1.06 THE SALMON FISHER. 



woods to the centre and upper pools. This path is 

 no blind trail tangled with roots, obstructed with 

 stones, and soft with miry spots, but a hard and 

 well-beaten track, whose inequalities of surface have 

 carefully been removed. Chasms and swampy places 

 have been bridged with hewn logs. Hand rails have 

 l>een stretched along the precipitous ledges which 

 infringe on the rapids; huge rocks which obstructed 

 the passage have been blown away; sides of the hill 

 have been dug down; steps have been cut in the 

 granite; hollows have been filled up with earth. 

 "Here and there along the route sparkling springs, 

 -cooled by the ice of the previous winter which had 

 not yet melted altogether away from the rifts and 

 -crevices, gush from the moss-padded clefts and 

 -empty into convenient artificial basins, at which tin 

 cups have been placed for grateful service to the 

 thirsty. As the banks are steep, the path for the 

 most part is many feet above the river bed and 

 ^within sight of the stream. Sometimes it buries it- 

 self in the thick spruces and balsams, and betimes 

 winds down to the very edge of the water. The 

 .dew is constantly changing as one passes along, not 



