340 Fishing Localities. Ciiapt. xxiv. 



" Mahseer are very plentiful and run to a very large siz.e. Tbe best 

 " fishermen in Assam, in my day, were the late Capt. Hood — Robin 

 "Hood of the Field — and Col. Combes — 10-bore of the Oriental 

 " Sporting Magazine. Tbe latter especially made very large bags, 

 " but he preferred the fly, and he has caught with it, I believe, fish 

 " up to 40 lbs. in weight, but he is the only one I ever beard of per- 

 " forming such a feat, whilst with the spoon and dead bait they have 

 " killed fish up to 70 lbs. in weight. For some years I carried on an 

 " active warfare with Farlow ; he would not make his treble hooks 

 " strong enough ; at last I got him to make the hooks Mr. Thomas 

 " alludes to in his book. Many a fish have I lost, and many an 

 " anathema have I hurled at Farlow's head because he would not credit 

 " that a Mahseer is capable of doubling up the strongest Salmon or 

 " Pike hooks. I have had the hooks straightened, too, many a time, 

 " but at last we came to an understanding, and Farlow is now by 

 " far the best man to go to for not only hooks, but for every descrip- 

 " tion of tackle. 



" Besides the Mahseer, we used to catch what the Bengalees call 

 " Bassah, and the Burmese Nga Memein. It is allied to the cat fish, 

 •' and has no scales ; it is delicious eating, and takes a fly or a spoon 

 " readily. This fish can be caught in great numbers in the Shoayghein 

 " river ; it does not give much play alter being hooked. As for murrel 

 " I have seen thirteen varieties exposed for Rale in the market at Terriat 

 " Ghat, at the foot of the ghaut, leading up to that moist place Cherra- 

 " poonghe, with its fifty feet of rainfall in the year. . . . 



"My first trip towards Sylhet was in 1869, when General Blake 

 " was with us. My journal of this trip is not here, so I speak from 

 " memory alone. He, Ommanney, and I started in November. We 

 "went first to Nurting, where we shot duck, teal, and snipe; then to 

 " Jawai (.lynteah Hills.) and so on across the Hills to the Darning 

 " river. ... In the depths of the pool below we could see in the 

 " clear limpid waters not one Mahseer, but literally thousands. . . ■ 

 " Ommanney caught a couple of fish. . . . The Cossyah boats 

 "are very roomy, very buoyant, and are easily propelled by the 



no other English, being still able to introduce the word jungle coek, or yungle cock 

 in their Norse recommendation of the right fly to use. 



Tht Smoky Dun. 

 Tills fly is of our colour all over, a smoky dun colour, the colour sa\ of smoke 

 ascending from a damp wood tire, a dusk) fisherman's blue or ash colour with just 

 a perceptible touob of light dull yellow or dun in it. Wings and bod; the Bame, 

 with a tut; and three or four turns of silver tuist. and a tail of peacock's back 

 Feather. Hook No. 2/0 or 2 Limerick, particularly the latter. 



