CHAPTER II IT ANGLING IN A CRATER T is not all fish when one goes a-fishing, despite the popular theory to the contrary. Angling should be approached as an art, as a great philosophy in cognate form; results should be mere incidents. Indeed, there are men who possess themselves with delight even when the game escapes. But of all anglers Walton pointed out the bright and shining way for followers of the guild. Listen to his idea of an angling day; hardly a word about fishing: Look! under that broad beech-tree I sat down, when I was last this way a-fishing; and the birds in the adjoining grove seemed to have a friendly contention with an echo, whose dead voice seemed to live in a hollow tree near to the brow of that primrose-hill. There I sat viewing the silver streams glide silently towards their centre, the tempestuous sea; yet sometimes opposed by rugged roots and pebble-stones, which broke their waves, and turned them into foam; and sometimes I beguiled time by viewing the harmless lambs; some leaping securely in the cool shade, whilst others sported themselves in the cheerful sun; and saw others craving comfort from the swollen udders of their bleating dams. As thus I sat, these and other sights had so fully possessed my soul with content, that I thought, as the poet has exprest it, I was for the time lifted above earth; As I left this place, and entered the next field, a second pleasure entertained me; 't was a handsome milkmaid that had not yet attained so much age and wisdom as to load her mind with any fears of many things that will never be, as too many men too often do; but she cast away all care, and sung like a nightingale. Delightfully expressed and telling the complete story of the "Complete Angler," who went fishing that he might commune with all the beautiful things of life and nature, including milkmaids. The lines of Walton were cast in gentle places, and his streams have a thousand prototypes in New England, New York, and Canada, or any Eastern State, and many on the western slope. But when the angler wanders into the great Northwest, particularly in Oregon, he finds diversions and incidents far more striking, and the antipodes of sylvan streams and echoes gently wafted through the soft and flower-cloyed air. I believe the most ardent angler cannot approach certain regions of California and Oregon without forgetting the object of his quest in the contemplation of but two features of naturethe splendid forests, and the lava beds-fields, flows, and craters they attempt to cover, as no more stupendous region of volcanic activity can be found in the world than that ranging from Lassen to Mazama and east and west for hundreds of miles. Not so many years ago, as the charred trees can still be seen, standing in the ash of a crater near Lassen, this entire region was a nest of volcanoes, and the country of the Cascades over which the angler rides or walks to reach the Klamath country and its trout, has been the scene of an eruption which can only be compared to the stupendous whirlwinds of fire discovered on the sun by Professor Hale. Imagine a rainstorm in which each drop was a piece of molten lava ranging from a thousand tons or more in weight down to a pound, and some idea can be had of this region not many years ago. All these volcanoes were then in operation, and the reality is seen in crossing the Cascades almost everywhere, but especially by the Dead Indian trail from Pelican Bay to Ashland, where, in places where the forests have not covered them, these missiles are seen just as they |