cast a little awkward; and the wind
sometimes blew the flies up on the roof of the cabin; but then, with
patience and a short line the thing could be done. I remember a pair of
good trout that rose together just as we were going through a boiling
rapid; and it tried the strength of my split-bamboo rod to bring those
fish to the net against the current and the motion of the boat.

When nightfall approached we let go the anchor (to wit, a rope tied to a
large stone on the shore), ate our dinner "with gladness and singleness
of heart" like the early Christians, and slept the sleep of the just,
lulled by the murmuring of the waters, and defended from the insidious
attacks of the mosquito by the breeze blowing down the river and the
impregnable curtains over our beds. At daybreak, long before Favonius
and I had finished our dreams, we were under way again; and when the
trampling of the horses on some rocky shore wakened us, we could see the
steep hills gliding past the windows and hear the rapids dashing against
the side of the boat, and it seemed as if we were still dreaming.

At Cross Point, where the river makes a long loop around a narrow
mountain, thin as a saw and crowned on its jagged edge by a rude wooden
cross, we stopped for an hour to try the fishing. It was here that I
hooked two mysterious creatures, each of which took the fly when it was
below the surface, pulled for a few moments in a sullen way and then
apparently melted into nothingness. It will always be a source of regret
to me that the nature of these fish must remain unknown. While they were
on the line it was the general opinion that they were heavy trout;
but no sooner had they departed, than I became firmly convinced, in
accordance with a psychological law which holds good all over the world,
that they were both enormous salmon. Even the Turks have a proverb which
says, "Every fish that escapes appears larger than it is." No one can
alter that conviction, because no one can logically refute it. Our best
blessings, like our largest fish, always depart before we have time to
measure them.

The Slide Pool is in the wildest and most picturesque part of the river,
about thirty-five miles above Metapedia. The stream, flowing swiftly
down a stretch of rapids between forest-clad hills, runs straight toward
the base of an eminence so precipitous that the trees can hardly find a
foothold upon it, and seem to be climbing up in haste on either side
of the long