516 Sea -Trout Fishing. 



shooting seals on the ice, catching fish for salting, and hunting the 

 porpoise. They are all wiry, agile fellows, temperate, docile, and 

 good-natured. As guides, they are thoroughly faithful and expert, 

 but a trifle lazy at times, and slow to learn anything beyond their 

 range of habit. Part of them are of mixed race, part pure Canadian 

 French, with a trace of gentle blood now and then, due to some 

 irregular noble of the early days. Tadousac being the terminus a quo, 

 beyond which nothing can be had, the traveler's first care is to 

 examine his sporting chattels, accumulated there during years, and 

 to find or set them all in order. If rats have gnawed the canvas of 

 his tents, or the bed-sacking or bags, these are to be mended. The 

 winter in a store-house may have dealt hardly with his canoes, that 

 need perhaps bark patches or a thwart, and certainly new pitching. 

 The tinker's art is among his guide's accomplishments, should the 

 "batterie de cuisine" show signs of wear. Then the chaloupe is to 

 be inspected as she lies aslant above low-tide mark on the sands — 

 a seven or eight ton lighter-built craft, of some three feet draft, one- 

 masted, with jigger astern, and stub bowsprit. Midships is a hold 

 for ballast and cargo, forward a cabin built for dwarfs but holding 

 berths, seats, and a table, and astern a clear space for handling 

 sheets and helm, large enough for enjoyment of the evening pipe 

 and the morning douche. All at last overhauled and stowed, the 

 canoes triced up outside the shrouds and the special case of stores 

 sorted for the cruise, which may last no one knows how long, we wait 

 for a gentle south-west and the first of the ebb. 



Opposite Tadousac, the St. Lawrence has a breadth of over twenty 

 miles. Here the Saguenay, storming in, conquers the greater flood, 

 as the Missouri does the Mississippi, and deepens the grandeur and 

 wildness of its scenery. The southern bank is as picturesque and 

 less rugged, but along the widening water we hug the northern 

 shore, seldom stretching across far enough to see the outlines of the 

 other break into distinct masses. Only below its junction with the 

 Saguenay can the imperial character of this majestic river be felt. 

 Crossing half a continent to meet the sea half way, it spreads like a 

 sea itself, and tosses dangerous waves under a sudden gale. On the 

 north it washes the base of spurs sent out by the great Laurentian 

 range, whose iron-bound off-shoots frown down over the whole 

 lower course of the river, retreating at points for a few miles, and 



