American Scenery, Vol. 1 (of 2): or, Land, lake, and river illustrations of transatlantic natureWillis, Nathaniel Parker
General
American Scenery, Vol. 1 (of 2): or, Land, lake, and river illustrations of transatlantic nature
Willis, Nathaniel Parker
United States -- Description and travel
Saratoga Lake must depend for celebrity on the campaigns of General
Burgoyne, and its fish dinners. Of the first, the history has been
written and read. Of the last, the traditions are oral; but while
appetite returns, and trout venture to the angler’s hook, the memory
will be renewed. The Springs are distant only three miles; and hither
drive the more luxurious visitors of Saratoga, to dine in
parties,—those coming early who prefer sympathy with the catastrophe of
the fish, and broiling themselves, during the morning, in a
flat-bottomed boat among the trout-catchers.
There was a gay party on this lake some six or eight years since,
fishing and airing their wit, under the auspices of a belle of some fame
and authority. The boat had been pulled into water of five or six feet
depth, on the eastern side, and the ladies sat at the ends of their
rods, about forty yards from the shore, watching their floats, which lay
on the surface of the glassy water like sleeping flies, but, as the old
fisherman in the bow could have told them, laughing loud enough to
fright even the eels from their appetites. After several hours’ bobbing,
without bite or nibble, the belle above mentioned discovered that her
hook was caught at the bottom. She rose in the stern, to draw it up more
easily, and, all the party leaning over at the same time, she lost her
balance, and, in falling overboard, upset the boat. For the first minute
it was a scene of some terror. The gentlemen were very near drowning the
ladies, and the ladies the gentlemen; but the old fisherman, a tall
fellow who knew the ground, and was just within his depth, quietly
walked about, picking them up one by one, and giving them a hold of the
inverted gunwale, and so pushed them safely to shore, suspended round
the boat, like herrings on a hoop. Nobody caught cold; other people had
caught fish; they dined merrily, and the principal actor in the scene
has since been known by the sobriquet of the _diving belle_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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