372 RIFLE AND ROMANCE 



Its higher waters pass over an upland plain for many miles 

 somewhat sluggishly till they plunge over a fine fall 

 stretching right across its bed in the abrupt manner we see 

 in the falls of the Congo and Zambesi. Hence it seeks a 

 lower level with much greater rapidity, partaking of the 

 nature of a Highland stream. Indeed its rapids and pools 

 irresistibly remind the traveller of a Scottish salmon river. 

 When the writer viewed his companion, salmon-rod in hand, 

 industriously beguiling the wily mahasir, heard the rush of 

 the waters as they tumultuously entered a broad deep pool, 

 and, above their roar, the musical screaming of the winch, 

 he shut his eyes to the vivid green of the sal forests around 

 him, and to the piercing rays of the declining tropic sun, 

 and, with but a small stretch of the imagination, was back 

 amid youthful scenes by banks of Ness or tumbling Awe. 

 While encamped by its shores that river was an ever- 

 pleasant feature of our trip. Those enforced and weary 

 days of waiting, that the big-game hunter knows so well, 

 were to us all too short. Rod in hand, the hours, even 

 under a broiling sun, passed rapidly away. Mahasir, our 

 old friend Barbus tor, inhabited each thundering run and 

 oily depth of that enchanting stream ; and bold sometimes, 

 coy usually, strangely full of guile for an inmate of so 

 virgin a river, by turns rewarded and deluded us. The 

 amount of good fresh tackle we left in that rocky eastern 

 stream was astounding. Never, I ween, had the spirit of 

 those waters reaped such a harvest of spoons, traces, 

 swivels, spinning tackle and line not to speak of a top- 

 joint one disastrous afternoon ! 



Long shall we remember those rushing rapids; the 

 granite-sided islets with their drooping boughs and ferns ; 

 the great solemn sdl forest through which the jungle river 

 ran towards the setting sun ; and, when floating silently 

 home to camp, down some placid reach, the indescribable 

 charm of a scene unique, I fancy, in the " plains " of India ! 

 The very birds, the riverside vegetation, the shape of the 



