184 LAKES AND RIVERS, 



came harder, and I felt sure I had got a twenty pound 

 salmon at least, when out flew the top joint of the rod 

 and was pulled violently down the stream. I watched 

 it float with great velocity down the current and fol- 

 lowed it for some hundred yards. It was apparently 

 dragged by some powerful force exerted under the 

 water. At last the rod stopped, caught among some 

 reeds. I looked backwards and forwards, and at 

 length saw beyond me, in an inaccessible marsh, an 

 otter, which had just landed with a large fish in its paw ; 

 this otter was my twenty-pound salmon. An old fish- 

 erman came up to me, who had been more successful 

 than I, and was returning with his basket full. I 

 wanted a piece of string, to which I thought if I at- 

 tached a stone I could throw it over the rod and drag 

 it ashore. I had no string with me, and all my line 

 was in the water; but the old man lent me his rod and 

 line, and with it I got my own ashore. I found the 

 hook and gut had been bitten off by the otter. This 

 old man was very good-natured, and took me to one 

 or two pools where the fish, though small, were greedy 

 biters, and I caught them "by the dozen. They were 

 about four inches long, and of a species unknown to 

 me. This man was full of anecdotes of grand cap- 

 tures, and invited me to give him an eel-hunt the next 

 day. A small rivulet crosses the lower part of the 

 town ; this had shrunk to very narrow dimensions on 

 account of the dryness of the weather, and the fish 

 that were usually there had entirely disappeared. 

 These, the old fisherman told me, had congregated in 

 a deep subterranean pool, where they were, he said, 

 ' as thick as herrings in a barrel/ We went accord- 



