100 TRAVELS IN THE EIGHTIES. 



to their intense gratification. After this ceremony 

 had been completed, away over the inland sea again 

 we paddled, for I was longing to reach the fishing 

 ground. Close by, the large Ashaupmouchouan 

 Eiver helped to swell the already high waters of the 

 lake. By this river, as well as by the Mistassini, has 

 the country to the northward been reached. But it is 

 a wild, barren land, inhabited only by uninteresting 

 Indian tribes, and attractive neither to the sportsman, 

 agriculturist nor traveller. The Peribonca Eiver had 

 to be made that evening, for, owing to the unusual 

 height of the water, absolutely no dry camping 

 ground was obtainable on the borders of the lake, 

 a state of things quite sufficient to put backbone into 

 the strokes of the paddles, not to mention the hosts of 

 winged scorpions that made life itself purgatory under 

 the quiet pine-trees. My men sang and talked as 

 they paddled along, for the French Canadian is the 

 most irrepressible creature under the sun, and always 

 gay and merry, even under the most sombre and dis- 

 tressing circumstances, always joking and on good 

 terms with himself and all the rest of creation, but 

 hardly ever 'with a penny in his pocket.' As my two 

 men paddled along with a will the Peribonca was 

 reached long before dark, and we found time to fish 

 while searching for a suitable camping ground, and 

 succeeded in landing a pike-perch 3J Ibs., a pike (Fr. 

 brocket) of 2^ Ibs., and lastly a land-locked salmon (or 

 ouininnish) of 3 Jibs., all weighed, of course, by machine. 

 No more shall be said about gnats ; they shall " go 



