Joe had taken the opportunity during our last day’s fishing, on hearing of the misfortunes of his boat, to remove her to the Sault de Cochon, so that we had to paddle about two miles in the open St. Lawrence. The river was over twenty miles broad, and, under the influence of a southwesterly wind, was so rough that our unsteady bark danced, tossed and rolled about uncommonly. I could no longer stand up, as I had been forced to do hitherto, and was brought to my knees at once, while even Joe found it safer to sit down on the thwart. No one who has not tried it can imagine what a canoe is in the slightest sea-way; it appears to bob from under you, and rolls and dances so quickly as to render staying in it almost impossible, even if it should not carry out its evident design to turn bottom up. Once at Sault de Cochon and I again tried the fish, having taken, on the descent of the La Val, twelve, and was rewarded as I deserved, by total failure.
The wind had died out, the water lay a perfect mirror, and, crowding down into the narrow cock-pit, we slept till two o’clock in the morning, when a favoring tide helped us slowly along toward our destination. The night passed, and the next day, and we drifted by place after place that we passed before with such rapidity, and sunset again found us only thirty-three miles on our way. We ran into a little bay at the mouth of the Escomain, where, having built a huge fire and eaten a hearty supper, we slept, on a bed of the softest pebble stones, soundly and sweetly till the first grey light of daybreak, when we continued our journey along a coast so poor that the best fed hogs are, as we were credibly informed, light and weak enough to be blown over by a strong wind, and mill-stones, to say nothing of the miller, starve for want of grain.
Again the hills of the Saguenay rise to our view, Tadousac rests calmly in its nook, and the sun shines on the white houses of L’Anse à l’Eau as when we left. Our trip is done. The La Val will live in our memory as long as we can cast a fly--aye, and when gout or age shall have laid us on the shelf. To you, my friend, the genial companion of my trip, I give my thanks; may we meet again, and once more stand side by side upon some projecting rock, as fish after fish rises to our fly. May you long live to enjoy the sport at which you so excel, and may you leave children that can cast a fly as well. To the stately St. Lawrence, to the magnificent Saguenay, to the beautiful La Val, a long farewell.