Little Rivers [35]
place.
For six or seven miles above Metapedia the river has a breadth of
about two hundred yards, and the valley slopes back rather gently
to the mountains on either side. There is a good deal of
cultivated land, and scattered farm-houses appear. The soil is
excellent. But it is like a pearl cast before an obstinate,
unfriendly climate. Late frosts prolong the winter. Early frosts
curtail the summer. The only safe crops are grass, oats, and
potatoes. And for half the year all the cattle must be housed and
fed to keep them alive. This lends a melancholy aspect to
agriculture. Most of the farmers look as if they had never seen
better days. With few exceptions they are what a New Englander
would call "slack-twisted and shiftless." Their barns are pervious
to the weather, and their fences fail to connect. Sleds and
ploughs rust together beside the house, and chickens scratch up the
front-door yard. In truth, the people have been somewhat
demoralised by the conflicting claims of different occupations;
hunting in the fall, lumbering in the winter and spring, and
working for the American sportsmen in the brief angling season, are
so much more attractive and offer so much larger returns of ready
money, that the tedious toil of farming is neglected. But for all
that, in the bright days of midsummer, these green fields sloping
down to the water, and pastures high up among the trees on the
hillsides, look pleasant from a distance, and give an inhabited air
to the landscape.
At the mouth of 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,
For six or seven miles above Metapedia the river has a breadth of
about two hundred yards, and the valley slopes back rather gently
to the mountains on either side. There is a good deal of
cultivated land, and scattered farm-houses appear. The soil is
excellent. But it is like a pearl cast before an obstinate,
unfriendly climate. Late frosts prolong the winter. Early frosts
curtail the summer. The only safe crops are grass, oats, and
potatoes. And for half the year all the cattle must be housed and
fed to keep them alive. This lends a melancholy aspect to
agriculture. Most of the farmers look as if they had never seen
better days. With few exceptions they are what a New Englander
would call "slack-twisted and shiftless." Their barns are pervious
to the weather, and their fences fail to connect. Sleds and
ploughs rust together beside the house, and chickens scratch up the
front-door yard. In truth, the people have been somewhat
demoralised by the conflicting claims of different occupations;
hunting in the fall, lumbering in the winter and spring, and
working for the American sportsmen in the brief angling season, are
so much more attractive and offer so much larger returns of ready
money, that the tedious toil of farming is neglected. But for all
that, in the bright days of midsummer, these green fields sloping
down to the water, and pastures high up among the trees on the
hillsides, look pleasant from a distance, and give an inhabited air
to the landscape.
At the mouth of 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,