Sea - Trout FisJiiug. 



517 



opening everywhere among their recesses great breadths of a clayey 

 soil, dotted with lakes, and channeled by rapid rivers. Some of these 

 are fed by large sheets of water, and follow a course of over a hun- 



«S 



CLAY BANK AND RAPIDS. 



dred miles, while others run for less than a third that distance. 

 Long, sandy capes jut into the river, and rocky islets fringe it, but for 

 many unbroken leagues of its flow it laps the feet of the savage gray 

 crags or chafes around granite blocks banded with, red and purple. 

 A fisherman's house under a cliff", a cluster of huts or a light-house 

 where a stream pours in, and a single great saw-mill and lumber 

 depot are the only inhabited spots along hundreds of miles in its 

 course. The voyager making a port from curiosity or stress of 

 weather gains a hearty welcome, giving in exchange his week-old 

 news, fresh and strange to his hosts. The immense expanse of the 

 river, notwithstanding the steady commerce traversing it, is lonely 

 IS the sea — and often days pass without meeting a sail. With a 

 fresh south-west breeze such as often prevails in August, the run 

 has been made from Tadousac to the destination within twelve 

 hours. ( M'tener. sailing with the morning ebb at nine, the afternoon 

 of the next day has seen us at camp. ( >ne melancholy diary 

 records four nights spent aboard with alternations of thick fog and 

 baffling north-easter; our V »sel, after a tossing struggle of endless 

 33A 



