DEO. 81, 1895. J 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



601 



the boat did we have the assurance that he was the crown 

 jewel of our finny treasures. 



I got a vicious bite, and in another instant I was strug- 

 gling with a Slbs. beauty. We were advised to hitch our 

 boat to the second stake, for at this second stake the 

 Severn suddenly veers to the right coming down stream, 

 and the waters are whirled around in pretty eddies. 



In these eddies lie the noblest, the strongest and the 

 bravest of all creatures that swim — the bass. At this 

 shrine every angler bows his knee, and in the glowing 

 light of thousands of camp-fires the tourist chants his 

 praise. In these eddies come the noble bass to feed, for 



similar wars, grows excited and exhorts to be careful 

 and not overturn the boat. 



He finally tires of his mad rushes and we yank this 

 princely 15lbs. muakinonge into the boat. 



"When we arrive home grandfather Skinner, the 

 patriarch of this region, remarks by way of encourage- 

 ment? "He's a nice little fellow, but not half as big as 

 I have seen 'em. Why, I speared one in the spring of '72 

 that weighed 43£lbs." 



Monday morning we hitched up the Democrat, a four- 

 wheeled vehicle, and in true Republican style rode out to 

 visit a number of the small lakes in the vicinity. We 



THE ARRIVAL OE WILLIAM II. AT THE BOAK PARK. 



lynx, and the ominous call of the moose. 



Oh, my I how could we refrain from going "down 

 below?" 



Wednesday morning, having packed three days' pro- 

 visions, hired guides to paddle us, we glided out of the 

 handsome Sparrow Lake with our hearts all aglow with 

 bright anticipations of the wonders "down below," as the 

 genial captain had put it. 



"Take a good look at that house," said Archie, my 

 guide, "that's the last house you will see for three days," 

 and we saw with feelings akin to sadness the outlines of 

 this rude house fade away in the distance. 



We knew that although we were on the bosom of a 

 mighty waterway, destined some day to be one of the 

 commercial highways, yet we should probably see no 

 human faces save our own for three days. 



We swept down past the lovely camp of the Iron City 

 Club, of Pittsburg, a coterie of the finest ladies and gen- 

 tlemen of that city. 



At McDonald's Chute we were compelled to portage our 

 boats, which to me was one of the most novel of my ex- 

 periences in Canada. The guides dextroualy threw the 

 boats over their heads and bore them like the tortoise 

 bears his shell. The others carried the guns, rations and 

 camp utensils. 



Oh! the reckless and light-hearted abandon with which 

 we trudged over that portage. Once over the portage we 

 again launch our birch bark canoes and lazily paddle 

 down the noble Severn. Another portage is made and 



to this point the river bears its burden of worms and in- 

 sects. The fish come in schools, and the day Dave and I 

 were there we caught the whole school, urchins, truants, 

 teachers, janitor, principal and all; at least so we consid- 

 ered it. In a couple of hours we had all the fish our fam- 

 ily could use and slowly rowed homeward, arriving in 

 time to see Mr. Skinner, our host, one of the oldest resi- 

 dents in the whole country side, land a 25Jlbs. channel 

 cat. My! the fight he had to land hi m. Three times the 

 fish towed the old man in his little boat across the river 

 before he would consent to be rudely dragged ashore. 

 We immediately called our crowd together, and in due 



visited Bear, Buck, Gras" and St. John's lakes, finally pull- 

 ing up at Orilla, one of the prettiest towns of Ontario. It is 

 prettily nestled on the banks of the romantic Couchiching 

 (lake of many winds). It is prominently associated with 

 the massacre of the Huron Indians, and the merciless 

 massacre of the early Catholic wilderness missionaries. 

 It being the base of missionary operations earned the 

 fierce wrath of the relentless Iroquois, and its sad fate is 

 too tragic to relate. No history is more sublime in its 

 record of suffering, self-sacrifice, peril and death than is 

 the history of those pioneer Catholic missionaries. 

 Though 200 years have elapsed, their tragic end seems 



BED DSER IN THE ROYAL PRESERVE. 



WILD 



In the Boar Park, Hanover. 



BOARS AND DEER KILLED IN THE ROYAL HUNT. 



The game in the first and second rows was killed by the Emperor William II. 



form elected this old patriarch of the rod and reel chair- 

 man of the next "Channel oat Convention." In the 

 afternoon and evening my Scotch friend rowed me down 

 to Sparrow Lake to troll for 'lunge. Up here they do 

 not say muakinonge or muskalonge, but simple, emphatic, 

 trenchant lunge. 



