126 " GOD BLESS ME, WHAT N*A FISH !" [PART I. 



away from the boat, and brought him quietly up 

 into shallow water, when John Cameron waded in 

 round him, and, getting his hands well under his 

 gills, hauled him bodily out, and with a "God 

 bless me, what n'a fish!" brought him on shore in 

 his arms. I had entreated him to employ the gaff, 

 but he seemed so uncertain as to its use, and so 

 confident of being able to do it in his own way, 

 that I let him " gang his ain gait." The fish pro- 

 ved to be a magnificent male Salmo ferox, which 

 our steelyards agreed in returning about two 

 ounces under twenty pounds. His dimensions 

 were, length, two feet eight inches and three- 

 quarters ; girth, one foot ten inches and a half. 

 Anything like his condition I never saw, but it 

 may be judged of by the fact that he was com- 

 pared by the first three people we met, to a pig, 

 a whale, and a pair of bellows. 



On looking to see how he had been hooked, 

 I found that the lower part of the flight of hooks 

 had caught him in the side of the mouth, but that 

 the lip-hook had also, no doubt as he went away 

 in one of his long rushes, got fast in one of his 

 gill-covers, behind the eye. Thus I had through- 

 out been labouring under the disadvantage of 

 having a cross-pull on him, which, coupled with 



