©04 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Jam. si, 1886. 



CAMP FLOTSAM. 



XX. — "whose WATERLOO?" 



"VX/^HEN we awoke, a hard wind was Wowing fi'om the 



T * southwest and, as the course to the lower outlet lay 

 straight before it, there was a promise of sport on hand. We 

 soon hadhreakfast over and the Madame ashore, when we 

 found the preparations for the start well under way. Pro- 

 visions and cooking implements were being stored on board 

 the Sabbath Breaker and a group of three or four hardy hun- 

 ters were lounging on the dock as we drew up and unloaded 

 our freight. _ The kind-hearted skipper of our rival inquired 

 whether we intended, in sober earnest, to attempt to cross 

 the "big water" in our cockle shell, and warned us that 

 with the amount of sail which we were getting ready to spread, 

 we would drive the Pizen Ann under before we had gone 

 two miles on our way. We were a little shaky, with the 

 small gale blowing as it did, but we passed a "rope under 

 the sheathing in the stern, coiled the end at our feet in readi- 

 ness for a capsize and determined to take the chance?: Aside 

 from a single rod, our outfit consisted of a pair of woolen 

 and one rubber blankets, a hatchet and colfee pot, Oiu' 

 friends had provided more elaborately for themselves byput- 

 ing on board a small tent ; rent with many a seam and gash, 

 an iron pot and a frying pan. A small basket in each boat 

 contained the necessary groceries. It was close on to noon- 

 day before the Sabbath Breaker embarked her crew and 

 pulled into the stream. With a long pair of sweeps she 

 was worked up the creek, for, notwithstanding the tumult on 

 the lake, scarcely a ripple was on the water about us, so 

 completely were we sheltered by the forest on the left. We 

 pulled slowly after the craft in front while we watched to 

 see her coroe into the wind. Just out of the mouth of the 

 creek her sweeps were pulled in, the sail filled and she 

 stood off toward Burnt Point. She was well down toward 

 the rock reefs before we had succeeded in getting into the 

 wind and we were just beginning to make good headway 

 when we found that my rubber coat was left in camp. We 

 lost half a mile while dropping in for it and by the time we 

 were back on our course the Breaker had passed through the 

 narrow channel off the point and ran under the lee of Pen- 

 sel Island, where she was waiting for us. Long before we 

 reached this point, we were bowling along at such a rate 

 that om rival thought it prudent to get under way before we 

 came up. When we rounded the point and struck the "big 

 water" she was doing her level best and was being worked 

 by her skipper for all there was in her. The Pizen Ann 

 shied, bucked and kicked like a trick mule at a circus, and 

 lor a few minutes we thought that she would resort to the 

 same tactics of rolling over'to dismount us, but we helped 

 her by shifting ballast, kept up the peak and every inch of 

 sail and headed right on after the Breaker. 



It was a glorious sail, at least it seems so now viewed in 

 the firelight of to-night, but it was nevertheless foolish and 

 hazardous; the only excuse possible was that the water was 

 warm and we were within half a mile of an island or the 

 mainland at all times during the craise. We shot along the 

 bases of palisades of rock, across the mouths of coves radi- 

 ant in their wealth of lilies, between close-lying islands 

 crowned with pine which reached to the water's edge, and 

 over wide open stretches of lake, bounding and jumpfng like 

 a race horse, yet steadily closing the gap between us and the 

 old sea goer in front. At Porcupine Island we were abreast 

 of our rival, and then we steadily drew away, leaving her in 

 our wake. We felt as one born out of due time, and in a 

 burst of prophetic inspiration ventured to estimate how 

 much we would beat her in the next three miles. Had it 

 been six weeks later we would have grappled without hesi- 

 tation with the conundrum, "Whose Waterloo?" proposed 

 by the yachting editor of Forest and Stream. 



