444 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



^ «. SI, 



CAMP FLOTSAM. 



XTTI. — UNDER TWO FLAGS. 



FOR two days and nights we sat housed by the great 

 stoves watching the pipe go round and listening to 

 tales of native sport. Although it was midsummer the fire 

 was a luxury. The cold rain poured steadily from the north- 

 east and men and dogs sought shelter within doors and 

 warmth about the genial hearth. But the next day dawned 

 warm and clear, so WE" lowered our tents and box' of hard- 

 ware from the lolt where they had been stored, and, with 

 the aid of Sabattis. soon had them in the boats at the land- 

 ing. Before night the canvas was pitched once more under 

 the pines. Whether oui' camp here should be permanent we 

 were undecided, nevertheless the bedsteads were built and 

 the sleeping arrangements perfected, and the cooking ranse 

 put in shape for use. A few of the stones in the latter had 

 fallen from their places during the winter, these were reset 

 and the apertures filled with wet clay. The top of the cook- 

 ing stove was found upon the rock where we had left it on 

 breaking camp last year, and our kitchen was soon complete. 

 Just as we were congratulating ourselves that our camp 

 building was ended, we found that the bundle of blankets 

 and our larder had been left behind. So, after tying up 

 the tents and seeing everything safe, we abandoned camp 

 for the night. It was well that we did. for before we reached 

 the shore a cold wind was blowing up the lake and we were 

 threatened with another storm. It came, but found us 

 snugly fixed by the fire. As dai-kness came on and we sat 

 listening to the roar on the outside we did not regret our 

 failure in getting settled. We were not afraid of a storm 

 but there was a certain witchery in huddling around the 

 stove and watching the gleams light up the dark corners of 

 the room through the cracks, listening meanwhile to strange 

 stories from the hps of strange men, besides we had enough 

 time at our disposal to vary our experiences as we listed. 

 Our camp was ready for us and we had only to step in and 

 begin its life and were content. 



That night the royal mail brought me the Foeest and 

 Stream containing an addenda to "Woodcraft," in which, 

 in fit keeping with our camp building of the day, "Nessmuk'' 

 paid out on us as follows : "The half hotel, half picnic style of 

 outing most in favor with 'Wawayanda' is no doubt a 

 pleasant way of passing a portion of the heated term. It is 

 amiable in paler familim to take his wife and httle ones to a 

 green, well-shaded island and give them the benefit of an 

 out-o'-door life for a few days or weeks. In which case a 

 wall tent with flaps and a two-horse wagonload of duffle will 

 be none too much." 



We beg to inform the father of the craft, before whom we 

 all are but as dust, that there is as wide a difference between 

 om camps and "the half hotel, half picnic stvle," as there is 

 between the latter and his own. True, we are advocates of 

 soap and the bath ; we do not make our outings occasions in 

 which to test the question as to how long a shirt can be 

 worn without change, and here perhaps the dissimilarity 

 ceases. We can cai-ry our duffle in a single skiff, and no 

 pater famiUas loafs around our camp. That "it requires less 

 labor to outstay a rattler that has taken up quarters in one's 

 bed than to build a bedstead, " may be true as a matter of 

 fact; perhaps laziness, like wisdom, is justified of her chil- 

 dren when one is in the woods; but why any one should 

 prefer an open brush shanty for a two months' outing when 

 a tent that will close is obtainable, is something which, in 

 the words of the rider of the Bucktail, we shall never under- 

 stand. Our query as to how "Nessmuk" managed it with 

 lus shanty tent "during a week of storm, when keeping up a 

 fire out of doors," is answered by, "Drive four crotches, lay 

 two cross poles theron, then lay strips of bark or slabs over 

 the fire in such a way as to lead most of the water back of 

 the fire," In other' words, build an extra shanty over the 

 fire; if the storm is a driving one, weave in some boughs; if 

 the wind threatens to unroof your kitchen, put on°a few 

 slabs; and when it finally falls, repeat a nunc damii or two 

 and retire to your other shanty. If you like this better than 

 "a sheet iron contrivance" which' weighs three or four 

 pounds, and can be cooked on in wet weather and can be set 

 in or out of the tent as occasion demands, have yqur sweet 

 will. And it is possible that there may be more enjoyment 

 in going on all fours about a shanty than in having head 

 room in a tent, and that "Woodcraft" was not intended as a 

 guide to "smoothing it," but to roughing it. If so, our criti- 

 cisms were uncalled for; but we take it that the averasre 

 outer is bent on living as com f ortably as the small, light style 

 of outing will permit, and that the possibilities are somewhat 

 greater than "Kessmuk" would make them, we appeal to the 

 grand army. 



