Haw-Ho-Noo; Or, Records of a TouristLanman, Charles
History
Haw-Ho-Noo; Or, Records of a Tourist
Lanman, Charles
Fishing -- North America; United States -- Description and travel
If the anglers of New York city are to be believed, there is no region
in the world like Long Island for common trout. We are informed,
however, that the fish are here penned up in ponds, and that a
stipulated sum per head has to be paid for all the fish captured. With
this kind of business we have never had any patience, and we shall
therefore refrain from commenting upon the exploits or trespassing upon
the exclusive privileges of the cockney anglers of the empire city.
But another trouting region, of which we can safely speak in the most
flattering terms, is that watered by the two principal tributaries of
the river Thames, in Connecticut, viz., the Yantic and the Quinnebaug.
It is, in our opinion, more nearly allied to that portion of England
made famous by Walton in his _Complete Angler_, than any other in the
United States. The country is generally highly cultivated, but along
nearly all its very beautiful streams Nature has been permitted to have
her own way, and the dark pools are everywhere overshadowed by the
foliage of overhanging trees. Excepting in the immediate vicinity of the
factories, trout are quite abundant, and the anglers are generally
worthy members of the gentle brotherhood. When the angler is overtaken
by night, he never finds himself at a loss for a place to sleep; and it
has always seemed to us that the beds of this region have a “smell of
lavender.” The husbandmen whom you meet here are intelligent, and their
wives neat, affable, and polite, understanding the art of preparing a
frugal meal to perfection. Our trouting recollections of this section of
New England are manifold, and we would part with them most unwillingly.
Dearly do we cherish, not only recollections of scenery and fishing, but
of wild legends and strange characters, bright skies, poetic
conceptions, and soul-instructing lessons from the lips of Nature. Yes,
and the secret of our attachment to the above-mentioned streams may be
found in the character of these very associations. What intense
enjoyment would not Father Walton have derived from their wild and
superb scenery! The streams of England are mostly famous for the bloody
battles and sieges which they witnessed for many centuries, and the
turreted castles which they have only tell us eventful stories of a race
of earth-born kings. But many of the streams of our country, even in
these days, water a virgin wilderness, whose only human denizens are the
poor but noble Indian tribes, who live, and love, and die in their
peaceful valleys; and the unshorn forests, with the luxuriantly
magnificent mountains, sing a perpetual hymn of praise to One who is
above the sky and the King of kings.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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