128 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[July 22, 1911. 
wa.k. The rest of the time he wades in the 
clear, swift, cold water or climbs over or crawls 
under great granite rocks on which a coach and 
four could turn around. A narrow channel, pro¬ 
tected on both sides by precious smooth walls, 
now sent us up the face of the mountain on a 
long detour, barely letting go of one bush to 
grab another, lest we roll down at an angle of 
sixty or seventy degrees and off the cliffs. At 
times it was considered easier to brave the tor¬ 
rent and by relying on hobnailed boots, stout 
poles and each other, go down and across the 
stream to a narrow shelf that offered scant foot¬ 
hold and opened upon a broad expanse of flat 
rock with the roaring, hurrying, pent-up stream 
on one side. At the foot of this water-worn 
granite table we found a little cascade and an 
adorable pool. 
We stopped, strung our rods and began with 
the coachman, the general purpose fly that kills 
oftener here than any other. A modest hackle 
may do as well, or if these sober lures fail, we 
may go as far as the professor, grizzly king or 
if it is late or cloudy, even the white miller. 
Sometimes it is a touch of green, then a dash 
of red that provokes the ferocious lunge the 
rainbow makes to capture the fly. Now, the 
angler who thinks that because he has solved 
the mysteries of brook trout he can as easily 
fill his basket with rainbows, is on the way to 
bitter disappointment and humbled pride. He 
has his art to learn all over again and no one 
can show him how or tell him his mistakes. He 
must study his keen, quick, moodish adversary, 
and learn by patient observation almost uncon¬ 
sciously, the fine art of deceiving this cleverest 
of fish. 
In this little frequented canon are trout of all 
sizes and notions. To-day they will strike fast 
and furiously and to-morrow they will not even 
yield to the wriggling worm. The pool gave us 
two or three twelve-inch trout apiece without 
unusual adventure, and on we went, for we had 
a bit of easier traveling just ahead and then 
something else before we could reach the first 
camp. John T. said we should have a bold, cold 
spring, a “rock house”—that is, a cave—to sleep 
in if it rained, plenty of dry wood for the all- 
night fire, and—eels! “Worn to a frazzle,” we 
arrived at this heavenly spot just at dusk. To 
the fat man the best thing about it was the 
spring, and every good camper knows how the 
fish and bacon taste when the coals are ready 
to cook. I even felt repaid for lugging two big 
potatoes in my pocket, for when baked in the 
ashes they completed a perfect feast. 
Not a cloud obscured the starlit, moonless sky, 
so we made what we called our bed by the fire 
on a huge rock shelf. After tickling the eels 
with our light tackle and doing them no harm, 
and drying before the fire from our numerous 
wettings, we went through the form of trying 
to sleep. John T. was right. “You never sleep 
the first night,” he remarked as he lay down on 
the bare rock; “wait till to-morrow and take 
a nap in the sun.” That rock, relieved by a few 
branches and leaves hastily snatched in the dark, 
had a'rnost as many bumps as a husk mattress 
and offered but little more rest, but the fire had 
to be kept up for warmth, so there was variety 
in that. Morning finally came. 
Cheered by hot coffee and encouraged by the 
prospect of soon being among the Babel towers, 
we pushed on. That day we traveled three or 
four miles in the deepest part of the canon, 
where great towers of eroded sandstone and 
granite rose nearly a thousand feet from the 
water’s edge. We looked up 2,000 feet to the 
viewpoint on the mountain above, whence we 
had gazed down at these very rocks, now so 
disheartening and insurmountable, and thought 
how small they were and what a tiny stream. 
From every crevice on all the many shelves 
and steep slopes where leaves have caught and 
forest mold has formed, the evergreen growth 
has started, taken a firm hold and lined the 
walls of the gorge with its softening beauty. 
Great spruces, rhododendron and laurel, cen¬ 
turies old, everywhere the galax, at the water's 
edge the leucothoe, and on the mountain top the 
heather—these are always green, except when 
the winter sun bronzes the galax and leucothoe 
for the Northern florists. In summer a great 
variety of deciduous trees and shrubs, including 
six varieties of azaleas; in the autumn the oaks 
and sourwoods, maples, gums and chestnuts paint 
this deep waterway between the mountains in 
colors such as its only American rival, the Grand 
Canon of the Colorado can equal. 
We needed fish for supper and none of my 
flies looked good to the finicky rainbows. Not satis¬ 
fied with John T.’s better luck, I fell on the worms 
I had secretly provided against such an emergency. 
