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ANGLING."

We have often been impressed with the truthfulness of Washington Irving's charming sketch, "The Angler," in which he depicts a party of gentlemen inoculated with a mania for the gentle craft, by the reading of old Isaak Walton, who, after whipping the stream with the most approved tackle for hours without success, had the mortification of seeing a ragged urchin, with a crooked pole, homespun line and miserable hook-one who had never dreamed of honest Isaak-take out a noble string of trout. It is even so: all the reading and fine tackle in the world will never make an angler if angler he be not by nature—piscator nascitur non fit-angler must he be born, not made or he is guilty of a sad waste of time and patience in meddling with rod and line. It were far wiser and better for him to follow the advice of Franklin, and angle in the market-house with a silver hook.

We were born an angler; the passion grew with our growth and strengthened with our strength. The fatigues, dangers, and misadventures ever incident to the sport, have never for one moment deterred us, although we have had our share of them. A drenching shower is as common to us as sunshine-in fact, we rather affect moist weather and an upset has become of so ordinary occurrence that we are not sure but that it is rather a disappointment to us than otherwise when we are not accommodated with one. Some of these affairs are ludicrous in the extreme, and others not unattended with danger. One that happened upon one of those small lakes, or rather large ponds, so common in Connecticut, combined the two in a singular manner. Upon the lake aforesaid we had ventured in quest of perch and pickerel; the craft which we had chartered deserved rather the title of a box than a boat-one of

those rambling, wabbling, flat-bottomed, leaky concerns, that men who have never seen salt water in their lives, fasten together somehow, and then dignify with the title of skiff. However, as this skiff, or “dug-. out," or whatever may be its proper orthographic representative, was the only craft that floated upon the bosom of the pond, right glad were we to charter it-it being "the end of haying," at which time all the men and boys of the country round are apt to break bounds, and devote one day to a frolic, or as they term it, "have a good fish."

Our crew consisted of ourselves—master, cockswain, and commander in general— with three youngsters, all tyros and under our instruction and guidance.

The day was fine, the fish apparently blessed with a prodigious appetite, and soon a goodly number of golden-sided perch were flapping about the bottom of the boat, wearing out their scales in useless efforts to effect an escape, making themselves particularly disagreeable, and conducting generally in a very scaly manner. While we were enjoying ourselves vastly, and filling our boat, a number of very stalwart looking worthies made their appearance, rod in hand, and commenced a series of vituperative remarks, directed to the occupants of the boat. Their language was, to say the least, decidedly ungentlemanly, and being coupled with some words about "pounding our heads" and throwing us overboard, we concluded that our wisest course was to up anchor, and put water enough between us to prevent their swimming out and performing their threats.

We crossed the pond and fished awhile, when they again made their appearance; then off we posted and improved the opportunity, until again forced to quit. This game went on until some time after noon,

I. Frank Forester's Fish and Fishing of the United States and British Provinces of North America. By WILLIAM HENRY HERBERT. New York. 1850.

II. The American Angler's Guide, a Complete Fisher's Manual for the United States: By JOHN J. BROWN.

New York. 1850.

when two of the youngsters-either being moved thereto by compunctions of conscience or of the stomach, either affrighted or enhungered-insisted upon being landed. We again crossed the pond, and having thus put a mile and a half of bad walking between us and our insatiate adversaries, ran the boat to shore: and having discharged the tyros, began very quietly and complacently to string the fish for them to carry home, not dreaming of danger. But lo, and behold, just as this interesting occupation was about being completed, we heard a shout, and raising our head, saw that the foe was upon us. The cove in which we were laying was full of old trees, sunk in fifteen feet water, with an occasional head protruding above the surface. So, pushing the boat from the shore, we placed our oar against one of these timber-heads, and giving a violent shove, away went our craft with a velocity to which she was little accustomed. As we dropped the oar, a noble pickerel broke water immediately before us, and, seizing the rod, we leaped from the stern to the middle seat, and thence upon the bow. Unfortunate precipitation! At the moment our feet touched the bow, the boat struck, bounded back toward the shore, and we-we went in.

