

 steady, stealthy speed, the birchen boat enters the 

 rapid, and, cutting through its white waters, glides 

 smoothly over the fall and into the ' tail ' of the pool 

 above, or across the quiet 'reach.' The blazing torch, 

 stuck in a cleft stake, and leaning over the bow of the 

 canoe, glares with dazzling brightness. The flame and 

 shadow, swayed by ripples, conceal the spearers' forms, 

 and bewilder the doomed salmon. Like moths, they 

 sidle towards the fatal light. Their silvery sides and 

 amber-coloured eyeballs glisten through the rippling 

 water. The dilated eyes, the expanding nostrils, and 

 compressed lips of the swarthy canoe-men, fitly picture 

 their eager, excited mood. A quick deadly aim, a sud- 

 den violent swirl, and some convulsive struggles tell 

 the rest. The aquatic captive, with blood, and spawn, 

 and slime, and entrails, besmears the inside of the canoe. 

 During a single night, from fifty to two hundred salmon 

 may be thus slaughtered, and have as many more lacer- 

 ated in their efforts to escape the pools at such seasons 

 being too shallow to afford certain safety in retreat. 

 The speared salmon are sold to traders at their own 

 price, as the deteriorating mode of capture so much 

 depreciates the fish. That the Indians must suffer 

 starvation by being deprived of their * native liberty ' 

 to ruin our salmon-fisheries, is a very flimsy apology on 

 the part of those who still desire to perpetuate so flag- 

 rant an abuse/' 



So, then, the same unreflecting spirit of destructive- 

 ness against the noble salmon is active alike in the 

 confluents of the St Lawrence and the Tweed. Let all 

 sportsmen, let all lovers of salmon, unite in putting an 