The next day saw us in camp to stay, come what might of 

 cold or storm. Blankets were unpacked, rods unstrapped 

 and jointed, a rough dining table was built in the shade near 

 the range and we were settled. Before midnight another 

 storm was upon us and the rain beat heavily upon the tents 

 until midday. The "sheet iron contrivance" was .set in the 

 tent and upon it fried pork, sliced potatoes, coffee and camp 

 bread were soon made reauy for breakfast. Then while the 

 rain was still falhng we started to break the ice and take the 

 first bass of the season. By the time we were well under 

 way, the rain had ceased, but the lowering clouds hung low 

 over the water. We had taken a hand-made, seven ounce 

 lancewood rod which had done heroic work in its time for 

 the opening, and with a scarlet ibis and Canada fly we 

 made our first cast just around the rocky point which jutted 

 out below the camp. By the time we had reached the island 

 above, six small-mouths of not over a pound each had been 

 landed. At the head of the island we turned to the left and 

 ran over a long shoal which stretched toward the south for 

 fom- or five hundred feet where we took in two pike of about 

 three pounds a piece. Bravely we moved on, unconscious 

 of the doom awaiting us at the deep water in front. As we 

 reached it there was a dash for the white Canada, a strike, 

 and a doubling of the rod which broke just above the gra.8p 

 and fell overboard. We had it again in a second, but the fight 

 at the end of the line did not seem to be all that the strike had 

 promised. With a muttered doubt we begin to pull in the 

 slack, the game was gone, no, we felt it again and there was a 

 grand rush for liberty, which weakened suddenly and the prize 

 showed itself alongside. It was a finely fashioned goggle eye 

 of six or eight ounces in weight. Meditatively we reeled up 

 the hne and laid the unjointed rod in the bottom of the boat. 



There have been occasions where the hour and man have 

 met, and times in which they have failed to connect by a 

 reduced majority; in this latter period our lot seemed to 

 have fallen. But on reflection that many an ardent soul has 

 found pleasure in hunting without a gun, why should we 

 not angle without a rod, line or book. We turned back and 

 ran over the shoal and then over the greater one off Knapp's 

 Point, rounded Lost Spring Island, and started to make 



camp by circumnavigating our own island. Midway of the 

 lake bass were leaping over a shoal safe from any 1 ure of ours. 

 Rounding a point, we surprised a crane that was engaged, 

 though with perhaps better success, in the same occupation 

 as ourselves, and which, upon seeing us, fled over the tree 

 tops out of sight. Soon the sun came out warm and bright, 

 the sky cleared, and when we ran into the little bay in front 

 of the tents a shimmer of heat was on the hillside, and we 

 were glad to lay aside our rubber clothing and coat. When 

 dinner was over there was still time to take a run down to 

 the outlet, and we made it in the waning of the afternoon, 

 which was witnessing on the hillside above the fast flitting 

 moments of the hfe of the young driver Stoness. His house, 

 which stood close by the landing, was deserted and silent, 

 the family had been summoned in haste, that his eyes might 

 rest upon them for once before taking his wingless flight. 

 When we returned to the boat it was dark, and they tolci us 

 that he was dead. The wail of a young girl was ringing out 

 on the night in a sorrow that refused'to be comforted. A 

 kind neighbor or two was bringing the dead man to his home, 

 where, stopping for a moment, we learned that he had been 

 mortally injured by the careless firing of a blast. We could 

 bring nothing of comfort to the afflicfed, so we shoved off the 

 boat and slowly moved out of the shadow into the dim star- 

 light upon the lake. We sat long in the open door of the tent, 

 thinking of the silent form lying cold and pale a couple of 

 miles away, with the cry of the girl in her first great grief still 

 ringing in our ears, and we wondered whether, after all, it was 

 not better with the dead than with those he had left behind. 



