'Backward and forward he switched his long rail,
As a gentleman switches his cane?'

And of whose dress it was facetiously said:

'His coat was red and his breeches were blue,
With a hole behind for his tail to stick through.'

another author said of him on one of his fishing excursions,
that

'His rod, it was a sturdy mountain oak,
His line, a cable which no storm e'er broke,
His hook he baited with a dragon's tail,
And sat upon a rock and bob'd for whale!'

Well, like the ebony gentleman, you can, if you choose, sit upon
Lonesome Rock enjoying your meditations, and bobbing, not for whale,
for whatever other fish may be found in the Lower Saranac, I believe
there are no whale; but you can bob for trout; whether you will catch
any or not will depend very much on circumstances. It is a capital
place to cast the fly from, or to sink your hook with a bait, and if
the trout do not choose to bite, whose fault is that, I should like
to know?

"And this reminds me of an anecdote told me by a gentleman I met in
June of last year, on the Rackett River among the black flies, of an
adventure he met with on Lonesome Rock last season. He had been
trolling around the lake in a boat alone, without much success, and
concluded he would try deep fishing from this rock, as he had heard
that the trout were in the habit of congregating around its base. So
he rowed to the rock, and, as he supposed, secured his boat, and
climbing up its side seated himself on his boat cushion, on the top.
He caught one fine fish at the first throw, and took it for granted
that he was going to have a good time of it among the trout. When he
mounted the rock, about eleven o'clock, the sky was overcast, and he
caught three or four trout of good size in the course of half an hour;
but the sun coming out bright and clear, the fish altered their minds,
and refused to have anything more to do with his hook. He finally
concluded to give up the business, and seek the cooling shadows of the
forest trees along the shore. But his boat was gone; and upon looking
around he saw it drifting before a light breeze a quarter of a mile
distant. Now when you remember that all around the lake was a
wilderness, save a single spot at the head of the bay, where Martin's
house stands, three or four miles distant, and when you remember also
that no boat might be passing during the next twenty-four hours, you
will comprehend that his posit