78 TRAVELLING IN FRANCE. [CHAP. in. 



in many of the pools which we passed convinced me that fair 

 sport might be had ; and the entry of an occasional Waltonian 

 into some of the stations with twenty pounds weight of trout 

 quite excited everybody, and made some of us long to whip 

 the waters of the district of Champagne, through which we 

 were passing. And a close inspection of the national etablisse- 

 ment de pisciculture at Huningue has convinced me that if any 

 river in France be still fishless, it is not through the fault of 

 a paternal government. 



Travelling is pleasant in France, for although the trains are 

 slow, they are safe and punctual. The distance from Paris to 

 Mulhausen is fifteen hours by the ordinary train, but we did 

 not feel the journey at all tedious. In my compartment were 

 a priest, who spoke a very " leetle" English, but who could 

 evidently read a great deal of Latin ; a shrewd Edinburgh 

 news-agent who, like most Scotchmen, took nothing for 

 granted, but saw and judged for himself; and his daughter, a 

 young lady on her way to fl do" the Rhine, but who took no 

 interest in pisciculture. Then there was a lively English gentle- 

 man, who seemed to have an intimate acquaintance with every 

 fish in the Thames ; he had netted whitebait (and eaten them) 

 off Blackwall, he had taken perch out of the East India Dock, 

 killed a monster pike near Teddington, and had caught no end 

 of gudgeon at various picturesque spots on the great river. 



" Bah," said my Scotch friend, joining in the conversation, 

 " did you ever kill a salmon, man ? I hate gudgeon and such 

 small fry ; give me the river Isla, about the ' Brig o' Riven/ a 

 good stout rod with no end of tackle, and an angry seventeen- 

 pound fish sulking behind a big stone then you may have 

 sport ; or favour me with good trolling-tackle and a boat on 

 deep Loch Awe, with the castle of Kilchurn glooming its great 

 shadow over us, and the eternal hills rising tall around, and I 

 will take out trout that will outweigh a hundred gudgeon ; or 

 give me a trout-rod and a pleasant ramble along the pictur- 



