Then
there is the peculiar satisfaction of catching now and then a drop of
spray from, and hearing the thunder of, a cataract, whose free, surging
bound is not yet shackled by the tourist's sentimental description; and
the novelty of beholding one's image reflected in a liquid mirror whose
geographical position is not yet stereotyped on the charts of man. Alas
for these maps and charts! Despite the wishes of scientific geographers
and the ignorance of unscientific explorers, we think them far too
complete already; and we can conceive few things more dreadful or
crushing to the enterprising and romantic spirits of the world than the
arrival of that time (if it ever shall arrive) when it shall be said
that _terra incognita_ exists no longer--when every one of those
fairy-like isles of the southern seas, and all the hidden wonders of the
polar regions, shall be put down, in cold blood, on black and white,
exposed profanely on the schoolroom walls, and drummed into the thick
heads of wretched little boys who don't want to learn, by the
unsympathising hands of dominies who, it may be, care but little whether
they do or not!

But to return. While Frank stood on the rocks, attaching to the line a
salmon-fly which he had selected with much consideration from his book,
he raised his eyes once or twice to take a rapid glance at his position
and the capabilities of the place. About fifty yards further up the
river the stream curled round the base of a large rock, and gushed into
a pool which was encircled on all sides by an overhanging wall, except
where the waters issued forth in a burst of foam. Their force, however,
was materially broken by another curve, round which they had to sweep
ere they reached this exit, so that when they rushed into the larger
pool below they calmed down at once, and on reaching the point where
Frank stood, assumed that oily, gurgling surface, dimpled all over with
laughing eddies, that suggests irresistibly the idea of fish not only
being there, as a matter of course, but being there expressly and solely
for the purpose of being caught! A little further down, the river took
a slight bend, and immediately after, recurring to its straight course,
it dashed down, for a distance of fifty yards, in a tumultuous rapid,
which swept into sudden placidity a few hundred yards below. Having
taken all this in at a glance, Frank dropped the fly into the water and
raised his rod to make a cast. In this ac