AND AMERICAN RURAL SPORTS. 
113 
of course, no occasion to watch the line as in the common 
method, when it frequently happens that the philosophic 
fisher displays no ordinary degree of patience in calmly 
waiting for hours, or perhaps for days, in expectation of a 
very fine nibble at least, if not of a fierce bite. The spring- 
hook, or spring-basket, if set at night, may be conve- 
niently examined the next morning, and will seldom be 
found empty, unless fish be very scarce . — » Annals of 
Sporting. 
From the New-England Galaxy. 
SOME PASSAGES FROM THE DIARY OF A 
SPORTSMAN. 
[Continued from page 90.] 
The Sportsman is led by the very nature of his pur- 
suits to pass away many solitary hours, with no other com- 
panionship than the communion of his own thoughts. In 
his utter solitude he indulges in many a dreamy and deli- 
cious reverie, in many a bright imagining. As he paces 
the far extended plain, or reclines at noonday at the root 
of the patriarchal tree of the forest, his thoughts wander 
forth into the unexplored realms of the future, or steal 
back into the shadowy halls of the great Past, and make 
their melancholy sojourn with the glorious dead. The past, 
the past! it is ever with a deep sense of awe that we ven- 
ture into the broad mysterious dominions of the past. The 
mind is impressed with a strange tinge of sadness as it 
wanders among the ashes of long-forgotten generations; as 
it calls those mighty spirits of the dead again into ideal 
life, as it meets with the good, the brave, the pious, the 
learned, the benevolent men of other days. 
It is natural, as it is delightful, for the solitary Sports- 
man, as he plunges into the depths of our immense woods, 
as he loiters along the lonely shore, as he glides across the 
silent bay in his rocking skiff, as he muses upon the bor- 
der of the rivulet, to recur to those not far-distant days, 
when the barbaric tribes of the red men peopled the land 
around him. The spirit of the departed savage is around, 
and about him; it haunts the wood and peoples the valley. 
As he urges his slender shallop over the billows, he almost 
fancies that he can again discover the gliding boat of the 
Indian; as he traverses the solemn glades of the forest he 
almost expects to see the apparition of the savage warrior 
start from the leafy thicket, 
F F 
And then to mark the Lord of all, 
The forest hero, trained to wars, 
Quivered and plumed, and lithe and tall, 
And seamed with glorious scars, 
Walk forth, amid his reign, to dare 
The wolf, and grapple with the bear. 
But yesterday, as it were, the calumet of peace was 
lit, the council fire sent up its flames in the silence of the 
deep woods, or the war-hatchet was dug from the root of 
the peaceful tree, and the great war-dance made the hills 
resound with the measured tramp of a thousand warriors, 
and the hideous yell sent forth from a thousand warlike 
bosoms. But yesterday, as it were, and the now cultivated 
hill was overshadowed by the wide and drooping wood, 
and the plain whose fertile glebe is now made fruitful by the 
hand of the husbandman, or occupied by the secluded vil- 
lage, or the vast and noisy city, was a silent and intermina- 
ble wilderness, whose tranquillity was only disturbed by the 
shout of the Indian hunter, or the blast of the Indian horn. 
From the recesses of every wood the hearth of the Indian 
lodge sent up its curling smoke; on the green slopes around, 
the sounds of childish sport were heard; beneath the sacred 
tree the bones of the old forefathers of the hamlet were 
committed to their long repose. The Sportsman is con- 
tinually reminded of their existence, by a thousand objects 
around him. With every venerable tree, thick with the 
moss of age, with every wild stream that lifts up its cla- 
morous voice in the solitude, are mysteriously connected 
associations which call before his memory the glories of 
other days, the ferocity of the savage warrior, or the free- 
dom of the wild hunter. He often meets with relics of 
that departed race in his solitary rambles; he discovers the 
lonely cairn where the ashes of the distinguished chieftain 
repose; he meets with the pious heap of stones which 
savage affection has erected over the bones of a beloved 
object; he oftentimes finds the relics of the crumbling 
lodge or decayed canoe, the huge wooden bowl, the rude 
pottery, the stone-hatchet, the clumsy knife, the flint- 
pointed arrow, the shell-covered shield, the ornamented 
pouch or moccasin, the bow or battle-axe of tough wood or 
polished bone, and various other curiosities which serve 
to remind of that untutored people whose hands so long- 
ago fashioned them. 
If the Sportsman is wearied at any time with a long and 
patient march, then what more delightful than to fling him- 
self down upon the smooth sea-beach or the yielding car- 
pet with which boon Nature has overspread the earth, and 
indulge in repose mental or bodily. He can then produce 
his well-filled scrip, and like the Greeks of old after the 
battle, “ snatch a short repast.” With what charitable 
satisfaction does he bestow a bountiful portion of his stores 
