To these it is often a casual sweet, To dine by appointment, or taste as a treat; Not so, or in mental or physical joy, Comes the sight of this fish to the _courier de bois_; That wild troubadour and his joy-loving crew, Who sings as he paddles his birchen canoe, And thinks all the hardships that falls to his lot, Are richly made up at the platter and pot. To him there’s a charm neither feeble nor vague In the mighty repast of the _grande Ticameg_;[13] And oft as he starves amid Canada snows, On dry leather lichens and _bouton de rose_, He cheers up his spirits to think he shall still Of _poisson blanc bouillon_ once more have his fill. “Oh, choice of all fishes,” he sings as he goes, “Thou art sweeter to me than the Normandy rose; And the ven’son that’s stol’n from the parks of the king, Is never, by half, so delicious a thing.”
The muse might appeal to the science of books To picture its ichthyological looks, Show what is its family likeness or odds, Compared to its cousins, the salmons and cods; Tell where it approximates, point where it fails, By counting its fins, or dissecting its scales; Or prove by plain reasons—such proofs can be had— ’Tis not “toothless salmon,” but rather lake shad; Here, too, might a fancy, to descant inclined, Contemplate the lore that pertains to its kind, And bring up tradition in fanciful strains, To prove its creation from feminine brains;[14] Or point out its habits, migrations, and changes— The mode of its capture, its cycles and ranges. But let me forbear—’tis the fault of a song, A tale, or a book, if too learned or long.
Thus ends my discussion. More would you, I pray, Ask Mitchell, or Harlan, Lesieur, or De Kay.
[13] French orthography for the Indian name of this fish.
[14] A tale of such transformation may be seen, by reference to ALGIC RESEARCHES.
[In 1785, Mr. Alexander Kay, a fur-trader from Montreal, was stabbed by an Indian at Sandy Lake, on the source of the Mississippi. By the kindness and medical skill of a friendly chief, who accompanied him to Michilimackinac, the wound was healed, but suppurated soon after, on his arrival at the Lake of Two Mountains, where he died.]
I cannot tell of monarch wise, Or fame’s loud trumpet swell; But I can tell a simple tale, Which on a time befell.