308 SALMON FISHING. 



better than mere loss of time, yet as he hurried with a 

 fleet foot down the gorge, perhaps with some ulterior object, 

 beyond the mere love of sport, Jasper at times cast his fly 

 across the stream, and drew it neatly, and, as he thought, 

 irresistibly, right over the recusant fish; but though once 

 or twice a large lazy Salmon would sail up slowly from the 

 depths, and almost touch the fly with his nose, he either 

 sunk down slowly in disgust, without breaking the water, or 

 flapped his broad tail over the shining fraud as if to mark his 

 contempt. 



" It had now got to be near noon, for, in the ardour of his 

 success, the angler had forgotten all about his intended break- 

 fast; and, his first fish captured, had contented himself with 

 a slender meal furnished from out his fishing-basket and his 

 leathern bottle. 



" Jasper had traversed by this time some ten miles in length, 

 following the sinuosities of the stream, and had reached a 

 favourite pool at the head of a long, straight, narrow trench, 

 cut by the waters themselves in the course of time, through the 

 hard schistous rock which walls the torrent on each hand, not 

 leaving the slightest ledge or margin between the rapids and 

 the precipice. 



" Through this wild gorge of some fifty yards in length, the 

 river shoots like an arrow over a steep inclined plane of lime- 

 stone rock, the surface of which is polished by the action of the 

 water, till it is as slippery as ice, and at the extremity leaps 

 down a sheer descent of some twelve feet into a large, wide 

 basin, surrounded by softly swelling banks of greensward, and a 

 fair amphitheatre of woodland. 



