top, like an entomologist's. When the canoe has been run
into the uppermost rapids, and a school of fish is seen below or
alongside, he dexterously puts down his net, and having swooped up a
number of the fish, instantly reverses it in water, whips it up, and
discharges its contents into the canoe. This he repeats till his canoe
is loaded, when he shoots out of the tail of the rapids, and makes for
shore. The fish will average three pounds, but individuals are sometimes
two and three times that weight. It is shad-shaped, with well-developed
scales, easily removed, but has the mouth of the sucker, very small. The
flesh is perfectly white and firm, with very few bones. It is boiled by
the Indians in pure water, in a peculiar manner, the kettle hung high
above a small blaze; and thus cooked, it is eaten with the liquid for a
gravy, and is delicate and delicious. If boiled in the ordinary way, by
a low hung pot and quick fire, it is soft and comparatively flabby. It
is also broiled by the inhabitants, on a gridiron, after cutting it open
on the back, and brought on the table slightly browned. This must be
done, like a steak, quickly. It is the most delicious when immediately
taken from the water, and connoisseurs will tell you, by its taste at
the table, whether it is immediately from the water, or has lain any
time before cooking. It is sometimes made into small ovate masses,
dipped into batter, and fried in butter, and in this shape, it is called
_petite pate._ It is also chowdered or baked in a pie. It is the great
resource of the Indians and the French, and of the poor generally at
these falls, who eat it with potatoes, which are abundantly raised here.
It is also a standing dish with all.

[Footnote 27: This word is pronounced as if written _so_, not _soo_. It
is a derivative, through the French, from the Latin _saltus_.]

_A Poetic Name for a Fish._--The Chippewas, who are ready to give every
object in creation, whose existence they cannot otherwise account for,
an allegorical origin, call the white fish _attikumaig_, a very curious
or very fanciful name, for it appears to be compounded of attik, a
reindeer, and the general compound _gumee_, or _guma_, before noticed,
as meaning water, or a liquid. To this the addition of the letter _g_
makes a plural in the animate form, so that the translation is _deer of
the water_, an evident acknowledgment of its importance as an item in
their means of subsistence. Who can say, a