viii A LETTER TO THE AUTHOR 



For the rest, what you say of your early pisca- 

 torial career might, with a few trifling variations, 

 be said of mine, and, I expect, of many another 

 besides. 



Nor is it otherwise when you come to the 

 things of later years. Well do I know the com- 

 fortable inn, the life-long friendships happily 

 begun in its smoking-room or besides its waters, 

 the humours and chances of fishing holidays, the 

 interesting characteristics of bailiffs, keepers, 

 small boys, and riverside folk in general. Espe- 

 cially do I see again, as 1 study your pages, the 

 panorama of mountain, moorland, wooded valley, 

 and cowslip- starred pasture which is given to us 

 lucky anglers, or join gratefully in the year's 

 grand procession of sweet spring, radiant summer, 

 mellow autumn, and sparkling winter. I think 

 it will be with other readers as with me, and if so 

 they will enjoy themselves. 



One other advantage of experience I must 

 sorrowfully concede to you your knowledge of 

 wonderful South Africa. As private secretary to 

 that distinguished son of the empire, Sir George 

 Farrar, as well as in your active journalist days, 

 you must have met most men and seen most 

 things that could enable you to deliver a con- 

 sidered opinion on the country, and it impresses 

 me much that your passionate love of the home- 

 land (evident on every page of the first part of 

 your book), does not in the least diminish your 

 patriotic affection for, and pride in South Africa. 

 Indeed, one would say, all that was needed to 



