520 Sea -Trout Fishing. 



now and then, peering over the side to catch a glimpse of trout 

 flitting like a shade through the depths if they have yet begun 

 their wandering up, and often is able to say that they are moving 

 in numbers — as often says it when none are seen. In his good- 

 nature and eagerness to make it pleasant, this dear guide sees 

 many things that are invisible, counts much more game than is 

 caught, and never permits the puniest trout to be hooked without 

 shouting "quel saunion / " Now and then whirling around a point, 

 the river races down on us with the fierceness of a torrent, tossing in 

 waves along a clay escarpment towering fifty feet, which it has cut 

 down square and sheer as if with a razor. The rocks and pebbles 

 are all shot off to the other bank, where the passenger may walk 

 and wade while David gives the canoe rope, and plashes as he tows 

 her alongside in the shallows. It is usual to refrain from casting the 

 line on the way up, not only for the sake of avoiding delays — but, 

 since the camp looks down on the choicest pool in all the river, why 

 take the edge from the rapture of landing the best the first ? As we 

 ascend, the rapids grow more frequent — twenty have been counted 

 from tide to camp, and all the number not told. More level spaces 

 and denser trees succeed, the channel breaks up in places with islets 

 of rock ; and at last, rounding a curve, one of these lifts its feathery 

 point of willows, David reverses his pole to hush the clang of the 

 iron shoe on the stones, a few strong thrusts force the boat up against 

 the rush of the narrowing outlet, and she touches the bank at the 

 foot of the Homer Pool. Before anything is unloaded, the angler 

 springs out, rigs a cast, and hurrying to the head of the pool, drops 

 his first fly. That moment is crowded with the expectation of the 

 whole past year. Two of us once so landed and so stood, and four 

 large fish for each were raised and netted before the men had cleared 

 the canoes of their load. But that year there was much grass in the 

 place, and the multitudes of mosquitoes sat on it, being in number 

 about a million, each having also compressed twelve months' expec- 

 tation into that moment. The thirst for blood on our side was soon 

 satisfied, while the insects, far from taking off their keen edge, grew 

 industrious in putting it on. 



At this point, the stream, spreading out to a hundred and fifty 

 feet in width, wheels to the right, striking a turtle-shaped rock nearly 

 flush with the surface which splits it in two, hollowing on the near 



