THE AMERICAN TROUT. 37 



streams of Sullivan and Orange counties, and in fact all 

 the lower tier of counties in this State, before the Erie 

 Railroad was built, and opened the land to the crowd of 

 market men. I am proud to say I have travelled that 

 country when it took the stage coach twelve hours to go 

 twenty -four miles, and when, if we were in a hurry, we 

 Walked, and sent our baggage by the coach. Now you 

 are jerked along high above our favorite meadows, 

 directly through our wildest hills, and often under our 

 best streams, at the rate of forty miles an hour, and yet 

 people call that an improvement. As well might you 

 lug a man out of bed at night, drag him a dozen times 

 round his room, and fling him back into bed, and say he 

 was improved by the operation. "No one wants to be 

 lugged out of bed, precisely as no one wanted to travel 

 beyond Sullivan County ; the best shooting and fishing 

 in the world was to be found there. 



"When the railroad was first opened, the country was 

 literally overrun, and Bashe's Kill, Pine Kill, the Sand- 

 berg, the Mon Gaup and Callicoon, and even Beaver 

 Kill, which we thought were inexhaustible, were fished 

 out. For many years trout had almost ceased from out 

 of the waters, but the horrible public, having their 

 attention drawn to the Adirondacks, gave it a little rest, 

 and now the fishing is good. 



If you go there, stop at George Durrance's, in "Wurts- 

 borough, and if he boasts of fishing, as he will,*" ask him 

 whether he remembers going to the Sandberg one day, 

 many years ago, to show a Yorker how to catch trout. 



It was a bright sunshiny day, and as we drove up to the 

 edge of the bank, above a clear, rapid, sparkling stream, I 



* If lie is alive at this writing. 