With the warm weather came the mosquitoes to make 

 night hideous, and, on the first night, with the tent flaps 

 open, they came in swarms and filled every corner. A 

 smudge at the door on the windward end checked them 

 somewhat, but as the night wore on and the smudge burned 

 itself out, there was a carnival within which would let no 

 one sleep. We had brought a box of "a preventive," so the 

 label read, "of the bites of mosquitoes, gnats and black flies, 

 something which would not injure the most delicate skin." 

 It might, with perfect safety, have been warranted not to 

 injure or be offensive to the most delicate mosquito, for the 

 celerity with which a well-trained and experienced one 

 would scrape off a spot which seemed promising and sink a 

 shaft was something wonderful. Fortunately, we had in 

 our kit a bottle of the oil of pennyroyal, and we set to work 

 to compound a preventive of our owu. Taking nearly equal 

 parts of this and vaseline, we had a mixture which was 

 clean, would not evaporate and was a complete safeguard 

 against bites. During our outing, through nights of which 

 we slept on the banks of mosquito-haunted inlets and 

 streams without a tent or netting, a slight apphcation to the 

 exposed parts of the person insured us peace. No outer 

 should go into the woods without it. 



Through the greater part of the day and night following 

 the rain was rattling upon the tents, with an occasional 

 burst of thunder and lightning. About noon on the day 

 after, it cleared again, and we made our way once more to 

 the outlet, this time to attend the funeral of Stoness. A 

 group of fifteen or twenty were gathered in the small two 

 roomed house, or sitting upon the logs in front. After an 

 hour of waiting, the coffin was brought from the house, 

 and without a pall or other covering was placed in an open 

 wagon, which all followed to the church, where the services 

 and burial were to take place. 



It was dark before we pushed off again for camp. We 

 were met at the water's edge by the enemy and our return 

 was a track of blood. The new repel lant was in camp, and 

 we fought and slapped our way through the black cloud that 

 hung over the water and enveloped us in a circle of weird 

 music. We charged through the hosts awaiting us at the 

 landing and took refuge in the tents, brought out the smudge 

 pail, which was soon pouring out its incen.se, while we ap- 

 phed the vaseline and pennyroyal, which soon brought us 

 peace. The hum went on around us, within and without, 

 but we slept undisturbed through it all. 



The early morning revealed to our astonished sight one of 

 the chief episodes of our camp. On the island in front, half 

 a mile away, two tents were glimmering through the trees, 

 and a slender column of smoke marked the presence of some 

 seeker after sohtude. The presence of a camp, other than 

 our own, upon the lake was a novel sight, and we were in a 

 state of wonderment as to who.se and whence it was, and 

 what had prompted its location on this backwoods lake. 



However much one may desire solitude, however great 

 the distance which he puts between himself and civilization 

 to secure it, let the hermitical impulse be never so strong 

 within him, his heart will yet yearn for the human and his 

 brain seek the mysterious fellowship of its kind. 



The first day, nay the first hour, put us on a footing of 

 firm friendship with our neighbors which flourished through 

 the bright summer days, wiil survive the chill of winter, and, 

 we fondly hope, will be renewed where next our camp fire 

 burns. The new camp consisted of two veteran anglers and 

 sportsmen, both retired officers of Her ]VIajesty'8 service. 

