The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866: A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and PoliticsVarious
History
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866: A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
yet been sinful. He wishes me, eight or nine weeks hence, to accompany
him on foot to Quebec, and then to Niagara and New York. I should like
it well, if my circumstances and other considerations would permit. What
pleases much in Mons. S---- is the simple and childlike enjoyment he
finds in trifles, and the joy with which he speaks of going back to his
own country, away from the dull Yankees, who here misunderstand and
despise him. Yet I have never heard him speak harshly of them. I rather
think that B---- and I will be remembered by him with more pleasure than
anybody else in the country; for we have sympathized with him, and
treated him kindly, and like a gentleman and an equal; and he comes to
us at night as to home and friends.
I went down to the river to-day to see B---- fish for salmon with a
fly,--a hopeless business; for he says that only one instance has been
known in the United States of salmon being taken otherwise than with a
net. A few chubs were all the fruit of his piscatory efforts. But while
looking at the rushing and rippling stream, I saw a great fish, some six
feet long and thick in proportion, suddenly emerge at whole length, turn
a somerset, and then vanish again beneath the water. It was of a
glistening, yellowish brown, with its fins all spread, and looking very
strange and startling, darting out so lifelike from the black water,
throwing itself fully into the bright sunshine, and then lost to sight
and to pursuit. I saw also a long, flat-bottomed boat go up the river,
with a brisk wind, and against a strong stream. Its sails were of
curious construction: a long mast, with two sails below, one on each
side of the boat, and a broader one surmounting them. The sails were
colored brown, and appeared like leather or skins, but were really
cloth. At a distance, the vessel looked like, or at least I compared it
to, a monstrous water-insect, skimming along the river. If the sails had
been crimson or yellow, the resemblance would have been much closer.
There was a pretty spacious raised cabin in the after part of the boat.
It moved along lightly, and disappeared between the woody banks. These
boats have the two parallel sails attached to the same yard, and some
have two sails, one surmounting the other. They trade to Waterville and
thereabouts,--names, as "Paul Pry," on their sails.
* * * * *
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