Between the high hills below thenar-rows, the wind failed 

 us, and with a fair trolling breeze we led the Sabbath Breaker 

 over the remainder of the coui'se. In the broad water be- 

 low, a spoon was put out and, though the rate of speed at 

 which we were going was a trifle too fast for the best of 

 luck, yet we took a couple of good-sized big-mouths, which 

 were carefully put away as they might become our chief re 

 liance for supper. So completiy had the wind fallen that it 

 was near the middle of the afternoon before we reached the 

 lower outlet of Loughborough and entered the creek which 

 flows into Hart Lake. On the left was the grassy bank on 

 the trail leading off through the woods, up which with Truth- 

 ful James we last summer carried our lunch and opened a 

 noonday School of Philosophy, on the day when our journey 

 to Hart Lake ended here on account of low water in the 

 stream. Now, thanks to the wet Canadian summer, the stream 

 was fuU, and down it we glided for half a mile between 

 Tocky shores overgrown with mosses and ferns, and beneath 

 an arch formed by the gi-eat trees on either side which in- 

 terlaced their branches over our heads. It was a grotto of 

 beauty; below us through the clear water shone the white 

 sandy bottom, and almost within reach with the oars hung 

 festoons of green on which the sun never shone. The rocky 

 sides sent back the echo from our boat and our voices 

 sounded as though in a cavern. A short turn in the stream 

 and the roar of a waterfall came to our ears. Through a 

 narrow gorge in front the creek made a downward rush 

 of twenty feet among rocks and boulders, sending up a 

 shower of spray, through which the ra3'^s of the afternoon 

 sun made all the colors of the rainbow. On the right, a 

 shelving rock at the edge of the stream made a natural 

 landing and on this we drew up our craft and waited 

 for those in the rear. When they arrived we unloaded 

 our slender baggage and two, taking our boat, started 

 over the cari-y. There was scarcely the sign of a trail, so 

 seldom was a passage to the upper lakes made. Of the party 

 but one had ever been over it, and for the purpose of Ashing 

 no one. It was an easy walk through the woods and the 

 carry ended on top of a high bank fifteen feet above the 

 stream. It required some care to lower the boat while the 

 passengers and carriers slipped and scrambled down by trees 

 and rocks to the shore below. One by one, the three boats 

 were brought over, the luggage followed and soon everything 

 was replaced and we were again afloat. 



It was a veritable Treboni — a sea of reeds, upon which we 

 looked. In front was a basin stretching away for miles be- 

 tween high hills, at the feet of which an ancient lake had once 

 rolled its waves. Here the bright waters had flashed in the 

 sunlight and darkened before the storm, with no human eye 

 to drink in the beauties of that strange world which was be- 

 fore the lake dwellers were, and which shone here in royal 

 splendor long before the tertiary period began. On that 

 July afternoon, it was as lonely and desolate as on the day, 

 in that far off primary epoch, when the hills were rent asun- 

 der and the pent up waters began their rush to the sea 

 throuijh that mighty channel which but yesterday, as it were. 



John Cabot saw for the first and which will be the St. Law- 

 rence forever. 



On the right hand and on the left loomed up gray old 

 islands, with tracings formed and worn by the waves of the 

 old azoic. There was no beauty in the landscape, all was 

 silence and desolation, we seemed to be journeying ' 'in a 

 waste land where no one comes or hath conie since the mak- 

 ing of the world." We pushed our way through the tall 

 rustling flags, keeping a close lookout forward for the open 

 channel which seemed to turn in every direction. The boats 

 soon lost sight of each other, and shortly we were in the 

 midst of fallen trees and driftwood which barred our pass- 

 age. Standing in the boat, nothing could be seen but the 

 expanse of reeds and rushes in front, behind and around, 

 with the desolate hills looking down on either side. Our 

 shouts brought no response, so we forced the boat backward 

 for fifty yards and turned off to the left, where there seemed 

 to be a sort of chaimel through the flag. Following this for 

 a hundred yards, we again turned to the right and entered a 

 channel of "open water a trifle wider than the boat. For 

 three miles we labored, before open water was reached ; then, 

 as we turned a headland, Hart Lake spread out before us. 