 Every trout and salmon stream of note, from the Nepigon 

 to the tributaries of the lower St. Lawrence, had yielded 

 tribute to the Colonel's skill, while the Captain was an ex- 

 pert among the bass, trained to their capture in waters to 

 which they were native. Added to this, he possessed the 

 taste and skill of the arti-st and his sketch book was adorned 

 with scenes from along the Mediterranean, made in the days 

 when he and the Colonel went a soldiering, and while the 

 memories of Inkerman, Balaklava and Sebastopol were yet 

 living facts to them. Before us hangs a water color of a 

 lonely camp upon a bluff", under the pines, with a stretch of 

 waves iniront which are tinged with the glow of the sunset 

 in the sky — a beautiful memorial from the generous captain 

 of our summer home. Many were the evenings which we 

 passed in high discourse over our pipes until midnight was 

 in the sky and the dip of the oars, dying away upon the 

 lake, was the good-night of our returning visitors. And 

 what had brought them to this spot, above all others, in a 

 laud set thick with lakes and furnishing the best fishing on 

 the continent'? A file of Forest and Stream containing 

 "Camp Flotsam" of last year had been read through the 

 winter and was brought into eamp by them to be re-read on 

 the spot, a task which, we ventm-e to assert, was never com- 

 menced. However, it may be, it was in this way that it 

 came about that we had neighbors, and that, while the world 

 was rife with rumors that the crescent and the cro.ss were 

 soon again to dash against each other and old civilizations 

 contend with younger born, while the northwest war cloud 

 was stiU burning out its passions, there on the lonely Can- 

 adian lake a spirit of peace was hovering and the cross of 

 England and the banner of the stars waved greetings and 

 farewell across the bay at dawn and dusk, and the Captain's 

 taloo and our response were the daily assurance to each of 

 "all's well," Wawayanda. 



SPORTSMAN AND POET. 



'^pBffi following autobiographical notes, furnished by Mr. 

 X Isaac McLellan, are very timely just now, as Ifih. Mc- 

 Lellan's fourth volume of poems is in press. Yery many of 

 our readers will be pleased to have this information about 

 one with whose name they have been so long familiar: 



As I have been requested by you to furnish a sketch of my 

 past life, I think I cannot do better than by recalling to 

 mind the names of a few of the distinguished persons with 

 whom, in greater or less degree, I have been associated in 

 early friendships, or in the delights of field sports. Your 

 request is probably prompted to learn a little of my past 

 history as the author of a book on "Rod and Q-un, or Sports 

 by Flood and Field," now in press and soon to be issued by 

 Henry 'Thoipe, of 98 Nassau street, New York. 



Prominent in my memory are the names of such true lovers 

 of sport as Daniel Webster, Frank Forester, Genio C. Scott, 

 Wm. P. Porter, Carl Benson, Charles Hallock, S. C. Clarke 

 (my good cousin), Caleb Loiing and many others, nearly all 

 of them at rest in the land of silence. In a cottage near the 

 mansion of the former of these men, I passed nearly three 

 years, at Marshfield, Mass., being introduced to that sports- 

 man's home by the illustrious statesman himself. It was 

 then that with plain Nat Delano I sojourned, he being Mr. 

 Webster's favorite boatman and boatbuilder. Mr. Webster 

 in previous years had been an enthusiastic snipe and duck 

 shooter, but increasing bulk and years had forced him to lay 

 aside the gun, and his great solace was in fishing, which 

 was a first-class sport along the sea shores. Mr. W" took no 

 part whatever in the management of his little sloop, saying 

 that he "was a perfect dunce in a boat," but he could safely 

 rely on the skill of Nat Delano. Mr. W. could skillfully 

 steer the .ship of State at Washington, but in aheavy storm off 

 Brant Rock and Green River we'should much prefer to trust 

 the boat tiller to the management of honest Nat. 



I love also to recall the names of other friends and ac- 

 quaintances as those of N. P. WiUis, Holmes, Percival, 

 Benjamin, Sargent and others, and such college associates 

 as Longfellow, Hawthorne, G. B. Cheevf r. Franklin Pierce 

 Wm. Pitt Fessenden, John P. Hale, J, S. C. Abbot; Calvin 

 E, Stone, and last but not least, the late Hon. Sargeant S. 

 Prentiss, of Southern celebrity. None of these men, with 

 the exception of the last mentioned, found any charm in the 

 sports with rod and gun. We have roamed," in the bygone 

 years, for hours with Willis among the pine woods of 

 Andover (where we were room mates and members of 

 Phillips Academy), or mooned away the afternoon by the 

 banks of the lonely Shawshene; and I have also loitered 

 tha-ough the woods and by the shores of Androscoggin, at 

 Brunswick, Maine, when neither of these two poets would 

 bestow a glance on the fflght of the wild pigeons or the sud- 

 den splash of the river. fishes with the pleased look of the 

 gunner or angler. 



