810 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
'[April 22, 1905. 
Almost an Adventure: 
Editor Forest cmd Stream: 
I have been reading some of Capt. Mayne Reid's 
tales of late, and having been over the ground covered 
by most of them, and hunted the same kinds of game, 
have fell to speculating on why it was that each hunting 
exploit of his ended in such desperate adventure, 
while mine have so singularly failed in that line. 
Of course, Mr. Reid had the advantage of perform- 
ing in a new land, far removed from human knowl- 
edge, and of an audience far removed from the scene 
of his activities. In those earlier days buffalo and 
bears charged the hunters on sight. Coming on the 
stage in later years I found it difficult to get within long 
rifle shot of the buffalo that drove Mr. Reid to tree 
on sight, or the bears that charged boldly into his 
camp and engaged the hunter in hand-to-hand, or 
hand-to-paw combat. In my time the vast herds of the 
western plains had got wise by reason of most of their 
members carrying from one to a dozen rifle or pistol 
balls in their bodies, planted there by hunters of the 
Reid type. This may account for the wide disparity, or 
it may be that such adventures, like history, can only 
be properly told when far removed by time or distance 
from the events narrated, which only means that then 
the historian can say what suits his purpose, as 
there is no one at hand to dispute him. In any case, 
after thirty years of exploiting over the same ground, 
in much the same manner and for the same purpose, I 
have utterly failed of any thing like such desperate 
encounters as were everyday occurrences with Mr. 
Reid. 
To be sure, I have had my canoe upset in quick water 
on various canoe trips, but being a good swimmer and 
having prepared for just such emergencies, they have 
only been vexations. I once lassoed a wildcat or 
prairie lynx, which I thought fast in a trap, but which 
came loose at the critical moment and left me at one 
end of a. rope with a raging wildcat at the other; yet 
an animal that would weigh no more than twenty-five 
pounds could not be wrung into a hair-raising ad- 
venture with good effect. Besides, I had only to loose 
the rope and the cat would have taken it and gone, well 
satisfied with his bargains. But hold! there is one 
event that dawns upon my memory, which, looked at 
from a certain viewpoint, might be regarded as a des- 
perate affair. I will relate it. 
We were jumping ducks on a western river. Alter- 
nate wild rice swamp and forest margined the stream. 
It was a straight down-stream run of a hundred miles. 
We had teams with heavy camp outfit, cooks and so 
forth, paralleling the river overland, with instructions 
to go into camp at a certain point halfway down. We 
were crossing an Indian reservation, and few people 
passed that way. Game was plenty, and the forenoon 
had been a busy one. At noon we had stopped to 
lunch on the river bank, and to make our coffee had 
built a small fire. I had noticed before starting it that 
the grass was very dry and combustible under the 
noonday sun, and had thought our fire was likely to 
get away in the heavy fitful south wind that was 
blowing; but as the Indians had already burned over 
most of the country, all the grass left being inside the 
small bend of the river, an acre or so, that surrounded 
our camp,: it made no difference if fire did get out. 
While we were eating Inch, I noticed the fire eating 
away at the short grass, having spread a couple of 
feet. Thinking_ to put it out, I took a broken bush to 
whip it out with. One blow, and the burning grass 
clinging to branch and twig was scattered for ten feet 
round. Had I taken a paddle, or something with a 
flat surface, that one blow would have ended the blaze. 
As it was, the labor of putting it out after it was 
scattered was too great, considering that it could do no 
possible damage, and I made no further effort in that 
line. Busying myself in packing up the lunch kit ready 
for the start, I paid no attention to what my com- 
panion, or rather employer, was doing. Looking up 
later I noted that Capt. B. had taken up where I left 
off and was fighting the fire. I noted, too, that he 
was in the tall grass in front of the fire striking back 
at it. Indeed, he was standing in a dense mass of 
swamp grass higher than his head. He was a very 
large _ man, whose combined flesh and age were the 
only just excuse any man ever had for going hunting 
for the healthy exercise it entailed (not for the mere 
slaughter of game), and then taking some one along 
on whom he could shunt the exercise. The fire was, 
working its way leisurely through the short grass and 
only about a foot from the dense mass. The wind, 
which was gusty, had lulled for a moment. The very 
next gust would shoot a sea of flame through Capt. 
B.'s gray hair and whiskers. I saw the situation at a 
glance; knew the danger, and shouted to him, to get 
out quick. He did make a quick move backward (the 
wrong direction) as if to escape, and then the ground 
gave way beneath him and he dropped into a muskrat 
burrow up to his hips. He was wedged in tightly 
and could not possibly have, gotten out by his own ex- 
ertions. I rushed in and pulled that 200-pound man 
out of there like puhing a goose quill out of an ink 
bottle and hustled him back across the line of fire, 
just as the next gust of wind came and swept the in-^ 
noQ^nt blaze mtQ §eething mass of fire thf^t covered 
a hundred feet of ground in half a minute. So fierce 
was the heat, that we were compelled to turn our faces 
away at a distance of forty yards. We watched that 
acre of tall swamp grass wither before it, and then got 
into our canoe and started on down the river. 
