182 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[April 3, 1884. 



THE LAKE YACHT RACING ASSOCIATION. 

 T^HE formation of an association by the yacht clubs on the 

 -*- chain of fresh -water lakes, is now an accomplished 

 fact. At a spirited meeting held in Toronto, Saturday last, 

 representatives from the principal clubs, both on the Canadian 

 and American shores, drew up a constitution for the proper 

 government of the new union. With the customs and laws 

 of racing assimilated, a new era has opened for the prosperity 

 of the sport. Through the adoption of the length and sail 

 area rule of measurement, competition between the represen- 

 tatives of different types can now be undertaken with some- 

 thing like rational interpretation to the results. Individuals 

 will not be forced into the construction of the largest sail 

 carriers for the only purpose of Tacing, but can suit their 

 preferences in all respects, and build to meet other require- 

 ments besides. The custom of making the rounds, which is 

 the very life of match sailing, will now take a fresh hold 

 upon lake yachtsmen, and the voyages and passages such 

 undertaking entails, is certain to bring to the fore that boat 

 best suited for the fresh-water seas. The constitution we 

 will print in full next week with some further material bear- 

 ing upon the subject. 



"WOODCRAFT:' 

 W^E are pleased, but, we confess, not very much sur- 



' ' prised, at the interest manifested by the general pub- 

 lic in the little volume which we shall soon issue. Those 

 who read it will find that it is very different from any book 

 of the kind that they have ever seen. The striking feature 

 of the book is that there is no waste about it, no writing to 

 fill up, no padding. If the author had anything to say 

 which did not teach some lesson he just left it out. Those 

 who are familiar with "Nessmuk's" writings will understand 

 that the style of the book is very attractive. Those who 

 know that it is the outcome of fifty years' experience will 

 understand that the book is replete with information. To 

 give some notion of what may be found within its covers, let 

 us quote from a letter received some time ago from the 

 author. He says : 



And let me say that I have not tried to emulate Carlyle or Emerson 

 in style. My purpose has heen to make the book plain, simple and 

 concise. Never to use three words or syllables where two will serve. 



To give such directions as will enable the average outer— 



To maue his outing a pleasure instead of a misery, a comfort in- 

 stead of a calamity ; 



To sleep on a fragrant, elastic bed and pillow at night, instead of 

 abrading his sesthetie vertebrae with roots and stubs :| 



To go light; 



To keep warm and dry; 



To cook plain, wholesome meals: 



To ceme out of the woods refreshed and comforted; 



To get a dollar's worth of recreation and rest for every doMar spent; 



To learn Nature in her secret ways. 



To teach something of all this, "Woodcraft" is written. 



Let the great army of outers decide whether the book is worth 

 taking into the woods. Nessmuk. 



As he says, it is for the public to decide whether the 

 author has accomplished his purpose. That we believe that 

 he has done so goes without saying. "Woodcraft" will prob- 

 ably be issued in a week or ten days. The reader is referred 

 te our advertising columns for further information. 



foe jtyortettinn %onri$L 



MAJOR JOSEPH VERITY. 



BOlffi OF II r< SPORTING ADVENTURES, AS MODESTLY SET 

 FORTH BY HIS OWN HAND. 



Chapter VIII. 



SOMETHING which I hinted at in my last chapter I may 

 as well enlarge somewhat upon now as at another time, 

 and that is of the manner in which things, animate as well 

 as inanimate, are drawn to one another. By some invisible 

 impulse the polar bear and seal are drawn to frozen salt 

 water, and seafowl to salt water unfrozen, just as strongly 

 and surely as the needle to the pole, smoke to the sky, sparks 

 toward their kindred, the stars, and water ever downward 

 by some unseen power. Thus, also, according to my belief, 

 by some intangible, ethereal attraction, and not, as commonly 

 supposed, by a base, sanguinary desire, the hound is led 

 toward the hare, the fox and the deer; the pointer, setter and 

 spaniel drawn to game birds. For when each has come to 

 his so-called prey, he is satisfied with merely mouthing it or 

 smelling it, when each body becomes equally changed and 

 the attraction ceases. This power of attraction acts on the 

 dead dog, or part thereof, in proof of which fact I call to 

 witness the undisputed account of a famous German baron 

 concerning his jacket made of the skin of a celebrated 

 pointer, which, when he wore it, always led him to game. 

 For this reason, I have heard it whispered, the dogskin 

 jackets are now in such favor with sportsmen, though the 

 dealers in this article hesitate in this skeptical age to set forth 

 this virtue in their advertisements. And, furthermore, if 

 the fact became well known it might lead to the suppression of 

 the sale of them. 