With Willis my intimacy began in childhood and con- 

 tinued to the close of his life. After our graduation at dif- 

 ferent colleges, and when I had put up my lawyer's shingle 

 in Boston (1 being at the same time sub-editor of the iJnily 

 Patriot and also of the Ecming Gazette) it was his wont daily 

 to drop into my office, or failing that, it was my custom to 

 visit him in his little room at his father's house, the sanctum 

 where he conducted his monthly magazine. 



Our friendship with Longfellow began in college days and 

 continued to the last. We exchanged, during the many 

 years, frequent letters, and I much regret that I have parted 

 with all of them to autograph collectors, yet I can give a 

 brief extract from one written some years' since to me by 

 him: "I see you in imagination, tramping with your gun 

 and dogs over the frozen marshes, eager for any birds that 

 have not been wise enough to migrate southward at this 

 season (Feb. 6, 1875). 'Straight a short thunder breaks the 

 frozen sky,' and the beautiful creatures fall and 'leave their 

 little lives in the air,' meanwhile I sit here by my fire, busy 

 with the reading and making of books ; not so healthy a recre- 

 ation as yours, perhaps, but more congenial to my taste. My 

 old enemy neuralgia sometimes troubles me and then I suffer 

 Hke Laocoon with his serpents." 



A few years after we had graduated, Longfellow, then a 

 professor of Bowdoin College, came to pass a part of his 

 winter vacation with me at my father's house in Boston, and 

 it was our custom, late at night, to retire to our room and 

 there while away the time in chat over college days and in 

 pleasant enjoyment of our cigars at the fireside. At such 

 times he produced from his valise the original MSS. of his 

 "Outre Mer," which he read aloud to me; so that I was the 

 first person to make the acquaintance of his first book. I 

 was greatly delighted with it, and the next day sought to 

 dispose of it to pubUshers, but all in vain, for they knew not 

 the name of Longfellow. He then went lo New York, and 

 on his return informed me that he had disposed of the work 

 to a leading publishing house there. 



I was born in the good city of Portland, Me., at about the 

 same time that Longfellow fiLrst saw the Ught. In a few 

 years my father removed to Boston, and at an early age I 

 was sent to Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass., and in due 

 time to Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Me. I had the honor, 

 when receiving my first and second degrees, of pronouncing 

 the class poems, and later dchvered one before the Society 

 of the Phi Beta Kappa. 



At about the latter period I published with the eminent 

 houses of Allen ifc Ticknor and Ticknor & Fields, three vol- 

 umes of poems and one of foreign travel, which latter I com- 

 piled from the letters and mimuscripts of a deceased brother, 

 who had traveled in Europe. I then made a visit to Europe 

 myself, and passed nearly two years there, and in Egypt 

 and Palestine, and on my return published in a daily Boston 

 paper a long series of letters descriptive of my travels. On 

 my return home, my tastes were decidedly of a rural turn, 

 and so I tried my hand at farming for a couple of years, and 

 then abandoned such hard labor forever. I much preferred 

 the gun and rod to the plow and hoe, and from that time to 

 this, a period of forty 3'ears, I have devoted myself exclu- 

 sively to the sporls of flood and field. 



Being a forlorn bachelor with no ties of wife and child lo 

 fasten me to one particular spot, I have wandered at will, up 

 and down the land, from forest to prairie, from river to 

 ocean, in^fuU fruition of a sportsman's paradise. Day after 

 day, month after month, year after year, I have proceeded 

 again.st the bay snipe and the sea fowl, at every good shoot- 

 ing point and" bay of the coast, from Scarboro River, in 

 Maine, to Currituck Sound, of Carolina. I have been out in 

 open boat, in the line of the sea fowl shooters at all the 

 rocky points of Massachusetts Bay; have hid in ambush for 

 bay snipe and duck along the mud flats and salt marshes of 

 Sbinnecock Bay ; have shot from my httle sneakbox at the 

 hovering widgeon, teal, black duck, mallard, brant and 

 geese in Barnegat Bay; have had prime sport among the 

 ducks and broadbills of Currituck; have rioted in pickerel 