Not a word was said about the matter, nor has there 
been from that day to this, though many long years 
have passed and many hundred miles have been trav- 
ersed in that same canoe. I have often thought that 
the Captain could not have understood the real ex- 
tent of his peril, and must have been under the im- 
pression that a few blisters would have been all he 
would have had to contend with at the very worst; 
then again he might have taken a more cold-blooded 
view of the matter and concluded that he at least would 
have soon been out of trouble, while on me would 
have fallen the onus of presenting to the wife and 
widow at camp that night the few charred remnants as 
all that remained of the vigorous sportsman I had 
started out with in the early morning. Yes, it is 
hard to penetrate its disguise, but I believe it was a 
real adventure after all. , E. P. J. 
AiTKiJj, Minn. 
Nessmuk. 
My angler is something of a hero-worshipper. One 
of the most valued of his heroes is the man whose 
writings, over the signature of Nessmuk, charmed the 
readers of Forest and Stream years ago. 
Nessmuk's home was in Wellsboro, Pa. During a re- 
cent visit to that place, my angler went to the old home- 
stead, where still lives Nessmuk's wife and son, and 
also to the graveyard where stands the granite stone 
erected by Forest and Stream over Nessmuk's grave. 
At that time he made and brought home with him a 
drawing of this stone; the medallion containing Ness- 
muk's profile in bas relief; the wreath, and the in- 
scription, "George W. Sears, born Dec. 2, 1821, died 
May I, 1890," the ax carved on the base of the stone, 
with the word "Nessmuk" cut on the handle, being 
faithfully reproduced. This stone stands, as you know, 
at the edge of the cemetery, near the pines whose 
soughing in the wind Nessmuk loved. 
OnCe, years ago, my angler was fishing in the river, 
and had just landed a bass, when Nessmuk came slip- 
ping along in his canoe, just in time to see the capture, 
and to stop and chat a few minutes about fishing. The 
fisherman had little difficulty in identifying the stranger, 
for it was known that Nessmuk was in the neighbor- 
hood. This incident has figured in the fireside stories 
of the man who caught the bass, as might the visit of 
an inhabitant of another sphere, and is a highly valued 
recollection. The canoe, too, has come to be described 
as the same as that exhibited by Forest and Stream 
at the World's Fair at Chicago, and my angler took 
a personal interest in the number of lovers of the woods 
who visited it. 
As to Nessmuk's writings in Forest and Stream, 
and his two volumes, "Woodcraft" and Forest Runes," 
my angler reads them over and over, especially in the 
. la'te winter, when he is low in his mind, and spring is 
still a long way off. He asserts, though none dispute, 
that Nessmuk had an exceptionally good command of 
clear and vigorous English, and a style so direct and 
clear, that there was never a doubt as to his meaning; 
that, though he lacked the training, he had the heart 
of a poet, and that "Forest Runes" contains some real 
poetry. Again he maintains, and proves, that "Wood- 
craft" is as much a source book for writers on camp- 
ing as Parkman's "Oregon Trail" is for writers about 
the Indians. Sometimes he finds in more recent books 
on this subject whole paragraphs that apparently should 
be credited to Nessmuk, reading aloud to me descrip- 
tions of camp-fires and camps, from books whose 
authors are widely read, afterward turning to "Wood- 
craft" to show how the ideas, and occasionally even 
the words, have been borrowed. For my own part, I 
have never appreciated Nessmuk's poetry, thougjh I am 
willing to admit that some of his poems have a flavor 
and smell of the woods that would endear them to the 
heart of the nature lover. 
My angler is a camper, and here again he is under 
the influence of Nessmuk's spellf* For many years he 
pitched his camp in a maple grove beside a trout 
stream that flows down through the Alleghanies into 
the west branch of the Susquehanna. This camp was 
named Camp Nessmuk, and the canipers were known 
as Nessmukers. Near by was an unnamed stream that 
ever since has been known as Nessmuk Run. The 
camp-fire and the camp range before the tent were 
made after Nessmuk's directions, and the bed of picked 
hemlock browse was laid according to Nessmuk's rule. 
Many a time have I heard visitors to this camp relate 
how they sat at this camp-fire and heard for the first 
time the name of Nessmuk, and how they listened 
through an evening to accounts of Nessmuk and his 
woodcraft, his ten-day trip across the trackless forests 
of Michigan, his hunting and fishing caitips and his 
canoe trips. 
