HOW I CAUGHT MY FIRST SALMON. 183 



early hour, I found myself, seated with S. in his 

 buckboard, jogging along behind one of those un- 

 surpassable Canadian ponies, whom I will back for 

 endurance against any corresponding quantity of steel 

 and iron. Cob-shaped, about 14.3 in height, these 

 little beasts will go at the rate of seven miles an hour 

 for a whole day, with no other refreshment than a 

 mouthful of hay at the mid-day halt, and occasional 

 godowns of water at the little brooks that from time 

 to time traverse the road. They never require the 

 whip ; the voice guides a good pony entirely. You 

 hear the driver exclaiming, in his Canadian patois, 

 " Ma(r)che, done, Dandy ! ma(r)che, done, mon 

 brave ! " or, if Dandy appear refractory, " Ma(r)che, 

 Dandy ! ma(r)che, vilaine bete ! ma(r)che, paresseuse ! " 

 Thanks to these objurgations, we proceeded success- 

 fully, though, our steed being lame, we only drove 

 him fifty miles the first day, halting for the night at 

 a French hotel, not, I must own, of the pretensions 

 of the Bristol or Louvre, but, notwithstanding, an 

 establishment where, by dint of using your own 

 knives and forks, and provisions, and by sleeping 

 in your ulster on a chair, very tolerable accommoda- 

 tion was procurable. Nevertheless we did not linger 

 at Madame Brochu's, and at an early hour next morn- 

 ing "En route, Dandy," was the cry ; and a further 

 drive of twenty-five miles through half-cleared, half- 

 burnt woods parallel to the line of the Intercolonial 

 Kailway, then in process of construction, brought us 