Perhaps I was too sleepy to give the right twist 
of the wrist. Anyway, it seemed as if the time 
had come for that nap as I lazily reclined on a 
big rock in the middle of the river, bait drift¬ 
ing at the bottom of the pool below. What an 
awakening! Barely saving the rod as it slid 
off the rock with its spinning reel, I sat up and 
took notice. The subsequent proceedings in¬ 
terested me very much—also John T., standing 
on shore repairing a broken rod, done by a two- 
pounder; that was what drove me to worms. 
We were in a pool famous for big ones and the 
mountaineer excitedly shouting advice—good ad- 
H APPY is the man, says Uncle Ned Buck- 
shaw, who, like the school teacher, en¬ 
joys a vacation of from two to three 
months. Unfortunately His class is a small one, 
and the great mass of business and professional 
men in these struggle-for-life days must needs 
get along with two or three weeks, reckoning 
themselves extremely lucky if the vacation days 
can be stretched into a month. For this reason 
the problem, how best to spend this time of 
relaxation and recuperation, becomes for the 
average hard-working American a most import¬ 
ant one. Undoubtedly the best solution is to 
adopt a mode of life at variance with a man’s 
ordinary routine existence. For the confined 
city man, especially him of sedentary habits, the 
only way is to get out into the open and keep 
his lungs as full of oxygen as possible. 
Pure loafing is not desirable—even for the 
most fagged-out man. Dr. Hutchinson has said 
(and he will not claim to have discovered this 
truth) that a hard-worked man should have a 
vice, too—proclaimed that I had the daddy of 
’em all. “1 told ye I’d show ’em to ye down 
here.” It was just a half hour fight with many 
close calis for liberty by the fish, several times 
clearing the water in his struggles, making long, 
dangerous rushes to the vicinity of fatal snags 
and line-cutting rocks. But the pool was large, 
the .hook well set and the line and leader equal 
to the demands. The man behind the rod felt 
that he simply had to win the contest, and finally 
he got the beautiful fish safely in hand. 
“It’s a five-pounder,” we agreed, but the little 
fish scales said only fifty-seven ounces, and I 
sorrowfully admitted that they must be dis¬ 
counted four or five ounces. But it was a good 
enough fish, twenty-one inches long. In camp 
that night the honors of the best possible cook¬ 
ing a fish can have—roasting on green sticks be¬ 
fore coals—prepared the trophy for the most 
appreciative of appetites. The delicious flavor 
of trout so cooked will linger in the memory 
forever, for hardly any game equals it. And 
the second night we slept in spite of rocks, camp¬ 
fire stories, coffee and all other sleep preventives. 
The next day we came out, up a hard trail a 
mile and a half long to the top of the mountain 
with trout more honorably taken. We were 
worn, torn and needed a bath, in spite of several 
refreshing plunges into the cool river to the 
amazement of my companion. John T. had kept 
his promise and was proud of it. 
Other trips followed with equal or better re¬ 
sults in this wild, picturesque, unexplored canon 
where the fishing is good from April to Novem¬ 
ber and very few know about it. The true ang¬ 
ler will not hesitate to pay the price of weary 
muscles that accompany such royal sport. In a 
few years this region, now unexploited in all its 
virgin beauty, will probably be marred by re¬ 
sorts and the ruthless hand of man, for even 
now it is less than twenty-four hours by train 
from New York city. 
lot of exercise, but it must be of a relaxing, 
recreative nature, and different from his every 
day tasks. I have been asked what is the most 
advantageous way for a hard-working lawyer, 
physician or business man to spend a vacation 
of a fortnight or three weeks. There are sev¬ 
eral answers, but I know of no better one than 
this: spend the whole of your vacation in the 
woods and preferably on a canoe trip. For a 
person of sedentary habits, this is better than 
to stay in a permanent camp, because there is 
more exercise involved. Lay out the journey 
so that it can be accomplished without having 
to. stick to it every day for fear of not arriv¬ 
ing at the taking-out place on time. Reckon 
three or four days extra, so that a day or so 
can be spent at some particularly charming camp¬ 
ing place, or when one is tired, or when it rains 
pitchforks. There are some who like to rush 
through an itinerary, making so many miles a 
day, rain or shine, but that is not the part of 
wisdom. Never hurry on a pleasure trip. This 
The Charms of Canoe Trips 
By EDWARD BRECK 
