Lone Lift; ; or, a Year in the Wilderness. By
Parker Gillmoro. 2 vols. (Chapman and Hall.)—Of all books, a book of sporting adventure should be kept clear of romance. One never can tell where imagination ceases and reality begins. If the human characters are fictitious, what about the animals ? Are the bears, the moose, the trout real ? Mr. Gillmore begins in the most matter-of-fact way ; gives us his route, Etc., in detail, in fact, leads one to think that he is going to keep himself to sober history. But surely there is something more than sober history before we get to the end of his year. Two Indian girls seek eagerly the honour of becoming his squaws ; ultimately one of them elopes with a villainous trapper whom he has taken into his service, the other is mortally wounded by a bullet which the trapper intends for his master. The murderer is doomed to death ; and Mr. Gillmore, after rejecting the entreaties of a priest that he will save the forfeited life, yields to the sudden apparition of the love of his youth, in the shape of one Sister Dolores. The trapper escapes by the help of his Indian wife, but meets his doom, so, at least, we are led to think, in a prairie fire. It is only right to say that in the sporting portions of the book there is nothing extravagant or incredible. Hero, indeed, the author has a reputation almost singular for the vast variety of his experience, and has a right, which, indeed, he never abuses, to be believed. The angling experiences, to speak of one part only of this interesting volume, are enough to make any fisher- man's month water. The only consolation available for those who see no possible chance of "a year in the wilderness" is to gloat with a sinister pleasure on the ravages which black flies and mosquitoes commit on the persons of anglers, who would otherwise be too happy. We note one curious fact which Mr. Gillmore's authority makes worthy of investiga- tion,—that the bite of the skunk invariably produces hydrophobia.
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