Salmon -Fishing. 



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some there that, to fish comfortably, it is neces- 

 sary to protect the face and neck, and cover the 

 finger-tips with a mixture of tar, sweet-oil, and 

 pennyroyal. Gaspe insects seem fond of new- 

 comers, and our blood afforded them a favorite tipple. 

 Seriously, however, we were not much inconven- 

 ienced, as we took every known precaution against 

 them, and not only had our rooms thoroughly smoked 

 with smudges, but kept large smoldering fires around the 

 houses the greater part of the time. When ladies fish, 

 a smudge is kept burning upon a flat stone in the canoe. 

 We reached our comfortable quarters at House No. 1 

 at nine p. m. while it was still light. We found that our 

 house was clapboarded, and contained two comfortable 

 rooms ; one with berths like a steamer's, which were 

 furnished with hair mattresses and mosquito-bars ; the 

 other served as sitting and dining room. A large log 

 house adjoined and was furnished with a good cooking- 

 stove, while a tent was already pitched to serve as quarters for our 

 men — five in number. Stoves and furniture are permanent fixtures 

 of the houses at the different stations, as are the heavier cooking- 

 utensils, so that in moving up the stream one has merely to carry 

 crockery, provisions, blankets, and mosquito-bars, — which latter are 

 of strong thin jute canvas. Above the first house, the men make your 

 beds of piles of little twigs of the fragrant fir-balsam, whose beauties 

 have been recorded by every writer upon angling. Near each house 

 is a snow-house, dug into the hill-side and thickly covered with fir- 

 boughs and planks. The snow is packed in them in winter by the 

 men who go up for that purpose and to hunt the caribou that frequent 

 the hills adjoining the river. The snow lasts through the season, and 

 is more convenient than ice. If one drinks champagne, he has but to 

 open a basket upon his arrival and imbed the bottles in the snow, and 

 he has at any moment 2ifrappe equal to Delmonico's best. The fish 

 as soon as killed are packed in the snow, as are the butter, milk, and 

 eggs when brought up every two or three days by the courier, who 

 remains at the Basin ready to start for you at any moment that let- 

 ters or telegrams arrive. Our courier delighted in surprises for us 

 such as baskets of native strawberries and cream for our dessert. Ten 

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