 The other boats were far in the lead and the foremost one 

 was making over to the western shore, in search of a camp- 

 ing place. When we joined them the traps had been un- 

 loaded and the tent was being set. It was on a long rocky 

 point, overgrown with bushes, and a miserable place for a 

 camp, but it seemed the only one within sight, so we depos- 

 ited our bundle with the rest and dropped on the nearest 

 rock to watch the process of camp building. Ye Gods, 

 what a camp it was. A pile of sumac bushes were spread 

 for the bed within the tent, a long pole was projected over a 

 rock, the pot hung on its end, a place was made for a fire 

 beneath and the Canuck was content. It was within two 

 hours of darkness and every one was hungry to a degree that 

 made the thoughts of a cold supper exasperating, so we softly 

 jointed the fly-rod and started for something warm. A 

 couple followed, and while they trolled we tried the fly. At 

 the end of an hour we came together and took an inventory 

 of the catch. Two small rock bass had fallen in our way, 

 while a ten-inch pike, a half-pound perch and a sunfish, in 

 the boat of our friends, made us hang our heads. These, 

 with the two bass taken on our way, made a scant meal, but 

 with the coffee and boiled potatoes we fortified ourselves 

 for the night. Then a camp fire was started, and as the 

 neighboring mosquitoes dropped in, one by one, to enjoy 

 themselves, it was supplemented by a smudge. When the 

 delegation from over the lake arrived, two more smudges 

 were started in their honor and a plainly discernible rein- 

 forcement prompted some one to start another. We spread 

 our couch on a rock with the sail of the Pizen Ann for a 

 base, and half of our double blanket over it, applied the 

 killer and sat up to take in the situation. The Canuck 

 threshed his head with sumac branches, sat in the lee of the 

 smudge and expressed his sentiments in florid rhetoric. The 

 hills stood out dark against the sky, and limned themselves 

 into a horizon like the rim of a huge bowl, within whose 

 concave we seeemed isolated from the world. The fire 

 light flashed and glared on the strange scene, shone in long 

 trails of light across the water and threw in bold rehef the 

 uncouth figures against the rocks. For a long tinie we 

 watched it all and until drowsiness came, when we rolled in- 

 to the blankets, turned our face toward the stars and slept. 

 Not so the Canuck; he tossed restlessly upon his sumac 

 boughs in the tent, courted sleep in vain, wandered aimlessly 

 about the fire which he kept replenished through the night, 

 and, with the first signs of dawn, was off in search of berries. 

 Never shaU we forget the radiance of that morning. How 

 the deep breath of the great wilderness came to us, laden 

 with all he fra2;rance that it had to give. Our opening eyes 

 rested on the glittering waters in front and below, vnth the 

 great loons wheeling in the air over the broad bay which 

 stretched on the left down to Opinicon, while the eastern 

 hilts were burning with the glory of the resurrection of an- 

 other day. And that morning meal with its coffee, pilot 

 bread, bacon and fried potatoes, how its recollection throngs 

 foremost among the many bright recollections of the sum- 

 mer. 



Leaving our friends to gather berries we again got under 

 way and headed toward an opening in the hills to the north 

 where weknew we would find a passage to the lakes beyond. 

 Nothing rose to our repeated casts as we followed the west- 

 ern shore, the waters seemed as barren of dwellers as the 

 hillsides around. In a couple of hours we were at the foot 

 of Hart Lake, where we entered a narrow stream which 

 wound its way, without the sign of a current, through a 

 wilderness of rushes. As far down in front as we could see 

 reached the vast expanse, with bays to the left and high 

 rocky islands standing in a sea of brown and green. There 

 was undoubtedly water everywhere about us, hut none was 

 visible save in the narrow stream which we were threading 

 The far away shores of this great sea of rushes rose grim and 

 steep and rocky, barriers which once had withstood the 

 wild dash of waves, but against which they would wash no 

 more forever. 