My angler is, of course, first of all, a fisherman, and 
while he will not admit freely that Nessmuk was a 
<ini§l,ied angler, he appears to feel that his favorite added 
.somglJiiing to the literature of angling that the pro- 
fession pould not well affor4 \q lose, A§ it happens, 
Nessmuk's description of "Catching Trout on the June 
Rise" is a faithful account of what happened to him- 
self once upon a lucky time. 
Probably a similarity of experience in this and other 
ways has led to this deep appreciation, for the streams 
fished by the two men must be alike in many ways. 
In fact, the mouth of the Loyalsock, whose "banks and 
braes" are more familiar to my angler at certain 
seasons of the year than are the paths of our village 
streets, is but fourteen miles from the mouth of Pine 
Creek, the stream that Nessmuk loved so well. 
Then again once upon a time, my angler invented a 
fly, a trout fly, which, according to his story, the trout 
adore, and, with which he has taken many a iDasketful of 
trout, when said trout disdained any other inducement 
to rise. It is, I understand, similar to the stone fly, 
with various additions that catch the fancy of the 
Loyalsock trout. This invincible and most alluring 
fly was at once given the name of Nessmuk. The maker 
of the fly corroborates this story, and relates how many 
hundred gross he sells each year, seeming also to re- 
gard -its success largely due to the name. 
Now — if naming a well-beloved summer camp, a new 
stream and a most remarkable trout fly after a man; 
if poring over his books, and recommending them in- 
discriminately to everybody; if to sing his hero's 
praise in season and out of season, does not brand a 
man as a hero-worshipper, my first proposition must 
remain unproved. ^ Justina Johnson. 
Sporting in China. 
Among those who come to China on the steam- 
ships which ply between her principal ports and western 
countries there occasionally appears a passenger with 
a gun case among his other baggage. This is a sports- 
man, and he regards as next in essential to the in- 
struments of his toilet the instrument that contributes 
to the chief pleasure of his outdoor sport. Some- 
times he is seen leading a beautiful pointer or setter 
dog, and then it may generally be understood that he 
comes to China to make it his business home. 
For more than fifty years sportsmen have been 
coming to China until they now constitute quite a 
numerous proportion of the foreign population of the 
Empire, and as a consequence the game that formerly 
abounded in such great quantities about the open ports 
has been shot or driven into the interior. The sports- 
man can leave, as heretofore, on a Saturday afternoon 
for an "up-country shoot," but he does not return, as 
in the old days, early Monday morning with fifty or 
more pheasants. The thoughtless slaughter he in- 
dulged in when game was plentiful now impresses the 
fact, that had he been more thoughtful of the future 
he might have indefinitely prolonged the pleasure of 
his sport. Now one has to travel far into the interior 
to make a bag of a half dozen pheasants a day,' and as 
there are no roads in China, as in the sense of roads 
in western countries, the journey to the interior has 
to be made by means of a boat, and the pleasure and 
comfort of such a journey greatly depends upon the 
sportsman being fortunate in obtaining a suitable boat. 
If, however, the sportsman succeeds in getting a 
suitable boat he will have but little if any difficulty in 
finding his way to the "happy hunting ground" of the 
interior, for it appears that no country in the world 
can have better water facilities for transportation than 
China. Nearly the whole Empire, from every point 
of the compass, is interlaced by creeks and canals, and 
there are excellent inaps, among others. Wade's, by 
the aid_ of which the traveler or sportsman can easily 
trace his way to the objective point of his choice. 
What is a suitable boat must be answered by the 
taste and desire for comfort of the sportsman. At the 
port of Shanghai the boat in general use by sports- 
men is known as a houseboat, and some of these are 
palatial in their fitting up. But the houseboat that 
will prove more convenient, and which will be found 
sufficiently comfortable, will answer to the following 
description, and would cost about four hundred gold 
dollars. It should be about forty feet in length and 
with a full width beam to insure its steadiness. Such a 
boat can be divided into every proper compartment 
for convenience, which would mean a cabin large 
enough for sleeping and eating purposes, a toilet room, 
kitchen, and a small kennel for a dog. The quarters 
for the crew are generally under deck, and as Chinese 
compose the crew they, as a rule, prefer such quarters. 
As many of the creeks are shallow, especially during 
the latter part of the shooting season, it would be ad- 
visable for the houseboat to be built of as light timber 
as possible consistent with the necessary strength. 
The finer and more costly class of boats have the 
hull constructed of wood very similar in fibre to oak, 
and which the Chinese call teakwood. This wood is 
very strong, and has a beautiful grain, but a hull built 
of Chinese pine and oiled with Chinese oil is lighter 
and perhaps as durable. The sportsman will find it 
greatly to his convenience to have his boat of as 
light a draft as rnay be without sacrificing strength, and 
the top or covering should therefore be of light boards 
closely put together and covered with a good quality 
of canvas, and that well painted. The top should be 
just enough oval in shape to shed water easily, and it 
can be mi^ strong by hoops 5pannin| th^ inside from 