No other word implies so well the splendid pluck and 

 prowess of this kingly fish. 



We trolled up and down past the mouth of the lovely 

 Koschee River, and although our luck was not good the 

 glorious scenery of this romantic Koschee with its craggy 

 dells was abundant reward. 



My friend Brimer keeps jollying me along by saying, 

 "Don't get uneasy; we are not yet at the proper place. 

 Wait until we strike the lunge weed then we'll have fun." 

 i Presently I saw down in the deep waters of the lake a 

 tall green fern-like weed that undulated backward and 

 forward, keeping time to the rhythmic motions of the 

 boat. In the soft, pithy stock of this weed there burrows 

 a worm which becomes a large juicy grub that is as fine 

 as tenderloin to the hungry lunge. 



The fish breaks the weeds to pieces to get this delicious 

 morsel. 



"Now we'll have some fine fun," says Brimer, but 

 nevertheless we don't, and as the hours roll around even 

 the over-enthusiastic Brimer begins to look as though he 

 had that "tired feeling." 



We thus toil "until the evening sun descending set the 

 clouds on fire with redness, burned the broad sky like a 

 prairie, left upon the level water one long track and trail 

 of splendor." 



Our stock of disgust increases as we view the result of 

 our toil; 



Two measly little pickerel. 



Sadly we start homeward, but we had not gone far 

 when I felt the loose line jerk and tighten, felt its 

 vicious lurches. "It's a lunge, and a good one," says 

 Brimer; but mind you give him no slack line. We 

 play him for several minutes. I conclude to draw him 

 into the boat, when to my amazement he shot fully 4ft. 

 from the water, the pearly drops flash from his blue 

 and silvery sides, and he came down with a crash into 

 the water and shot crosswise under our boat, almost 

 overturning it. 



As the fish leaps from the water and thrashes its sur- 

 face to a foam, even the sage Brimer, a veteran of many 



still to taint the region with sadness and the somber pine 

 tree to chant their funeral dirges. 



On our return to Bennett's we heard marvelous tales of 

 the region known as the Lower Severn. Capt. Woods, a 

 millionaire of Pittsburg, had been a member of the party 

 just returned, and his graphic descriptions of the won- 

 ders seen "down below" were awe-inspiring. 



Then the awful sounds at night were, to hear the cap- 

 tain in his unique and entertaining way tell it, most thrill- 

 ingly, There was the howling of wolves, screaming of 



we all make a dash to see who will be first to view the 

 far-famed Ragged Rapids. Here we carry our boats a 

 mile or more. This tiresome trudge knocks tbe romance 

 of the portage into a cocked hat; but the sight that greets 

 your eye as you peer over the crags to the foaming depths 

 below helps the hurt that toil has made. Here the waters 

 of the Severn are forced through a gorge, scant 50ft. wide, 

 and so precipitous that the waters fairly fly. When the 

 floods pass through this rapid must be one of the world's 

 wonders. 



No sort of craft could for an instant live in the awful 

 fury of the beating, rushing waters which are ground 

 out at the foot of the rapids in giant waves, as from the 

 paddle of some immense steamer. 



The waters, as if tired out after their perilous journey, 

 flow sluggishly away, and as we slowly paddle away on 

 its calm surface, the guide stops and remarks: "You are 

 now in the fisherman's paradise." 



We anchor at the head of Flat Rapids; baiting our 

 hooks with live frogs, we begin our work. 



All around ua we see the bass jump up and snap a big 

 brown fly of the mosquito type, called the bass fly. 



My bait hardly struck water until the reel began to sing 

 and the rod to bend. In my over-anxiety to land him I 

 broke my rod and had to drag him upon the beach. I 

 soon cut a pole from an alder thicket. In trying to drop 

 my bait into a fine eddy a bass jumped at it before it 

 touched water. It had scarcely sunk out of sight when 

 I felt the energetic snap of the bass. Eager to land him, 

 I dashed him far upon the bank, from where he flopped 

 down into a tangle of brush and weeds, and I lost much 

 valuable time in getting him out. 



For an hour or more we were kept busy baiting hooks 



WILLIAM II. INSPECTING THE GAME, 

 The Emperor stands between the second and thii d window to the right of. the door. 