For three miles we held on a straight course and then, as 

 we approached the great northern barrier of hills, the chan- 

 nel turned shsrt to the right, made a sweep around a head- 

 land with another right hand turn, and the bow was pointed 

 in the direction from which we had started, A half mile 

 further we found an immense pine lying across the stream 

 and we were compelled to land in the ooze and drag the boat 

 around the obstruction. A short distance beyond, the chan- 

 nel widened and we came into an open sheet of water with 

 an island in front which, robed in pine and hemlock, 

 towered in primeval beauty. As we rounded its eastern side, 

 Crow Lake opened before us, a magnificent sheet of water 

 without an island to break its broad expanse. With its 

 shores of rock, and lined with the green forest, it reminded 

 us of some of those lovely mountain lakes of Northern New 

 Jersey, before the hand of the vandal had reared his sum- 

 mer hotels and boarding houses, and brought it to pass that 

 they who fished must surely come into his net. Fairer than 

 Greenwood or Hopatcong, rivaling Double Pond and 

 Truxedo in the purity of its waters, Crow Lake is as 

 beautiful a sheet of water as has ever been permitted to 

 us to behold. 



As we entered the lake, a loon rose with shrill screams, a 

 hundred yards away and, churning the water into foam as 

 he came, made a circuit of the boat within easy pistol range, 

 and standing upon the water, flapped his wings and greeted 

 us with a series of shrieks. Then, diving beneath the sur- 

 face, he reappeared in the same spot and repeated the per- 

 pormauce half a dozen times. Twice we cocked and raised 

 a revolver to fire, but could not find it in our heart to kill, 

 wound or terrify the graceful bird which, in apprehension 

 for the safety of its young which were probably somewhere 



close at hand, was endeavoring to entertain us at the risk of 

 its life that they might go unnoticed, and the Madame's 

 lon^ngfor a loon skin went unsatisfied for that day, at least. 

 While no bird is more wary, none is more bold when the 

 safety of its young is at stake. Twice we have known the 

 mother bird, when pursued, with a young one upon her back 

 or by her side, to refuse to dive and leave it upon the water 

 or desert it until the boat was fairly upon her. In both in- 

 stances, after the young one had been captured, the mother 

 would follow and circle about the boat with cries that were 

 almost human, until the captor in sheer pity dropped her 

 treasure overboard, when she immediately rejoined it. Only 

 two attempts to our knowledge have been made to keep the 

 grand old bird in captivity, and they were mournful failures. 

 Last spring, as Sabatlis told us, one of his boys found a 

 loon fastened in a trap which he had set for mink. The 

 bird was tied by one of its legs to a line, two hundred feet 

 long, and put out on the lake. For two days and nights the 

 wail of the ponr bird wrung the heart of old Sabattis sore, 

 and he ordered that it should be killed or set free. But the 

 boy plead for another day, and on the morning of the next, 

 it was dead. We left the loon which had so entertained us, 

 in a state of apparent content as it saw the boat draw 

 slowly away, and then, as it turned toward the island where 

 it probably had left its young, we faced once more to the 

 front, jointed up the Mitchell and prepai'ed for work. 



Wawatanda. 



CLIMATE OF THE WEST. 



Sajtta Barbara, California, Jan. 3, 1886. 

 Editor Forest and Stream: 



I am in receipt of your issue of Dec. 17, and in it find "A 

 Special Correspondent's" second article upon the "Climate 

 of the West," which he claims is in reply to my comments 

 upon his first article on the subject. Unfortunately my copy 

 of the paper is an imperfect one, a folding of the sheet when 

 passing through the press having somewhat curtailed Mr. 

 Correspondent's article. However, I am enabled to follow 

 his arguments pretty clearly, and I am gratified to observe 

 that he entirely abandons liis former position, although he 

 does so without admitting the fact. In my former letter I 

 was too generous by half in explaining to Mr. Correspondent, 

 and to your readers, how and by what process his informants 

 became possessed of the belief that the seasons were changing 

 — changing rapidly— from dry to wet. Mr. Correspondent 

 now adopts the substance of that explanation as the basis of 

 his theory. How much better it would have been if he had 

 pursued that course in the first place (if he had only thought 

 of it), instead of stating, as he did, that a great and rapid 

 change was going on in the character of the seasons. Why 

 mislead and deceive badly informed or unthinking people 

 into the behef that the peculiarities of any country or any 

 climate will change just to suit or accommodate them? 



