OF SHOOTING AND FISHING 25 
staple dish of the habitant, so on the way we called 
at a number of farmhouses and at last secured a 
supply of butter. As it turned out, this was un- 
necessary, but one must always provide for the 
possibility of not getting game. 
The town of Metabetchuan is situated on Lake 
St. John and can be reached from Quebec directly 
by rail, or by boat up the Saguenay and then by 
rail from Chicoutimi. It is absolutely French. 
Very few of the inhabitants understand one word 
- of English. About four miles to the south, wooded 
hills could be seen, but the flat country between 
these and the lake had been cleared and a fairly 
high standard of cultivation prevailed, while neat 
and prosperous-looking houses occurred every few 
hundred yards. When [I left the railway, there 
was not a cloud in the sky and the weather re- 
mained perfect during the trip. The forest began 
at the hills—one could climb the fence surrounding 
a well-cultivated field and drop into primeval for- 
est on the other side. We could form an idea of 
how densely populated the flat country was by the 
nutiber of conveyances we met filled to overflow- 
ing with men, women, and children going to church. 
A sawmill marked the end of the good road, as 
after this it became one of the worst possible, being 
simply a broad lane cut through the timber. Pass- 
ing wheels had cut two ruts where rock permitted, 
and the higher one wheel would rise going over a 
stone the lower the other would sink. When one 
considers that it had been pouring for a week, 
the condition of affairs may be imagined. Bridges 
