e, the ring is
too powerful, one of its members being perhaps governor of the State.

In the year 1858 the colonial government resumed possession of all the
salmon and sea-trout fisheries in Lower Canada, and after the enactment
of a protective law offered them for lease by public tender. A list is
given of sixty-seven salmon rivers which flow into the St. Lawrence and
the Saguenay, and of nine which flow into the Bay of Chaleur. There are
also tributaries of these, making over one hundred rivers which by this
time contain salmon, and many of them in great abundance. Licenses are
granted by the government for rod-fishing in these rivers on payment of
sums ranging from one hundred to five hundred dollars the season for a
river, according to its size, accessibility, etc. These rivers are
generally taken by parties of anglers, but of late I learn that licenses
for single rods have been granted, so that all may be accommodated.
Applications for a river or part of one can be made to Mr. William F.
Whitcher of Ottawa, who is at the head of the Fisheries Department. Our
party of four persons had obtained, through the courtesy of Messrs.
Brydges and Fleming of the Intercolonial Railway of Canada, the upper
part of the Restigouche, a river flowing into the Bay of Chaleur, and
one of the best in the Dominion. Three of us had never killed a salmon,
though we were familiar with other kinds of fishing. We had, however,
for teacher one who for fifty years had been a salmon-fisher--first as a
boy in Ireland, and since that for many years in Canada, in most of
whose rivers he had killed salmon. As an angler he was a thorough
artist, as a woodsman he was an expert, and as a companion he was most
agreeable. Among the Indians, who have the habit of naming every person
from some personal trait, he was known as "the Kingfisher," and by that
name I shall call him. The second of our party, who procured the right
of fishing the Restigouche, and made up the party, I shall call Rodman,
which suits him both as fisherman and in his professional character of
engineer. The third, being a tall man of rather military aspect, we knew
as "the Colonel;" and the fourth, who writes this narrative, shall be
called "the Scribe."

Behold us, then, at Quebec in the last week of June, making our
preparations--laying in stores for camping out, and buying
fishing-tackle, which for this kind of sport is best procured in Canada.
On the 25th of June our thirty-one