No mortal man hath seen a prettier dive. Our broad brimmed hat deserted our head, and we with a tremendous impetus, with our hands before us, prepared to cleave the waves in the most approved style of modern bathing, launched into the treacherous deep. In a moment we were at the bottom, to the great discomposure of sundry quiet families of perch and roach, whose domestic precincts we thus unceremoniously invaded, and whose domestic economy we thus incontinently disturbed. An Indian diver after orient pearls, could not have done the thing better. The whole affair was so sudden that there was no time for alarm upon our part. Our only thought as we went down, and as we came up for men think under water as well as above it was of the supremely ridiculous mode of our submersion. And in the place of a cry for help, when our head did pop up above the surface, a very respectable laugh, considering the amount of water mixed with it, was the only sound to which we gave utterance. The remaining lad in the boat, was making a very vigo

VOL. V. NO. I. NEW SERIES.

rous but futile series of efforts to paddle after our hat, perhaps laboring under the erroneous impression that our head was somewhere in its vicinity, which, as the hat as well as its master was capsized, seemed rather improbable. We swam to the boat, and finding it impossible to get in, swam it to land; then, making a very low bow to our persevering friends upon the shore, peaceably resigned the command of the lake marine, and made the best of our way homeward, dripping like a sea-god-or rather a fresh-water nymph.

Not a whit daunted by this adventure, or by many others of similar nature were we; but, from that day until the present writing, have continued to wage a ceaseless and tireless war upon every thing that wears fins-and in all manners and styles that might prove most efficacious, without pausing to consider whether they were sportsmen-like or not. We have taken the enemy through the ice; we have tickled them to their destruction; we have turned them out upon the grass by shifting the course of brooks; we have netted them, and seined them, and speared them; and formed an acquaintance with nearly every species that inhabit our waters. Everything is fish that comes to our net-unlike the western gentleman that went a "catting;" went a "catting!" and upon that principle, having taken a fine trout, threw him back again into the stream.

Speaking of catfish reminds us of an adventure, or rather train of adventures, which once befel us in our efforts to capture one of those huge denizens of the western waters; and, as we might as well make a clean breast of it at once, we will now weave it into a modest tale or sketch, under the title of

OUR ADVENTURES IN

SEARCH OF A CAT FISH-WITH PARTICULAR ADVICE AND DIRECTIONS HOW NOT TO COOK ONE

WHEN CAUGHT.

It was in the first youth of one of the last born sisters of our Union, who, after a misalliance with a Mexican, which greatly annoyed and distressed her friends, terminated the affair by scratching his eyes out, taking forcible possession of all the property, both real and personal, upon which she could lay her hands, kicking the would

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be lord and master unceremoniously and incontinently out of doors, and then, like a good child, coming home again, and getting her friends to fight out the battle for her. As we before said, it was in the younger days of our younger state, that the adventure, or series of adventures, occurred which we are about to relate.

In consequence of a certain roving disposition, "cupidus," as Cicero hath it, 66 nervarum rerum," we found ourselves located and domiciled in the family of one Joe H, a regular back-woodsman, a capital hunter, and a decided character, with nothing in particular to do, except to amuse ourselves as best we might.

Had Joe been a Gothamite,-"to the manor born"-his genius and inclination would have led him to Wall-street, for he was great" upon speculation, usually spending one third of his time in expeditions "up country" in search of a silver mine; another third, hunting bee trees, and taking possession; and the greater part of the remainder in studying how to get a living without work.

But, alas, Joe had never heard of " bulls" without horns, nor ever dreamed of meeting a "bear" unless there was mischief "bruin." The labor of a few days sufficed to make his somewhat scanty crop; a few more, gathered his stock of cattle, and left him the rest of the year to follow the bent of his inclination, which, without being what may be technically described as "crooked," nevertheless had as many twists and ramifications as the horn of a veteran of the flock and fold.

The last silver mine speculation had, as usual, proved unfortunate. He had spent six months in vainly searching the banks of the Upper "Trinity," for the much coveted treasure, barely escaped starvation and scalping by the Indians, returned home not particularly burthened with clothing, with the little that remained of a decidedly multifarious and forlorn character, for his tailoring had been of the rudest, somewhat approaching the Adam and Eve style of the art. His tobacco, coffee, and ammunition, the three sine qua nons, were nearly expended, and so he set his brain to work to find, or invent, some plan for a further supply. These, to a frontier man, are, strictly speaking, the indispensables-for a small patch of cotton, and an industrious

wife, provide his clothing-or, if necessary, the rifle is called into requisition for a buck skin. A small patch of corn supplies his bread, and for meat, almost all are provided with a stock of cattle, or drove of hogs, and if not, the universal rifle is again summoned into the field. A wolf skin, or the nearest palmetto brake, furnishes him with hats, and a raw hide or deer skin, with a covering for his feet. So that if this be not a life of genuine, though too often lazy, independence, we know not the correct interpretation of the term.

