The Halcyon in Canada. 571 



From Riviere du Loup, where we passed the night and ate our 

 first " Tommy-cods," our thread of travel makes a big loop around 

 New Brunswick to St. John, thence out and down through Maine 

 to Boston, — a thread upon which many delightful excursions and 

 reminiscences might be strung. We traversed the whole of the 

 valley of the Metapedia, and passed the doors of many famous 

 salmon streams and rivers, and heard everywhere the talk they 

 inspire ; one could not take a nap in the car for the excitement of 

 the big fish stories he was obliged to overhear. 



The Metapedia is a most enticing-looking stream ; its waters are 

 as colorless as melted snow ; I could easily have seen the salmon in 

 it as we shot along, if they had come out from their hiding-places. 

 It was the first white-water stream we had seen since leaving the 

 Catskills ; for all the Canadian streams are black or brown, either 

 from the iron in the soil or from the leechings of the spruce swamps. 

 But in New Brunswick we saw only these clear, silver-shod 

 streams ; I imagined they had a different ring or tone also. 

 The Metapedia is deficient in good pools in its lower portions ; 

 its limpid waters flowing with a tranquil murmur over its wide, 

 evenly paved bed for miles at a stretch. The salmon pass over 

 these shallows by night and rest in the pools by day. The Resti- 

 gouche, which it joins, and which is a famous salmon-stream and the 

 father of famous salmon-streams, is of the same complexion and a 

 delight to look upon. There is a noted pool where the two join, 

 and one can sit upon the railroad bridge and count the noble 

 fish in the lucid depths below. The valley here is fertile, and has 

 a cultivated, well-kept look. 



We passed the Jacquet, the Belledune, the Nepissisquit, the 

 Miramichi ("happy retreat") in the night, and have only their bird- 

 call names to report. 



