i 'hut. xvii Tht Pamban Channel. 209 



our mutual friend Polynemus. Either P. tetradaetyhu or P. 



fndicua, probably the latter. I only bad one bour at them, but 

 it is a day to be remembered in all my lifetime. What splendid 

 sport they gave I We anchored tbe boat at the head of the 

 run, and fished below us in the middle of it. We used a full 

 sized salmon fly, made of nothing but the white feather of a quill 

 pen, tied palmer-fashion all over it. Much the same fly is used 

 fen Bass in England. Bow freely they rose, and how vigorously 

 they tugged. My companion, who put me up to it, and pro- 

 sided rod and boat, lived there, and used to catch any number 

 of them. But there were certain seasons, he said, in which they 

 would not take at all. Which were the favourable and which 

 the unfavourable months, 1 cannot at this length of time recall. 

 W., fishing there in October, writes me : " I'amben salmon do 

 " not come on till late in the year." I presume he means later 

 than October. 



The natives, in fishing for Ba-mln, use a strong cord, with a 

 large sea-hook, on a piece of bell-wire. But they use much 

 direct force in pulling in their fish, because they have very crude 

 ideas about the auaviter in modo, fortiter in re principle of 

 running tackle on a reel, which enables you in time to kill a heavy 

 fish on a light line. Don't be alarmed, therefore, at their 

 tremendous preparations, but trust to stout gimp, and a salmon 

 rod, with a good length of line, and making your fish work as 

 hard as you dare for every inch of it. Do not waste a bit of it by 

 giving it too easily. The native fisherman may examine your 

 tackle, and condemn it as too weak, and you may be disposed to 

 believe in him, because he has actually killed the fish, and ought 

 to know. Never mind that ; just do with him the very same as 

 you will probably do with this book, namely, listen to all his 

 advice, and then don't follow it. Only draw your own conclusions 

 therefrom. At the same time you need not be uncivil, or he will 

 become uncommunicative. Do not rudely disturb his complacent 

 belief that you cannot help yourself, that your tackle is not so 

 good as his, and that you must make the best of a bail job; and 

 then, when you land a fish nevertheless, be will be all astonishment, 

 and doubly anxious to show you there is still "a thing or two" 

 which he knows better than you; and you may pick up many a 

 useful wrinkle from the native fishermen 



TIIF ROD rS IN [>1 V l' 



