520 AMERICAN ANGLER'S BOOK. 



" There is a pleasure in the pathless wood." 



It would have afforded me satisfaction, there and then, to have knocked 

 his head off. 



We accomplished the end, nevertheless, and reached the hank of the 

 Megalloway just above the falls, to avoid which we had passed the " carry." 

 We found here a little flat-bottomed boat, about fourteen feet long, and 

 amply sufficient to carry a pound of butter and a dozen eggs, and when 

 the guide told us that we were all to go in that cockle-shell, I proceeded 

 to narrate to him a legend relating to three individuals of age and experi- 

 ence, who are reported to have dwelt in the State of New York, and who 

 set forth upon a certain journey by water, in a class of sailing-craft not 

 popularly in vogue among mariners, and with regard to whom it is confi- 

 dently asserted that if their means of conveyance had been of a more 

 permanent character, their traditionary reminiscences would have been 

 prolonged. 



Our guide, however, assured us that the week before the same frail bark 

 had brought down four men with a moose they had killed ; and somewhat 

 reassured; but still with fear and trembling, we loaded our luggage. The 

 vessel sank in the water to within three inches of her gunwale, and we 

 had to keep the trim so nicely adjusted that if you winked one eye with- 

 out the other, you were in imminent danger of upsetting. 



Once fairly started, thoughts of danger vanished, and our little boat 

 glanced over the water at a refreshing rate. 



The river was perfectly still, with no current, and its smooth surface 

 only broken by the leap of the Trout, and the splashing start of the fright- 

 ened wild-duck. High mountains arose on either side, and the river-banks 

 were lined with scrubby pine and birch, whose interlaced boughs ren- 

 dered passage impervious except to the denizens of the forest. 



Our point of destination was a place called Beaver Brook, some two 

 miles up the stream, where it was supposed that Trout would be found. 

 We reached there about five o'clock in the afternoon, and the sport then 

 began in earnest. In my time I have fished, as it may be, considerable. 

 I have fished for various specimens of the finny tribe ; I have essayed Cod 

 in Boston Harbor, and Herring and Mackerel on the sea-coast; I have 

 whipped almost every stream for Trout in Massachusetts and Connecticut ; 

 I have taken Salmon in the Ohio, Trout in Mackinaw and Minnesota, Perch 

 in the Mississippi, and bobbed for Whale on the coasts of Florida, but I 

 had not reached the acme of fishing. As before stated, I had heard all 