Mr. Correspondent pretends — it is only pretense — to think 

 that the table of figures I gave was for the purpose of prov- 

 ing that the seasons were steadily growing dryer. Why did 

 he not say plainly and bluntly that I was a foolv It would 

 have been quite as complimentary. The figures were given 

 simply to snow that Mr. Correspondent's statement that the 

 rainfall was rapidly increasing year by yeixr, or that it was 

 becoming far greater, was not true. 'This was the exact 

 thing in his article which was calculated to w^ork harm. 

 Now, since seeing my explanation of how his borrowed 

 opinions were reached, he admits that the change may be 

 more apparent than real; that application and economy of 

 water, just as I explained, may and do secure the results 

 that have by many been wrongly credited to a vastly in 

 creased rainfall "Now let Mr. Correspondent pursue his 

 argument from the new departure; show people how they 

 can adapt themselves to new countries and strange climates; 

 that by good judgment, industry and perseverance they can 

 reclaim naturally arid wastes and make even deserts blossom 

 with roses. By so doing he will secure good settlers for his 

 chosen region in the Great West instead of a horde of un- 

 thinking people who might come upon the strength of 

 promises held out in his first letter, and who themselves must 

 inevitably be disappointed and will then hold him respon- 

 sible for their misfortunes. 



It is true that I did remind Mr. Correspondent in the 

 latter part of my former article that no arid climate had ever 

 changed to a humid one; that the tendency of all such is to 

 grow dryer. I cited the evidence of all human history, the 

 geology of the earth, the shrunken streams, etc., and asked 

 him to prove the contrary in support of his position. He 

 conveniently omits to answer except by citing my figures to 

 disprove my assertion, which had no reference to the figures. 

 1 did not claim that this gradual change was noticeable from 

 year to year, from decade to decade, from generation to gen- 

 eration, nor from century to century, I doubt if the obser- 

 vations of a hundred years will prove the fact and its exact 

 dimensions. But the face of the earth proves it. Our 

 shrunken river beds prove it. Fossil and other traces of 

 vast forests, where none do or can grow now, prore it. 

 Thousands of miles of gravel beds where there is now no 

 water to make gravel, prove it. The ruins of great cities 

 and other evidences of dense human populations where such 

 cannot be now supported by the products of the country, 

 prove it. The fact is the earth of this Earth is growing 

 dryer. Arid portions are changing from dry to dryer with 

 the other. Man cannot change or check it. Newspaper 

 writers cannot prove the contrary. Man can improve his 

 methods and modify in some degree his surroundings. That 

 is the best he can do. 



Perhaps Mr. Correspondent can torture some portion of 

 this article into evidence that Palestine, and Egypt, and 

 Assyria, and the "back counties" thereabout, once the 

 granai-y of the world and the great center of human life and 

 industry and prosperity, lost its prestige and its people by a 

 change of climate from just right to too humid, by reason of 

 too much irrigating and plowing, and consequent dew on 

 the grass. According to his reasoning it could hardly have 

 been the other way— become too dry— after the first Egyp- 

 tian began scratching his corn patch with a forked stick. 

 Perhaps he can tell why the ancient cities of southwestern 

 Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona were abandoned. Their 

 great canals can yet be traced, but there is no water to fill 

 them. Perhaps he can tell why Mexico has not changed its 

 climate from arid to humid in accordance with his theory; 

 or why this region, where I now write, with its three hun- 

 dred years of civilization, has not done the same. Per con- 

 tra, I find Spanish traditions here say that when their 

 people first came hither the Santa Ynez range of mountains, 

 which rises about six miles distant to the northward, and 

 stretches sixty or seventy miles southeast by east and north- 

 west by west, was covered upon the seaward slope with a 

 luxuriant growth of forest timber. Now it produces 