Now this influence, whatever it is, is not only exercised 

 by such bodies on such objects, but alBo by inert and inani- 

 mate articles of food on the animal when dead, and even on 

 fiarts of it. For instance, I have seen a raccoon skin cap 

 rresistabjy drawn to an ear of boiled green corn, and a dish 

 of frog's legs, although there was so ponderous a body as a 

 man's head inside the cap. And when the corn and the 

 frog's legs had drawn the man's mouth over them and had 

 then fallen into his stomach, the cap was so strongly pulled 

 downward by the force of their attraction, that it required 



hanging against a wall swell up their tails and strive to 

 climb higher when a dog came into the room, and any one 

 may see by waving the wing of a hawk or a large owl over 



grouse, duck or woodcock feathers, or any such, how they 

 will flutter away and disperse in all directions. Sometimes, 

 when I have myself pointed a gun, no matter with how little 

 care, the lead has gone so directly to the mark that I have 

 thought some such subtle influence draws shot and ball to 

 game, but when I have seen some others shoot, I have thought 

 differently, and that possibly there was a repellant power 

 existing in and perhaps exercised at will by the object, which 

 made the missiles diverge or broke their force so that they 

 were made harmless. May it not be that the lead becomes 

 charged with a positive or* negative force by being in con- 

 tact with the person of the shooter, wherein the one or the 

 other is engendered ? 



But such matters I would better leave to be settled by 

 minds more schooled in philosophy than mine, for I am in 

 no wise fitted to discourse concerning them, being only a 

 plain old hunter with little knowledge got of books, and as 

 all may see, of but few words. With my hunting mates I 

 could never more than half hold my own in storytelling and 

 argument, with anglers not even this much, though they are 

 ever modest and truthful men who exaggerate nothing > to 

 their own belittling or their craft's. Just and honest men 

 they are too, for they cheat no fish of their own catching of 

 their full weight, nor the count thereof of the highest num- 

 ber. I have never known an angler worthy of the name who 

 would not honor a fish of his own taking with twice the 

 weight another man would award it, and who, if he lost a 

 fish, would not be so generous as to give the escaper credit 

 for the wiles of a serpent, and the strength, if not the bulk, of 

 a whale. I love, honor and admire the angler. I love him 

 for his patience, never losing his temper whatever befalls, 

 and for his gentleness, as showm, for instance, in his tender 

 and compassionate treatment of live bait. I honor him that 

 he never tells a lie to glorify another, nor owns that he has 

 told one to glorify himself, and 1 admire him for his skill in 

 invention, not only of rods, flies, hooks and so on, but in 

 other matters pertaining to his pastime, and for the even 

 balance of his brain, whereof he is himself so well assured 

 that he scorns all brazen and steel contrivances for determin- 

 ing the weight of fishes, showing therein a triumph of mind 

 over matter. 



I would that I might count myself a true angler, but 

 though I have caught many fish in my day, I never had a 

 right to claim that name, for reasons which my readers may 

 guess. But doubtless the craft has reason to be thankful 

 that I am not of it, for if I had turned my attention to the 

 beguiling of simple fishes, it is possible that there might be 

 prayers for more fish and one the less angler. 



Once in my fife I thought I had achieved glory enough in 

 the capture of one trout to make my name forever famous 

 in the annals of angling. And I think now T that if this fish 

 had been caught by an approved and acknowledged member 

 of the fraternity, and the story told by him, the feat would 

 have been considered remarkable. But in the unembellished 

 narration of facts which I must give, I fear the reader will 

 find nothing unusual, nor hardly worth the reading. 



In my wanderings in Adironda I discovered a kind of very 

 large worms feeding upon the leaves of a species of wild 

 mulberry which grows there, the fruit of which, resembling 

 in shape that of the common wild mulberry, is as big as a 

 saucer.' This worm is as large as a man's wrist and a foot 

 in length, and has been named by scientists Vermis giganieus 

 mritii, ~ whatever that outlandish "title may mean. Noticing 

 that they resembled silk worms, I conceived the idea of 

 drawing gut from them, and so tying one end of a worm to 

 a tree with a strong cord, I made fast another longer cord to 

 the other end, and severed the skin all about his middle with 

 my hunting knife. Then putting this long cord over my 

 shoulder, 1 went forward at a steady pace with an 

 even pull, the worm shrieking and groaning so pite- 

 ously when his bowels first started asunder that I 

 was near abandoning my experiment out of weak tender- 

 heartedness. But the worm presently gave up the 

 ghost with a great moan, and I held on my course for a half 

 mile or so, when I came to the shores of a small lake, and the 

 gut, so called, being drawn out to nearly the desired fineness 

 and very even and^well-looking withal, I fastened the end to 

 a tree and let it dry. The pond or little lake which I had 

 never before examined much, seemed to be alive with what 

 I took to be very large trout, and here I thought was a very 

 convenient and proper place for a trial of my new gut, where 

 there were none but myself and the fishes, and herons and 

 kingfishers to witness the failure of my experiment, if so it 

 should turn out. So I cut a straight dry cedar about fifteen 

 feet in length tor a rod, and taking a fair-sized hook from 

 my pocket I tied upon it a fly made then and there of some 

 duck feathers drifted ashore, and a bit of red flannel from 

 the lining of my coat, and when finished w r as well calculated 

 to excite the curiosity and wonder of any fish that ever swam. 

