418 
FOREST AND STREAM 
ash, or any other wood, poles of that diameter would 
quickly break in two, whereat the man who was poling 
would find himself taking a headlong plunge into the river 
and the canoe probably capsized. The poles that are used 
on the rivers above named and everywhere else that 1 
h;jve been, are made of almost any kind of handy wood 
(spruce preferred because of- its lightness and stiffness), 
and are never longer than about eight feet, and usually 
about two inches and upward in diameter; any smaller 
sized poles than this would be dangerous to use, for even 
poles of the above size not infrequently break in two by 
the great pressure that is put upon them in poling a 
loaded canoe up a heav}^ rapid. 
Now comes the item of "shoeing" the ends of the poles. 
This is always done either with iron or steel about three 
inches long and brought down to a dull point of say one- 
fourth of an inch, or three-eighths of an inch in diameter ; 
to use unshod poles would be dangerous in the extreme, 
for the ends of them would "brush up" whether sur- 
rounded with an iron ring an inch or two back from the 
end or not. The rocks in all those salmon rivers are 
largely round and smooth, and extrcmeljr slippery, and to 
attempt to pole a canoe in heav}^ waters witli an unshod 
pole would be something that no guide would dare to do. 
for he would know that in a very few minutes the end 
of the pole would slip off some smooth, round rock which 
would cause disaster to both himself and the canoe. If 
Mr. Ashcroft and his friend have never seen a "shod 
caone-pole," and "doubt as tO' whether they will ever see 
one outside of a museum," I would suggest that the next 
time they arc in Canada they stop off at the Restigouchc 
Club at Metapedia Station, Quebec, or pay a visit to the 
Grand Cascapedia River thirty miles distant, or to the 
Bonaventure River, or any of the rivers flowing into the 
Bay of Chaleur or any other salmon ri\er in Quebec, and 
they will see plenty of canoe-poles with iron shod ends, 
as above described; in fact, they will see no other kind 
As to the "couch" and "the new pulled hemlock, and 
the starlight in our faces," well, if a man is sleeping in 
a tent in the woods, or in a shack, and he hasn't got any 
niattress with him, the first tiling the guide who knows 
his business does, is to go out into the woods and bring 
into the tent armful after armful of short branches, no 
more than a foot or so long, stripped from hemlock and 
spruce trees that are near by ; he does this until he gets 
a pile of them about a foot deep, and the delightful odor 
from these woods is certainly conducive to sleep. Of 
course, if a man is sleeping in a tent, or cabin, or a shack, 
he can't very well have "the starlight in his face;" but if 
he is sleeping in a lean-to and the night is clear, he will 
certainly have "the starlight in his face," and the moon- 
light, too, and every old light that comes in on the open 
side of the lean-to, and if the sportsman is a sportsman 
he will not attempt to angle for trout or salmon at night, 
for it is against the law to do so in Quebec, and in almost 
every other fishing country that I know of. And he 
wouldn't catch anything at night any way. 
It is a very remarkable fact how many men there 
are who call themselves sportsmen and pretend to have 
great knowledge and experience in various matters per - 
taining to fishing and shooting, Avho rush into print when 
they really know nothing about what they are writing. 
Only a few days ago I saw in one of the illustrated maga- 
zines an article on I'ail bird shooting, with a picture of 
two men sitting on the ground with a lot of snipe decoys 
around them. Every sportsman knows that the rail bird 
is a bird that inhabits marshes, and that never shows 
himself at all until he is stirred up by a boat which is 
pushed over the marshes when the tide is high enough to 
do so, then the rail bird takes flight, and only then is he 
usually visible. As to coining to a decoy or anything of 
that sort, such a thing was never heard of so far as a rail 
bird is- concerned, and yet there was a reputable magazine 
that not only published such a ridiculous thing, but at- 
tempted to picture it also. It is not often that I bother 
myself in correcting such foolishness, but in this instance 
I think that the readers of Forest and Stream ought to 
know the real facts, and hence this article. 
Robert C. Lowry. 
MoNTEEAL/P. Q., Nov. ig.—Editor Forest and Stream: 
What a tempest in a teacup has been raised over Kipling's 
"The Feet of the Young Men." 
