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And now, scholar, with the help of this fine morning and your patient attention, I have said all that my present memory will afford me. But I shall long for the month of May; for then I hope again to enjoy your beloved company at the appointed time and place. And now I wish for some somniferous potion that might force me to sleep away the intermitted time, which will pass away with me as tediously as it does with men in sorrow; nevertheless I will make it as short as I can with my hopes and wishes. * These thoughts have been told you that you may also join in thankfulness to the Giver of every good and perfect gift, for our happiness. So, scholar, I will stop here.-[Sir Izaak Walton.

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UR week's sojourn at the Forks passed away "like a tale that is told;" but its memory, like “ a thing of beauty," will remain to us "a joy forever." It was an uninterrupted carnival of pleasure. If all nature had combined to minister to our happiness, we could not have been made more

supremely content; and in a spirit scarcely less devout than that which moved the Psalmist, we often exclaimed, "Our cup runneth over;

"surely mercy and peace hath followed us all the days of our" sojourn in these quiet places.

The morning after our torch-light review of the salmon pools was cloudless and serene. The grand old forest seemed the temple of silence. The air was full of the sweet odors of pine and wildflowers, and the early morning light came down through the dense foliage like a divine benediction. The pleasant murmur of the running waters, blending with the plaintive chirp and whistle of the wood-bird, went down into the heart like the still small voice of the Spirit, awakening tender emotions of gratitude and thanksgiving. To the devout mind, these vast forest-temples are the best types of that other temple "not made with hands, eternal in the heavens," whose ineffable glories are yet to break upon the enraptured vision of the redeemed.

The sun was just scattering his golden dust upon the green foliage which gives beauty to the rugged summit of "Big Berry Mountain," when the General issued his order to embark. It was hard to say "good-by" to a place where we had enjoyed so many days of superb angling and so many evenings of joyous camp-life. But the tenth of August -the end of our permit, and practically, of the fishing season had arrived and we must needs go home. So, with a sigh and a farewell to this place

of pleasant memories, with a salute from our only rifle and a cheer from all of us, we swept out into the swift current, and were "homeward bound.”

What a contrast to our tedious ascent was this seaward journey! Our light canoes glided through the water like birds in the air. Although there are many "stretches" unbroken by rapids, there is no point on the river, from its source to tidewater, where the current does not move quite four miles an hour. The first nine miles were mostly of this quiet character, and it is impossible to conceive of anything more delightfully exhilarating than the movement through such waters on such a morning as that in which we made the journey. It was the very poetry of motion. The sun was without a cloud; the air was just of the temperature one would like to bask in forever; the foliage still sparkled with the dew of the morning; the mountains were aglow with sunlight, while midway of their summits the early mists hung in great silvery masses, forming pictures which dwarfed the grandest handiwork of man, and awed us with their vastness, their grandeur and their indescribable beauty. Every bend of the river revealed some new landscape to admire, while the chirp and whistle and song of ten thousand wood-birds found responsive melody in our own glad hearts. It was no surprise to me that my com

panions gave occasional expression, in shout and song, to their ecstatic emotions; and if I responded in kind, it was simply because it was quite impossible to refrain from giving some audible token of my entire sympathy with them. It is not often one reaches such a condition of mind and body as to find himself in perfect accord with the poet:

One sip of this

Will bathe the drooping spirits in delight
Beyond the bliss of dreams.

Such moments, however, occasionally come to every one of us, but never more impressively than when surrounded by the sublime and beautiful in nature; when enveloped in an atmosphere charged with the very elements of perpetual youth, serene and balmy as the breath of God. Where more than in the solitudes of the forests are these emotions likely to come to the spirit of the thoughtful and devout? The Psalmist had a glimpse of what was attainable amid such surroundings, when he exclaimed:

Oh, that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away, and be at rest.

ness.

Lo! then would I wander far off, and remain in the wilder

In six hours we compassed the distance which required two days of hard work to accomplish when moving against the current. The flight

down the numerous rapids was intensely exciting. It requires a quick eye and a steady hand to run the chute in safety. But accidents are rare. The Indian guides, who were born on the river, are as familiar with every hidden bowlder and every dangerous eddy as the denizen of the city is with the pathway to his place of business, and they take their canoes safely through channels where, if directed by the uninitiated, they would be inevitably dashed into fragments. As a rule, it is perfectly safe to go where an Indian is willing to take you. He has just that sort of discreet. courage which leads him to keep as far from danger as possible; and he will never take his canoe into waters he is not quite sure he can safely navigate. I only once insisted that my guide should go through a channel which he pronounced unsafe. He obeyed orders under protest, wondering at my foolhardiness and temerity. The result of the experiment may have given him a favorable opinion of my courage, but I am sure it depreciated his previous estimate of my good sense. The sensation was somewhat thrilling as we dashed through the boiling cauldron, but it was purchased at the expense of saturated garments and a halffilled canoe. But for the almost superhuman ef

forts of the faithful fellow we would have been inevitably swamped, if not badly bruised and bat