BENMORE.
We Like To Portray To Ourselves Our Energetic Neighbour Of Benmore House,
Such As We Can Recall Him In His Palmy, Sporting Days Of 1865; We Shall
Quote From The Maple Leaves Of That Year:
"It will not be one of the least glories of 'Our Parish,' even when the
Province will have
Expanded into an empire, with Sillery as the seat of
Vice Royalty, to be able to boast of possessing the Canadian, the adopted
home of a British officer of wealth and intelligence, known to the
sporting world as the Great Northern Hunter. Who had not heard of the
battues of Col. Rhodes on the snow-clad peaks of Cap Tourment, on
the Western Prairies, and all along the Laurentian chain of mountains? One
man alone through the boundless territory extending from Quebec to the
North Pole, can dispute the belt with the Sillery Nimrod, but then, a
mighty hunter is he; by name in the St. Joachim settlement, Olivier
Cauchon, to Canadian sportsmen known as Le Roi des Bois. It is said, but
we cannot vouch for the fact - that Cauchon, in order to acquire the scent,
swiftness and sagacity of the cariboo, has lived on cariboo milk, with an
infusion of moss and bark, ever since his babyhood, but that this very
winter (1865) he killed, with slugs, four cariboo at one shot, we can
vouch for.
A few weeks since, a habitant with a loaded sleigh passed our gate;
on the top of his load was visible a noble pair of antlers. "Qui a tue -
ces cariboo?" we asked. Honest John Baptiste replied, "Le Colonel Rhodes,
Monsieur." Then followed a second - then a third. Same question asked, to
which for reply - "Le Colonel Rhodes, Monsieur." Then another sleigh load
of cariboo, in all twelve Cariboo, two sleighs of hare, grouse and
ptarmigan, then a man carrying a dead carcajou, then in the distance,
the soldier-like phiz of the Nimrod himself, nimbly following on foot the
cavalcade. This was too much, we stopped and threatened the Colonel to
apply to Parliament for an Act to protect the game of Canada against his
unerring rifle. Were we not fully aware of the gratifying fact, that,
under recent legislative enactment, the fish and game of Canada have much
increased, we might be inclined to fancy that the Colonel will never rest
until he has bagged the last moose, the last cariboo in the country.
Benmore nestles cosily in a pine grove on the banks of the great river,
the type of an English Country gentleman's homestead. In front of the
house, a spacious piazza, from which you can watch the river craft; in the
vast surrounding meadows, a goodly array of fat Durhams and Ayrshires, in
the farm-yard, short-legged Berkshires squeaking merrily in the distance,
rosy-cheeked English boys romping on the lawn, surrounded by pointers and
setters: such, the grateful sights which, greeted our eyes one lovely June
morning round Benmore House, the residence of the President of the Quebec
Game Club, and late member of Parliament for Megantic." (Written in 1865.)
IMPORTATION OF BIRDS.
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