Truly, each and every man is entitled to his own views 
■ — be they broad or narrow'; but how criticism such as 
that of Mr. L. F. Brown's can be evoked, is beyond or- 
dinary comprehension. Has he ever heard of such a 
thing as "poetic license?" Yes, surely, because he gives 
us a photo entitled, "Leaving a Camp — A Last Look at 
the Slagle River," and underneath are inscribed the 
■yyords, "Gcod-by, Sweetheart! Good-by !" 
Now, were we to adopt the line of criticism used by 
Mr. Brown, we would promptly say, that a stream has no 
heart — ergo it cannot be sweet, while being an inanimate 
object, it is foolishness personified to even address it. 
However, the prabable explanation is, that these magnifi- 
cent (in the sense of conveying that indescribable charm 
that liea in a picture mirrored by words) lines of K^ip- 
ling, must have fallen under this critic's notice when he 
was suffering from liver, and consequently disposed to. be 
captious. 
In a man who has seen as much of the wilderness as 
Mr. Brown — and his friends tell us he has — it is all the 
more remarkable; but whether he knows it or not, the 
"Red Gods" have called him, and he has answered their 
call ! 
A stream, silent and swift, and having good trout fish- 
ing, may yet "race." One is not called upon to pit it in 
contest with any other stream— it runs ; poetically, it 
races. . 
When one is lying basking in the sun on a pebbly bar, 
the end of the stream, so far as vision is concerned — 
which is all that is meant by Kipling — is as far as you can 
see water, and no further. "Shingle" may not be pebble, 
but does it not convey to the mind what is meant? 
The angle of the "log-jam" would depend entirely on 
one's position and which way he was looking at it. 
"Raw," applied to it, means something out of harmony 
with the other surroundings. 
A canoe-pole with ferrules on the ends — call them 
sleeves if you will' — will click when the metal strikes a 
^totie, the noise being conducted and imparted to the 
surrounding air by the wood of the pole itself. 
So far as "smoky" is concerned, I often in the winter 
evenings have pulled my favorite rifle from its case just 
to sniff that very odor of smoke, and by it recall many 
pleasant bygone camping scenes and pleasures. When we 
come from a day's fishing — if we have had good luck — 
we smell decidedly fishy; and and on a shooting or camp- 
ing trip, we smell smoky. How, then, about the Indian, 
who is about open fires more or less all his life? As to 
his silence, he has his fits of talkativeness and his supply 
of fun; but, as a rule, he is shy and silent. Talk to him, 
and he will talk; laugh with him, and he will laugh; but 
remain silent and how often will he be the one to break 
it, other than to call your attention to something in or of 
the woods or waters you are passing through? 
Anyway, to those of us who love the life of which these 
few lines of Kipling's are so descriptive, whose blood 
tingles in sympathj', and who can see the whole scene so 
much more vividly portrayed than that of the common- 
place little photo, under which are the words "Good-by, 
Sweetheart ! Good-by," we will read and re-read with a 
pleasure bordering in its intensity almost on pain. 
■ It is easy to criticise ! But give us something better 
than Kipling's, Mr. Brown, give us something better ! 
WM.!iM-i&.:uMi^.,.^^ Alert. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
In your recent issues I have come into collision, or, as 
i may say, into communion, with the critical observations 
of your many contributors who tamper with musical Mr. 
Rudyard Kipling's 
"Do yoix know llie blacltened timber? Do you know tlie racing 
stream, 
With tlie raw, right-angled log-jalti at the etid?"-'- 
and noting that Mr. L. F. Brown, who has given us some 
good things in Forest anu Stream, was receiving a 
rather variegated lot of tributes for a recklessly thrown 
brick or two, I looked up the back numbers oi this journal 
and started in where iVIr. Brown flushed — 
Do you know tlic blackened timber? Do you know the racing 
stream, 
With the raw, right-angled jog-lam at the end? 
and who then threw bricks and other hardware, including 
dead cats and a few otlicr gimcracks, together with a 
boomerang or two. 
I shall say nothing radical either way as to merits 
of red gods, nor blue screeds — let the critics crucify 
tliemselves. Let 'em go it, but 
T know the blackened timber! And T know that racing tlicme. 
With the raw, right-angled dog-ham at the end, 
is making me nervous. 
After reading up back numbers, I thought I missed 
some of the essential rhythrii, or whatever it is, of the 
lines — 
Do you know the blackened ember? Have you got the frisky 
scheme, 
With the raw, ram-spangled saw-log at the end? 
