134 EELS HELD IN ABHORRENCE BY SCOTCH. [PART I. 



tasted the forbidden food (like Charles Lamb's 

 Ho-ti and Bo-bo, in the case of pork), they needed 

 no inducement to continue the same course of diet. 

 One of these instances was rather amusing. Hav- 

 ing, with some friends, taken a moor in Argyle- 

 shire a few years ago, we used to obtain from the 

 loch hard by the lodge a good supply of eels, for 

 the most part taken with a wire eel-pot or trap 

 which we had been at the trouble of importing 

 from England. At the sight of these our old 

 "Fox-hunter" (whose avocations I will mention 

 presently) exhibited such extreme and ludicrous 

 horror, that our English servants, who rather took 

 a pleasure in "baiting" him, declared one day 

 that he should have no dinner till he had eaten 

 an Eel. The poor old Fox-hunter at first affected 

 to treat it as a joke, and then, finding that that 

 would not do, endeavoured to move them to pity. 

 However, it was of no use, they were bent on his 

 conversion, and resolutely locked up his dinner. 

 The unfortunate victim held out for some hours, 

 but then his increasing appetite, and the savoury 

 smell of the eel, which he acknowledged was good, 

 were together too much for him, and he gave in. 

 The eel was set before him, when, strange to say, he 

 not only finished it without manifesting any repug- 



