SAI.MON ANGLING IN IRELAND. Gli 



place would lead a stranger to imagine it had taken to drinking and 

 lost all self-respect. . . . Before a box had been taken off the 

 car last night my host infonned me, " there had not been a drop of 

 rain for the past five weeks, and the river was as low as it could be." 

 He repeated the same statement this morning, though the draggle- 

 tailed cock at the door flatly contradicted him. Drizzle in Eath- 

 melton must be a synonym for fine weather. This, however, was a 

 matter of little moment, as here the salmon ascend to the lake at a 

 very early period all through the winter, in fact at which season, 

 at least m Donegal, there i* sure to be no lack of moisture. 



After an early breakfast we set off for Lough Fern, following the 

 course of the Leannan along a shallow boggy depression, which here 

 passes for a valley, in which I believe conscientiously every species 

 of j uncus figured by Hooker find a " local habitation," if not a 

 name. A short drive brought us to the cottage of the resident 

 professor, when, leaving our horse happy in munching some sour 

 hay, we walked to the lake, baled out the boat, and commenced 

 operations with two trout and one salmon-fly. Round the sedges, 

 at the south-south-west extremity, we fished, rising and hooking 

 respectable trout at short intervals, changing the trail again and again 

 without changing our fortune. The guide paddled and paddled in 

 ghost-like silence, which was only broken by my inquiring "What was 

 to be done next?" Resting on his oars with the aspect of a deeply 

 injured man, he observed, " it would have been as well to have 

 consulted him sooner," and next pulled from his pocket an article, 

 the prevailing hue of which was whitey brown, the gut and hook 

 thereto belonging being sufficient to fill an angler with despair. 

 Madame, with great zeal, instantly commenced what she had the 

 assurance to call an improvement on the pattern ; with which, alas ! 

 it was destined never to be compared, as before its completion a fine 

 fish earned off the antique, to some subaqueous museum. I might 

 have said with Paulina 



YHiat's gone, and what's past help, 

 Should be past grief ; 



though I fear I did not utter anything half so reasonable. 