Within four miles of Joe's cabin, through a thicket so dense that even in that country of tangled forest it was known as the "hig thicket," ran the San Jacinto, a stream where water, pure and pellucid, traverses the finest timber in the world, and, according to Joe's account, were patronized by an extensive variety of very superior fish. Now the fish part of the business was put in as a magnet to attract me, for Joe himself was the only man in the settlement who had ventured to explore the tangled maze.

Joe's brain had generated a prodigious idea, worthy, at least, of the immortal Jack Tibbets, and the sum of it was, to go to Houston and pick up a score or so of disbanded volunteers that were hanging around the town, with whom to enter into an extensive lumber operation, in the stave and shingle line. According to his calcu lation, a fortune was to be realized in a very short time; but having had some experience of his vagaries, we determined to reason the matter with him, and try an experiment ere we plunged blindly into a serious matter.

Reason he would not hear; he had thought the matter over to his satisfaction; but the experiment he finally agreed to try

and thus the compromise was ultimately settled. We were first to spend a month in the "timber,"-Joe as master-workman and director in general-ourselves as occasional assistant in the shingling business, and fisherman in ordinary, attached to the commissariat department.

This plan was perfectly satisfactory to us, for one month we knew was sufficient to give a quietus to any of Joe's plans which included personal exertions upon his own part; and, in truth, we had heard so much

of the fish that a desire had seized us to capture and taste of them.

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Our first excursion, or rather incursion, was made simply and solely as a voyage of discovery. Our only sure guide to the spot was the fact that some two miles down the prarie ran, or perhaps more often stood, a bayou, which crossed it on its way to the river, and three miles above us was a marais," or slough, which, according to our friend Joe's account, changed into a "branch;" then running through a cypress brake or two, finally assumed the form of a palmetto swamp, and in that guise joined the river. Now these two land, or rather water marks, after sundry and divers contortions and gyrations, ultimately converged and nearly met. So that all we had to do was to keep the bayou upon the right hand and the swamp on the left-a modern version of Scylla and Charybdis-and with the aid of patience, a huge hack knife, Joe's wood crop, and extreme good luck, we might, barring accidents and the overclouding of the sun, finally hope to attain the point proposed.

There was, to be sure, a kind of path, rather a mythological affair, supposed to have been originally marked out by some old party of surveyors, partly kept open by cattle, where the thicket was not very dense, and, occasionally, in other parts by such of the "varmint" as could crawl through the cane and under the briars, so that now and then a remnant was visible; but as both ends were totally blotted out of existence, and only a few marks where it had been remained, it was, if anything, rather worse

than useless.

The first part of our journey was effected on horseback; but after proceeding about half a mile into the "timber," this mode of progression was suddenly brought to a period by the dense undergrowth, and we were reduced to a very natural and primitive style of locomotion.

The spot had been aptly named the "big thicket." Immense bamboo briars, like vegetable laocoons, twined and intertwined, crossed and recrossed from tree to tree and shrub to shrub, forming a natural trelliswork for the thousand and one wild and beautiful vines that abounded there. The passion vine, with its singular flower and luscious fruit; the cypress vine, with its dazzling gem-like blossoms, whose form is

said to have suggested the pentagonal star of the Texan flag; the morning-glory, trebling in size and beauty the stunted, dwarfish thing found in our northern gardens, and an innumerable host of others, of minor importance clung to them. Above our heads, the gigantic, wax-like blossoms of the magnificent magnolia grandiflora shed a perfume rivalling the lotus, while, from the branches of every tree, the trumpet creeper, the parasite, par excellence, of the vegetable kingdom, waved her crimson cuniform flowers. Birds of showy plumage and joyous voices-the dandy paroquet-the log-cock, with his gaudy head dress-the dusky mockingbird, whose imitative but inimitable song more than compensates for his Quaker attire-were flitting to and fro, hopping from twig to twig, so carelessly and unconcerned that it was very evident they were seldom troubled with a visit of the fell destroyer,

man.