 My worm gut being now as dry as my own intestines, I hav- 

 ing been some hours from camp, 1 cut off twenty feet of it 

 and made an end of it fast to the rod, and fixing the hook to 

 theVjther, began to cast . At the first cast there was a boiling 

 of the water as if the infernal fires had set it seething, and 

 directly I became aware that I was fast to a very goodly 

 fish, and one that with my poor rod without a reel, I was in 

 great danger of losing. Looking about for a beach where I 

 might strand him and kill him with my knife, I saw an inlet of 

 thepond acouple of yards wide at its mouth, and it occurred to 

 me to lead him thither, and I succeeded in doing so. Hav- 

 ing got him headed up it a rod or so, he could not turn 

 about on account of his length being twice the width of 

 the stream, I wound the gut upon the end of the 

 rod by turning it in my hands, and shoving the point of it 

 before me I waded to my hips into the stream behind him 

 and guided him up the current before me, hoping to find it 

 presently so narrow that he would be wedged between the 

 banks. After some tedious labor, and being all the while in 

 danger of having my shins broken by the blows of hiscaudal 

 fin, his dorsal fin splitting the swift surface and his belly 

 grinding and grating along the pebbles of the bottom, I suc- 

 ceeded in accomplishing this and had him jammed fast 

 between the steep banks. Then I walked along his side till 

 I came to his head, which I mauled with a great rock till 

 the kick was all taken out of him. I was well pleased with 

 the behavior of my new gut, which had borne such a strain, 

 and I was somewhat proud of having killed such a fish, and 

 was admiring him, and perhaps myself, when a splashing 

 of tke water above me attracted my attention. Then wadiug 

 down with rod and creel appeared the Rev. Doctor Rodster, 

 whom I had heard was fishing in the region. "Why, 

 Major," he cried, "is this you? I was not aware that you 

 were aD angle?." I assured him that it was no one else, and 

 showed him with some exultation my catch, Coming up 

 alongside of the fish, and standing about midway between 

 the head and tail, he viewed it for a moment with an ilb 

 concealed expression of contempt on bis countenance, and 



said, "Surely, Major Verity, you do not think of killing this 

 poor little fellow, but will return him to the lake!" 



When I told him, with some shamefacedness, that the fish 

 was already dead, he went away exceedingly wroth, mutter- 

 ing something about "trout hogs." 



Since then I have fished only for my stomach's need, and 

 never for sport. Major" JosEra'VEBiTY, U.S.H.M. 



Abihojjda. 



DOWN THE YUKON ON A RAFT. 



BY LIEUT. FRED'K SCHWATKA. TJ. S. ARMY. 

 Eighth Paper. 



OUR last article left us drifting down stream as fast as 

 the current would pack us, and the gravel and sand 

 bars would permit, while a big buck moose was drifting up 

 the valley of a tributary as fast as his legs would pack him, 

 and the underbrush and fallen timber would permit. 



This was not far from a bold, high bluff of yellow sand 

 and clay that the Indians use as a conspicuous landmark in 

 their wanderings up and down the river, and to which they 

 give the name of Hoot'-che-koo. The river from here on for 

 quite a ways is very picturesque, and looks like the views on 

 the Lower Juniata, Pennsylvania's pretty stream, until one 

 steps ashore in the soft, marshy moss of the tundra land that 

 exudes an ooze and mosquitoes, that makes him think that 

 he has one foot in New Jersey and the other in the Dismal 

 Swamp of Virginia. I believe one miner traveling through 

 here had expressed an opinion that settlers might raise wheat 

 in the bottom lands. I think"! would agree with the com- 

 ments of another on the opinion of the first that wheat could 

 possibly be raised — to five dollars a bushel if there were 

 enough miners to want it. Traveling on during the dis 

 agreeable, rainy afternoon, we sighted an Indian house of 

 logs, about 8 in the evening, and with the usual hard pulling 

 we soon found ourselves alongside the place. A rapid in- 

 spection showed it to bedeserted, and from my Indian guides 

 and workmen I ascertained that it was chiefly used in the 

 winter by a sort of mixed population of Ayan and Tahk- 

 heesh Indians, both of which tribes are called the "Sticks," I 

 believe. 



