A few skilful turns of the paddle sends the canoe to the mudbank on which King Sturgeon is dozing, and awaiting his matin or vesper meal. The dainty-looking morsel, bearing all the external semblance to a fish (but, like the Trojan horse, pregnant with mischief), sinks noiselessly and slowly to the bottom; the canoe drifts with the current, and in this manner the bait is towed along; it nears the sturgeon’s nose, and, being far too tempting to be refused, the great pendulous lips close upon it; but ere it reaches the gullet, a sharp twitch of the line buries the hook in the tenacious gristle. At once discovering he has been miserably done, anger and obstinate resistance are in the ascendant; so he comes to the surface with a rush and a splash. The paddler now exerts all his skill to keep a slack line, for the hooked fish would otherwise inevitably upset the canoe; the bowman, with the line in one hand and a spear poised in the other, quietly bides his time; then he hurls the spear into the sturgeon’s armour-clad back; down darts the fish, but soon returns to the surface, when in goes another spear, and so on again and again, until, towed ashore, it is dragged out of the water with a powerful gaff-hook. Large numbers besides such as are thus speared are netted in passing through the narrow rock-channels. On the Fraser river sturgeon-spearing is the most exciting sport imaginable. Hooking, playing, and landing a noble salmon is an achievement every fisherman is truly proud of; but I unhesitatingly assert that to spear and land a sturgeon five or six hundred pounds in weight, with only a frail canoe, which the slightest inequality of balance will upset in an instant, requires a degree of skill, courage, and dexterity that only a lifetime’s practice can bestow. I have already said the Fraser has no falls below Fort Hope, but a great many stiff rapids; below these rapids it widens out into long slowly-running shallows, generally speaking having large sand and gravel-banks—_bars_, as the miners call them, and on these bars the Indians live during the fishing-season. The time for fishing being generally soon after sunrise, four canoes, each manned by two Indians, usually start for sturgeon-capture; the paddler, who squats in the stern, looks in the direction in which the canoe is to go, not, as we sit in rowing, with our backs to the bow, but facing it; he is always chosen for his greater strength, tact, and dexterity with the paddle, for on his skill depends in a great degree the safety and success of the spearman.