ss and precision, bringing up every now and then a bright-sided
salmon, and knocking it off the barbs into the canoe. The perfect
wildness and remoteness of the place added much to the impressive
character of the scene. But it was mortifying to think of the wholesale
slaughter that was going on, and of our incapacity to put a stop to it,
for our party consisted of but four, and would have been of no avail
against twenty red savages armed with rifles and spears. It is true that
we had brought with us a letter from the agent of the Hudson's Bay
Company at Tadousac to the net-keeper at the Escoumain, enjoining that
functionary to give us every assistance and information in his power.
One of the instructions contained in that missive ran, as I remember,
"_chasses les sauvages_"; but the chase of twenty armed savages by one
small and smoke-dried old Canadian, like the net-keeper, would have been
a futile, not to say ridiculous, proceeding. And so the Indians had the
pool to themselves on that dark July night, and at gray dawn they
drifted past us down the stream, their canoes loaded with salmon, to
which we had fondly, though delusively, fancied that we had an exclusive
right.

One of the "gamest" and most beautiful fish for which angler ever busked
artificial fly is the sea-trout that comes up with the summer tides into
all these tributaries of the Lower St. Lawrence. Seldom under one pound
in weight, and often weighing as much as four pounds, these fish are so
similar in appearance to the common brook-trout, that many experienced
fishermen declare them to be one and the same species, the slight
difference between the two being accounted for by the influence of the
salt water and the peculiar feeding to be found in it. In color they are
rather more silvery than the brook-trout, but they are marked, like that
fish, with brilliant spots of red and blue along the sides. The best
place to fish for them is where the sea-tide meets the clear, fresh
water of the river, near its mouth. There are times when the salmon
becomes unaccountably reserved, and will not condescend to reply to the
line of invitation wafted to him by the angler across the eddies of the
pool. It is then that the sea-trout is found to be a valuable substitute
for his larger congener of the river, to whom he is only second in
affording excellent sport. In casting for the trout it is advisable to
use but one fly. Once, in the Saguenay, I used a casting-line with t