We had passed through the land of the Tahkheesh from 

 the time we left the Chilkoot country to about this point, for 

 savage tribes seldom have any very definite boundary unless 

 determined by high mountain chains or prominent water- 

 ways. From here down the river for two hundred miles the 

 Ayans, or Iyans, held the river and its valley, and extended 

 quite a way up the Pelly, the local Indian of which is, I 

 believe, the Ayan River.' The particular local name of this 

 village (if one house can be called a village) is Kit'l-ah'-gon, 

 which I believe means a house or village in a canon, or be- 

 tween two canons, or some way relating to its picturesque 

 situation, and in this respect Kit'l-ah'-gon is not inappro- 

 priately named. The main basis of its title as a village is 

 the large number of small brush houses that are scattered 

 around near the tolerably well constructed log house, and 

 which from their dried up and dilapidated looking character, 

 we took at first for smoke houses in which they would prob- 

 ably dry their salmon and other fish when caught, until our 

 Indians enlightened us. The log house was quite airy and 

 ventilated for a winter residence in sub-Arctic America, and 

 it seemed to be better adapted for a summer abode in Ari- 

 zona or Florida, but it was a palace compared with the brush 

 houses that clustered around it, and shows how degraded 

 and lazy these Indians are, with plenty of timber for log 

 houses, and a peat-like moss for chinking, that with a very 

 little labor would have rendered them perfectly comfortable, 

 they neglect to build them. Over these brush'piles of strong 

 poles are thrown a number of thick caribou or moose skins, 

 and when the snow falls in the autumn it gives them an ad- 

 ditional covering of four or five inches, and they live a sort 

 of a life that is a cross between that of an Esquimau and a 

 gypsy. The house itself was about fifteen by thirty feet in 

 plan, and with the one on the bank of the short river con- 

 necting lakes Tahko with Marsh, makes up the sum total of 

 all the permanent houses in the Tahkheesh country, along the 

 Yukon River, for a distance of about five hundred miles. 

 Inside the house, through a low door— although some persons 

 of less pretentious proportions than the writer might have 

 crept in between some of the logs — the only floor was that 

 made by nature and beaten down by the constant tramping 

 of feet, while around a portion of the sides was a shelf-like 

 structure, which may have done duty at one time as a bunk 

 place, but in its present broken up nature would have puzzled 

 a civilized chicken to have found a sleeping place on it. It 

 may have once extended clear around, but the last persons 

 that slept there found it warmer as fuel than as a bedstead. 

 Overhead the house was covered in with three or four clap- 

 boards and a couple of clouds— except in fine weather. 



We did not try the experiment of sleeping in the house, 

 but put up our tents at a good respectable distance therefrom 

 and snoozed comfortably through the night, for the rain kept 

 the mosquitoes down. There was an insignificant looking 

 stream coming in alongside of the village, and curiously 

 enough the valley it drained was a very conspicuous one, 

 much more prominent than the Pelly valley some twenty 

 miles further on, although the two streams themselves would 

 be like comparing Niagara with a mountain brook. This 

 was one of those canal-like streams, that 1 described in a pre- 

 vious article, as common in this country, just too wide to 

 jump and deep enough to drown a flagstaff, and slower than 

 mid- winter molasses. There may have been a larger stream 

 coming in through the valley, and this have been only one of 

 its delta mouths^ for the grass was too high and thick, and 

 the rain too recent to make further hytlrographic explora- 

 tions interesting. Photographs were gotten looking up and 

 down the river, and also of the Indian house. From our In- 

 dians we learned that next day we should reach the site of 

 old Fort Selkirk, and that the chimneys were still standing, 

 and further, that its proper place was on the western bank 

 of the Yukon proper, opposite the mouth of the Pelly, al- 

 though several maps in our possession had ferried it across, 

 and put it between them at the junction of the two streams. 

 It looked so "kinder" natural to put it there, that we 

 were a little bit inclined to think that the Indians, who 

 had been there did not know, and that the map-makers 

 who had not, really did; and with such thoughts 

 in our mind, we were forced to acknowledge that if we had 

 not traveled over the country itself, we probably would have 

 made no better maps than those in our possession, and prol> 

 ably not as good, if we had interviewed the wrong Indians 

 in another part of the country. But Selkirk was not where 

 it ought to have been, but where the unlearned savages said 

 it was, and next day as we drifted down through a gteat net- 

 work of islands, that in a perplexing way kept us edging off 

 to the right, we suddenly saw the bare chimneys loom up 

 out of a thick poplar grove, clear across the river, and he 



