The next day came, and good bye to the beautiful La Val. Slowly and sorrowfully we struck our tent, sadly we collected together, and stowed the many little articles that the occasion had hallowed to our hearts. With feelings of deep regret we embarked, and looking our last look at the camping-ground that had been our home, commenced a descent to our chaloupe. As there were three canoes, and only five canoemen, including my friend, I was gladly compelled to take the bow of one and act as steersman. Of course my experience was limited, for, with the exception of having once upset Walton to his intense disgust, I had taken little active part in canoe management, and having for my stern-oar, Joe, whose only idea was to push ahead under all circumstances, we performed manœuvres that astonished more than they delighted our associates. Ours was the leaky canoe that had been patched up with gum and a piece of a shirt for the occasion, and being utterly reckless of it, we shot down rapids and leaped over rocks like a runaway race-horse. Wonderful were our hair breadth escapes; the rapid water, Joe with his “Avancez toujours,” gave me no time to see and less to avoid the half-hidden dangers, even if my skill had been equal to the task, and we darted along amid the foaming current, or plunged headlong down cataracts, at a rate and in a manner that would have surprised a locomotive off the track. We succeeded, however, in keeping straight with the current, and although once or twice our destruction seemed inevitable, we finally arrived safe, though in a leaky and dilapidated condition, at the place where we had anchored our chaloupe. The latter, left to herself, had been trying what she could do on the rocks, and had succeeded, with the aid of a falling tide, in upsetting twice, and so frightening the boy in charge of her that he had fled for refuge to a shanty, which providentially was near at hand.
Joe had taken the opportunity during our last day’s fishing, on hearing of the misfortunes of his boat, to remove her to the Sault de Cochon, so that we had to paddle about two miles in the open St. Lawrence. The river was over twenty miles broad, and, under the influence of a southwesterly wind, was so rough that our unsteady bark danced, tossed and rolled about uncommonly. I could no longer stand up, as I had been forced to do hitherto, and was brought to my knees at once, while even Joe found it safer to sit down on the thwart. No one who has not tried it can imagine what a canoe is in the slightest sea-way; it appears to bob from under you, and rolls and dances so quickly as to render staying in it almost impossible, even if it should not carry out its evident design to turn bottom up. Once at Sault de Cochon and I again tried the fish, having taken, on the descent of the La Val, twelve, and was rewarded as I deserved, by total failure.
The wind had died out, the water lay a perfect mirror, and, crowding down into the narrow cock-pit, we slept till two o’clock in the morning, when a favoring tide helped us slowly along toward our destination. The night passed, and the next day, and we drifted by place after place that we passed before with such rapidity, and sunset again found us only thirty-three miles on our way. We ran into a little bay at the mouth of the Escomain, where, having built a huge fire and eaten a hearty supper, we slept, on a bed of the softest pebble stones, soundly and sweetly till the first grey light of daybreak, when we continued our journey along a coast so poor that the best fed hogs are, as we were credibly informed, light and weak enough to be blown over by a strong wind, and mill-stones, to say nothing of the miller, starve for want of grain.
Again the hills of the Saguenay rise to our view, Tadousac rests calmly in its nook, and the sun shines on the white houses of L’Anse à l’Eau as when we left. Our trip is done. The La Val will live in our memory as long as we can cast a fly—aye, and when gout or age shall have laid us on the shelf. To you, my friend, the genial companion of my trip, I give my thanks; may we meet again, and once more stand side by side upon some projecting rock, as fish after fish rises to our fly. May you long live to enjoy the sport at which you so excel, and may you leave children that can cast a fly as well. To the stately St. Lawrence, to the magnificent Saguenay, to the beautiful La Val, a long farewell.
CHAPTER V.
THE SALMON.
Salmo Salar.—This celebrated fish is totally different in appearance from the trout, having decidedly brilliant scales, colored bluish black down to the lateral line, and beautiful and white as glistening silver below. It has on the gill-covers and upper part of the sides occasionally dark irregular spots. The tail is more forked, and proportionally more expanded than that of the trout, while the fish is of a more slim and elegant shape.
The branchial rays are twelve, and the fin-rays are as follows:
D. 13.0; P. 15; V. 9; A. 9.; C. 19-5/5.
These splendid and valuable fish, whether regarded as an object of the sportsman’s skill or the epicurean’s taste, though once abundant in our State, are so no more. Hendrick Hudson, on ascending the river he discovered, was particularly struck with their immense numbers, and continually mentions the “great stores of salmon.” The last unhappy fish that was seen in the Hudson had his adventurous career terminated by the net, near Troy, in the year 1840. The rivers flowing into Lake Ontario abounded with them even until a recent period, but the persistent efforts at their extinction have at last prevailed, and except a few stragglers they have ceased
