o hear philosophical discourse proceeding
from the lips of one who was, in outward appearance, a regular Indian,
was very strange indeed. He was dressed in the usual capote, leggins,
and moccasins of a hunter.

"What have you got for dinner?" was his first question, after shaking
hands with me.

"Pork and pancakes," said I.

"Oh!" said the trapper; "the first salt, and the latter made of flour
and water?"

"Just so; and, with the exception of some bread, and a few ground pease
in lieu of coffee, this has been my diet for three weeks back."

"You might have done better," said the trapper, pointing towards a blue
line in the sea; "look, there are fish enough, if you only took the
trouble to catch them."

As he said this, I advanced to the edge of the water; and there, to my
astonishment, discovered that what I had taken for seaweed was a shoal
of kippling, so dense that they seemed scarcely able to move.

Upon beholding this, I recollected having seen a couple of old hand-nets
in some of the stores, which we immediately sent the trapper's son (a
youth of twelve) to fetch. In a few minutes he returned with them; so,
tucking up our trousers, we both went into the water and scooped the
fish out by dozens. It required great quickness, however, as they shot
into deep water like lightning, and sometimes made us run in so deep
that we wet ourselves considerably. Indeed, the sport became so
exciting at last, that we gave over attempting to keep our clothes dry;
and in an hour we returned home, laden with kippling, and wet to the
skin.

The fish, which measured from four to five inches long, were really
excellent, and lent an additional relish to the pork, pancakes, and
_pease coffee_!

I prevailed upon the trapper to remain with me during the following
week; and a very pleasant time we had of it, paddling about in a canoe,
or walking through the woods, while my companion told me numerous
anecdotes, with which his memory was stored. Some of these were grave,
and some comical; especially one, in which he described a bear-hunt that
he and his son had on the coast of Labrador.

He had been out on a shooting expedition, and was returning home in his
canoe, when, on turning a headland, he discovered a black bear walking
leisurely along the beach. Now the place where he discovered him was a
very wild, rugged spot. At the bottom of the bay rose a high precipice,
so that Bruin could not escape that way: along the beach