I commenced again at the beginning, giving the whole 
subject a fair chance to deploy in review before one of 
the clearest intellects in this sparsely settled part of the 
world. 
Mr. Brown's observations now seemed to me to be 
eccentric, but quite ratioital, until he takes up the lines 
beginning : 
you know tlie blackened limber? Do you know the chasing 
scream, J ; i ^lil'ia 
With the raw, ding-dangled jim-jam at the end? 
and there I again lost the finer fancies of both the sub- 
ject and the predicate. 
Mr. Hardy, who seems to have taken the popular, pos- 
sibly the right, view, and who presents tangible, if not 
authentic, evidence, in the shape of photographs, next 
employed my mental equipment cndurably until he, too, 
observes — 
Do you know the hackcned timber? Do you know the bracing 
steam? 
With the raw, new-fangled flim-flani round the bend? 
and then in spite of my constitutional aplomb, or what- 
ever it is, I began to go groggy. 
Resolving, nevertheless, to be not entirely laid away by 
y nursery jingle by Kipling or any other foreigner, and 
believing I could cope with any couplet that will hold still 
on paper, I stayed with the outfit until the general round- 
up. One after another correspondent writcs^ — 
Do you know the slackened limber? Do you know the lacing 
With the raw, r;m-tang1ed acbie-dam at the wind? 
or wgrds to that effect, as law^yers have said, and I left 
off, for the immediate present. I was not baffled nor 
discouraged — not by a long shot. I rested my case until 
1 could attempt sleep, as it was after hours. 
I think I slept brieflj^, and then I found myself awake, 
telling my wife — 
"Voii have seen the cracking thunder! You have had the raking 
squeera, «,^., 
In the raw, ding-dangled doo-dad of the iiend!" 
Nothing in the world but a woman can relieve a man's 
mind of such a burden. She did it by relieving her own 
in expressing a few things that neither reasoned, rhymed 
nor rhythmed, but I was glad to forget everything but 
the golden quality of silence, and the obscurity of snore- 
ful pretense, the next best thing to real sleep. 
Ransacker. 
Charlestown, N. H., Nov. 20.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: I am glad to see that you will close the "Kip- 
ling controversy" with the current number of Forest and 
Stream, and though I had not intended to say anything 
more on the question, the long and somewhat irrelevant 
diatribe of Mr. Brown in this week's number impels me 
to add a few words to it. In the first place, four of us, 
all octogenarians, or nearly so, Mr. Venning, Mr. Hardy,. 
Hermit, and myself, have certified to our own positive 
knowledge to Mr, Kipling's exact and correct description; 
of the facts as they exist in the New England States 
and the northeastern Provinces of Great Britain. I do 
not know the^ age of Mr. Brown, but we were probably 
all familiar with the woods before he was born, and know 
as much about "blackened forests," "raw log-jams,'" 
"shingle bars," and "setting poles," as any camp proprie- 
tor in Maine whom he can quote for authority. 
In the second place, I merely wish to remind him of the 
old adage that "Those who live in glass houses should 
not throw stones." His own pleasant verses in Forest 
AND Stream two weeks since are as open to criticism, 
when it comes to matter of fact, as any lines of Mr. 
Kipling. 
"Springs with pearly basins strewn with pure white 
shells" are as scarce in the Northern States or Canada as 
"roc's eggs," though they may exist in Florida. 
"Mossy jjanks" are not usually "flower strewn," for 
flowers do not often grow in moss, and the "ferns" which 
flourish around the springs are not of the same species 
as those which grow on the "surrounding hills !" 
So much for simple matter of fact. I do- not propose 
to find fault with Mr. Brown's verses, but he should 
allov/ as much "poetic license" to other writers as he 
tF,kes for himself, and I think we have sufficient proof 
that, from his standpoint, Mr. Kipling took no license at 
all! Now, all this is with the kindliest feeling toward 
Mr. Brown, and a renewed assurance of my appreciation 
of his previous writings, and a hope that he may con- 
tinue them, but rather to describe his own experiences 
and sensations than to criticise and carp at those of 
others ! , Von W. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
A FEW days ago I rode for many miles along the upper 
Hudson. I saw thousands and tens of thousands of logs 
jammed in the river bed. Were they lying parallel to the 
course of the stream? No, indeed! Probably 99 out of 
every 100 were lying at right angles to this course. The 
reason is obvious. It would be as easy to stand eggs on 
end as to cause logs to jam end on in the current. When 
a floating log strikes an obstruction end on, the upper 
end swings one way or the other, and the log is either 
carried over or lodges at right angles to the current. 