We had now to contend for every step we gained; knife and hatchet were in constant requisition, and for one hour we passed on in Indian file as best we might. Joe now announced the discovery of a tree, which he recognized as one that grew near the neglected trail, and toward it we made our way. On reaching it we found it truly near something that might have been a trail or might have been a rabbit-path, and which led us in a few moments into a cane brake, where the rank cane grew in wild luxuriance, thick, according to Joe, as the "hars on a dog." Joe said, "he allowed this wouldn't pay," for we had certainly stumbled into the slough, which formed our southern boundary; and so off we started in the opposite direction. Unfortunately, while following our trail, the sun became obscured; and we had been so busy cutting our way, and keeping in the path, that we had neglected to take an observation of any of the prominent trees ahead of us.

The back-woodsman's compass, the black and rough bark upon the north side of trees, failed, for so thoroughly defended were they by the deep thicket, that the bitter northers seemed to have produced no effect. Under these circumstances it was, perhaps, not in the least surprising that, after floundering about a while in the bush, we found ourselves in an immense and gloomy cypress brake.

Reader, did you ever see a cypress brake? if not, you have yet one nameless horror to experience-your first feelings upon beholding one. The brake is always upon low ground, or rather in a swale, which, during the rainy season, is filled with water; but the one into which we had stumbled was perfectly dry, excepting here and there a puddle, containing rather more mud than water, and densely populated with the most vile of reptiles, the moccasin snake, who had congregated there in great numbers.

The ground was perfectly bare, fibrous, and free from any thing like grass or vegetation, save an occasional cluster of rank and noxious vines, of a sickening, deadly green. From this drear abode arose the trunk of many a huge cypress, shooting up its straight and living shaft, far, far above our heads, seeming almost to pierce the clouds, and, at a great height, outstretching its spectral arms clad and draped with the fatal moss, which lives, and feeds, and thrives only upon the malaria and vapors of the most deadly kind. No settler builds his cabin near the spot where its sombre curtain is seen waving to and fro, but shuns it as a sure token of the presence of pestilence and death.

scrambled, intending to make our way between the two obstacles, but we had not proceeded far when the sun made his appearance, shining, to my astonishment, not in our faces, but upon our backs. Joe, however, nothing daunted, merely muttered something about having taken the "back track," and then wheeling about, with the sun for his pilot, guided us directly to the river.

A more beautiful stream never gladdened our eyes; running over a bed of pebble and rock, between shelving banks of glistening sand, white as the unsullied snow flake, it resembled rather one of our northern streams than anything of the kind we had before seen in the south.

In a deep pool immediately beneath us however, a half-grown alligator floating lazily upon the surface, and the occasional flash of the fins and tail of that shark of the fresh water, the gar, assured us of the southern locality.

Strong was the temptation to cast a line into the blue depths below, but alas the means and appliances were wanting. The day was Sunday, and Joe, although far from a bigot, was a very aristocrat in his feelings, and had put a decided veto upon taking with us any tackle for fishing.

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He was not, he said, sot up about Sunday; but huntin' and fishin' on that day was clear nigger, and went agin him," so we dropped the subject.

Around the foot of every tree a number of those singular conical-shaped shoots, termed needles, are standing, resembling so many grave stones; and slowly crawling among them, or lying stupid and sullen, After strolling down the stream, and sewith its mouth wide agape, is ever found lecting an eligible spot for our camp, we the filthy moccasin. No token gives he returned, and although we lost our way of his presence, like the tocsin of the chiv-again-which by the by we never after failalrous rattlesnake, but should you approach too near you would soon feel his deadly fang, more fatal even than those of the latter. He is the most hateful of his kind, a truculent coward, and never, save in one solitary instance have we known him to offer an attack, or even resist one in any other manner than by slinking hissingly away.

To our surpise, Joe seemed quite satisfied that he had fallen in with the swamp. His reasons however, were good-for said he, "this is either a part of the slough, and if so, must be near the river, or it joins the bayou, and if this be the case, we cannot be far from it either, for the slough and the bayou do not approach each other until very near it." "Out of the brake we

ed of doing, either in going in or coming out of the bush-yet, at length arriving safely at the spot where our horses were tied out, mounted them and soon reached home.

During the evening we thought of nothing but the fish; our dreams that night were full of them, and we awoke next morning with a firm and fixed determination that come what might that day would we cast our line into the crystal waters of the San Jacinto.

Joe, for a wonder, had something to do, and after advising us to abandon the idea of visiting the river alone, finally submitted, saying that there was nothing like learning after all, and gave us the best advice and direction in his power.

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