f the Upsalquitch we passed the first of the
fishing-lodges. It belongs to a sage angler from Albany who saw the
beauty of the situation, years ago, and built a habitation to match it.
Since that time a number of gentlemen have bought land fronting on good
pools, and put up little cottages of a less classical style than Charles
Cotton's "Fisherman's Retreat" on the banks of the river Dove, but
better suited to this wild scenery, and more convenient to live in. The
prevailing pattern is a very simple one; it consists of a broad piazza
with a small house in the middle of it. The house bears about the same
proportion to the piazza that the crown of a Gainsborough hat does to
the brim. And the cost of the edifice is to the cost of the land as the
first price of a share in a bankrupt railway is to the assessments which
follow the reorganisation. All the best points have been sold, and real
estate on the Ristigouche has been bid up to an absurd figure. In fact,
the river is over-populated and probably over-fished. But we could
hardly find it in our hearts to regret this, for it made the upward trip
a very sociable one. At every lodge that was open, Favonius (who knows
everybody) had a friend, and we must slip ashore in a canoe to leave the
mail and refresh the inner man.

An angler, like an Arab, regards hospitality as a religious duty. There
seems to be something in the craft which inclines the heart to kindness
and good-fellowship. Few anglers have I seen who were not pleasant to
meet, and ready to do a good turn to a fellow-fisherman with the gift
of a killing fly or the loan of a rod. Not their own particular and
well-proved favourite, of course, for that is a treasure which no decent
man would borrow; but with that exception the best in their store is at
the service of an accredited brother. One of the Ristigouche proprietors
I remember, whose name bespoke him a descendant of Caledonia's patron
saint. He was fishing in front of his own door when we came up, with our
splashing horses, through the pool; but nothing would do but he must up
anchor and have us away with him into the house to taste his good cheer.
And there were his daughters with their books and needlework, and the
photographs which they had taken pinned up on the wooden walls, among
Japanese fans and bits of bright-coloured stuff in which the soul of
woman delights, and, in a passive, silent way, the soul of man also.
Then, after we had discussed the year's f