Was Kipling accurate or inaccurate? 
Once more, I hunted last season on the Little Tobique 
with Adam Moore, one of the ablest and most sportsman- 
like of the New Brunswick guides. I saw no canoe poles 
that were not "shod," and if a pole be broken the tip 
is removed to be fixed upon another pole. More than 
once I heard the click of the pole before the canoeist 
wielding it came in sight. There is little opportunity to 
hunt when poling through swift water, but in still water 
the pole is laid aside, and the paddle propels the canoe 
noiselessly along. I maintain that Kipling was not in 
tills instance inaccurate. 
It seems to me that Mr. Brown, starting in prejudice, 
has, in the heat of ai'gument, reached the utmost extreme 
of hyper-criticism, and has taken a position which in 
calmer moments he will regret. 
No candid man can deny the frequent brutality and 
even vulgarity in Kipling's writings, but he is ever far 
removed from the commonplace. The verse under dis- 
cussion seems to be true, striking, and vivid, and to have 
strength which is not found in the other selections quoted 
by Mr, Brown. M. F. Westover. 
Whitinsville, Mass., Nov. 20. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: I feel that I would like to be recorded for the 
Red Gods. I think that Kipling's lines express precisely 
the condition of things as they are found in the deep 
woods of Maine. It is marvelous that so much thought 
can be expressed in so few words. 
Just a word in regard to "blackened timber." To me 
this tneans the evergreen forest of spruce, fir, and pines — 
particularly spruce. This class of trees is generally re- 
ferred to in the section of Maine that I visit as blach 
growth. I know of a Black Nubble and a Black Moun- 
tain that I believe to be so named on account of the 
heavy growth of spruce trees on each. Also this black 
growth, in my experience, usually covers the banks of the 
rivers — particularly the quick running ones for a con- 
siderable distance from the water. 
C. A. Taft. 
Pelham Manor, N. Y., Nov. 24.~Editor Forest and 
Stream: Those who believe Kipling's lines describe 
"universal" conditions, and those who are interested in the 
matter, are invited to write to such master canoeists as 
Brewster Brothers, of Field, British Columbia, or Mr. L. 
O. Armstrong, of the Canadian Pacific Railway, who 
presented "Hiawatha" at the Sportsman's Show last 
March; and they will learn that shod canoe-poles are not 
used, and their use is confined to canoes around log- 
drivers' camps. Mr. Armstrong, as I am told, never saw 
a canoe-pole in use that was shod ; and he has traveled 
that way thousands of miles. F. J. Hoyle. 
Blue Point, Long Island. — Editor Forest and Stream: 
Fred puts it pretty good; he was satisfied to accept Rud- 
yard and his "blackened timber," shod poles and all that 
but for Brown. Then someone else put him right and he 
straightway returned to his old love. All was well ; Rud- 
yard could have cooked the raw^ log-jam to a crisp; we 
were all asleep, lulled by the melodious click of shod 
poles, and were entirely satisfied to dream under the 
mystic influence of the lute, and "the strange weird carry- 
ing quality" — but for Brown ! Brown's right ! But 1 
wouldn't have Kipling alter one word of the Red Gods 
for worlds. Cap. Will Graham. 
Canton, Pa. — Editor Forest and Stream: There is an 
old saying that everybody knows how to edit a paper, 
doctor a sick horse, or preach a sermon, but at the risk 
of having this quoted to me, I am going to make a sug- 
gestion which I am sure will meet the approval of a very 
large part of Forest and Stream readers. If there is to 
be any more written about Kipling's "Red Gods," can- 
not you have it printed in a supplement so that those of 
us who are deadly tired of it can put it in the fire at once 
on arrival and not spoil the rest of the paper, which 
we love to read? I don't know Brother Brown, but I ara 
sure he is a good fellow from the way he closes his letter,.,' 
and if he will come out here I will promise to sit down, 
with him to a broiled grouse and other good things. 
