OF SHOOTING AND FISHING 27. 
_ all the modes of travel known to me, that by canoe 
is the most comfortable. The voyageur can sit up, 
or recline at any angle, and the amount of cargo 
one of these craft can carry is amazing. The cabin 
was a one-roomed affair; in it there were two beds 
of boughs, and the whole place was saturated with 
the delightful odor of spruce. I chopped wood 
while the guides were unloading, and in a very 
short time a fire was roaring in the stove and sup- 
per was being prepared. After this we sat out- 
side and smoked while the long twilight lasted. 
It is customary to supply one’s guides with to- 
bacco, and the plugs were often refused with 
**Merci beaucoup, cela suffit,’’ which rather stag- 
gered me, as I had never before met guides who 
would refuse anything. Their own tobacco inter- 
ested me very much, consisting as it did of dry 
green leaves and stalks broken up into big pieces 
and carried loose in a paper bag. They told me 
that by the next night, we should be in the moose 
country and that we might see caribou on the way. 
I turned in early and slept well on my spruce 
boughs. 
On Monday at 5:00 a. M., the men were stirring, 
and by six, we were at breakfast; half an hour later 
we were off down the lake. There was not a rip- 
ple; there was not a cloud, and the brilliant col- 
ouring of the forest could be seen above the slowly 
dispersing bank of vapour which lay along the 
shore. The silence was broken only by the wild 
note of the great northern diver. Several of these 
birds could be seen some distance down the lake. 
