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CHAPTER XXIII. 



A NARROW ESCAPE. 



Next day I went to renew my fishing experiences. 

 The water was clearer than on my previous attempt, 

 so I confined myself to grasshoppers for bait. With 

 a short line I had no success, but when the current 

 took out the float thirty or forty feet from the tip of 

 my rod, down it went, and immediately I was fast in 

 a fish that gave me splendid play. On being 

 hooked it exhibited any amount of dash, like the 

 majority of coarse freshwater fish, but soon the bad- 

 plucked one gave in, and I landed it unresistingly 

 at my feet. It was identical with the mahseer 

 (Bar bus tor) of India, and weighed about 8 lbs. A 

 salmon or trout of that weight would have given 

 double or treble the play, but then they are 

 residents of rapid streams with a temperature ever 

 low, instead of waters partially stagnant, and always 

 heated by the all-powerful rays of a tropical sun. 

 So it may be said that they live in a relaxing climate. 

 This fish is a very handsome animal, and much 

 resembles a chub, but for the different shape and 

 position of the mouth. Again a grasshopper was 

 impaled upon my hook, and the eddy carried out my 

 cork far from me ; down it dipped, then rose nearly 



