'2 Introductory. CHAPT. I. 



It is not that I have nothing better to beguile the tedium of a 

 P. and 0. Steamer voyage back to India, though that may be my 

 opportunity for scribbling. It is that I have an idea it is a sort of 

 thing some fellow ought to do out of purely philanthropic motives 

 for his brother anglers ; and as nobody else will do it, I suppose 

 I must. It seems so selfish to have discovered that there is right 

 good fishing to be had, and then to keep it to oneself. In short, I 

 cannot do it ; so " here goes." 



There may be some six hundred books or thereabouts on 

 fishing in general, but there i3 not one that I know of on fishing 

 in India. The subject is scarcely overwritten, therefore, in spite 

 of the six hundred books aforesaid. 



Englishmen have few relaxations indeed in this land of their 

 exile. Very, very differently situated in this respect is the Public 

 Servant in India and his congener in England. " All work and 

 no play makes Jack a dull boy," but I venture to say from expe- 

 rience that an energetic Mahseer telegraphs such an enlivening 

 thrill of pleasurable excitement up the line, down the rod, and 

 through the wrist and arm, to the very heart of the man who has 

 got well fixed, that it makes his pulse beat quicker, and is 

 altogether as good as a tonic to him. Be he ever so cool in the 

 management of a heavy fish, even the old hand cannot but expe- 

 rience a certain amount of exhilaration. 



" The stern joy which warriors feci 

 In foeman worthy of their steel." 



I maintain that a few such electric currents before breakfast do 

 a man good, and send him into his daily work much mi ire wide-awake 

 and cheerful. Pulvennacher is nothing to it. Considering the 

 amount of refreshing good it does a fellow, it is a wonder an en- 

 lightened Government does not keep a man in rod and tackle, and 

 allow treble hooks to be included in the annual " Sadirwarid."* 



Furthermore a successful fisherman is calculated to take more 

 interest than his neighbours in a matter which has grown to be 

 acknowledged in England, in Europe, in Australia, in New Zea- 

 land, in Canada, in America, in Japan, as of national importance, 

 to wit, pisciculture, or in other words, the means of increasing the 



* An annual indent for pen*, pencils, knives, scissors, needles, thread, audsuch- 

 like miscellaneous articles 



