When the prophet required Naaman to go down and bathe in the river Jordan, Naaman was exceeding wroth, and exclaimed, "Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than any in Israel?" The record hath it that Naaman went and bathed in the Jordan, and that his _body_ was healed of its _leprosy_ and his _mind_ of its _conceit_. So, when my angling friend from New Brunswick inquires whether I have fished the Waskahegan or have tried the lower pools of the Assametaquaghan for salmon, I am compelled to answer _no_. But there comes a longing to give him a day's outing on Hell-Roaring Creek or to see him a-foul of a five-pound von Behr trout amid the steam of the Riverside Geyser. The streams of Maine and Canada are delightful and possess a charm that lingers in the mind like the minor chords of almost forgotten music, but they cannot be compared with the full-throated torrents of the Absarokas. As well liken a fugue with flute and cymbals to an oratorio with bombardon and sky-rockets!
[Illustration: _Who Hath Seen the Beaver Busied?_
Who hath seen the beaver busied? Who hath watched the black-tail mating? Who hath lain alone to hear the wild-goose cry? Who hath worked the chosen water where the ouananiche is waiting, Or the sea-trout's jumping-crazy for the fly? He must go--go--go--away from here! On the other side the world he's overdue. 'Send your road is clear before you when the old Spring-fret comes o'er you And the Red Gods call for you!
Do you know the blackened timber--do you know that racing stream With the raw right-angled log-jam at the end: And the bar of sun-warmed shingle where a man may bask and dream To the click of shod canoe poles round the bend? It is there that we are going with our rods and reels and traces, To a silent smoky Indian that we know-- To a couch of new-pulled hemlock with the starlight on our faces, For the Red Gods call us out and we must go! The Feet of the Young Men--_Kipling._
"Thyse ben xij. flyes wyth whytch ye shall angle to ye trought and graylling, and dubbe lyke as ye shall now hear me tell." _Dame Juliana Berners._
[Illustration: Water is the Master Mason]
FIVE centuries have passed since the dignified and devout prioress of St. Albans indited the above sentence, and the tribute to the sterling good sense therein is that the growing years have but added to its authority. A dozen well selected varieties of flies, dubbe them how ye lyke, are well-nigh sufficient for any locality. There may be streams that require a wider range of choice, but these are so rare that they may safely be considered as exceptional. Not that any particular harm has resulted from the unreasonable increase in the number and varieties of artificial flies. They amuse and gratify the tyro and in no wise disturb the master of the art. But an over-plethoric fly book in the possession of a stranger will, with the knowing, place the angling ability of the owner under suspicion. Better a thousand-fold, are the single half-dozen flies the uses and seasons of which are fully understood than a multitude of meaningless creations.