uch care is required in its
navigation. Its banks are heavily wooded and as we pass down its quiet
reaches we seem to have sailed into a dreamful world, where just to
breathe is a delight. I account it sinful to talk in these
surroundings, but one may not hope to enjoy solitude for any
considerable time in a country where women-travellers are sufficiently
rare to arouse a raging curiosity in the breast of every male entity
who comes within reach of her. People like these northmen, who live
out of doors most of the year, are not easily bored. They are
interested in things; they are perennially young, and this, I take it,
is the secret of Pan.

Now, the trouble about having a man near is that he is always picking
up your things and so making you nervous. I prefer to wait till ready
to move before regaining my handkerchief, my back-comb, my hand satchel
and my scarf. This is why I pretend not to notice the iron-built
person with strong white teeth who has seated himself nearby and who is
watching a chance to restore something. He is what the Irish call
"bold-like." I know what he is thinking about and understand his
motive perfectly. He wants to know if I have ever been north before.
He is the thirteenth man so to wonder. I am, however, severely
purposed not to tell him.

There is a belief, common in the cities, that no questions are asked in
the bush; that people may travel for days together without divulging
ends. Here is a good place to spend an arrow on this widely droll
deception. An uninquisitive man is as hard to find here as an
unsociable cockerel. Goodness Divine! the chief use of a stranger in
the woods is to keep the denizens of it from dying from _ennui_ and
lack of news. They would consider it the essence of uncordiality not
to show an interest in the affairs of a stranger, especially as the
stranger might possibly have succeeded in smuggling a flash
[Transcriber's note: flask?] or two past the police on the prohibition
line.

This bush-ranger catches me off my guard when a bulldog fly takes a
piece out of my ear. It is his opportunity to produce a vial of
collodion for the wound. As he pulls out the cork and finds a match to
dip in the mixture, he tells me that the bulldog fly is no sweet angel
and equal to ten thousand times its weight in prize-fighters--a
statement which I do not think it fit to disbelieve. The collodion
having eased the hurt this impudent gentleman draws up his chair a