IN THE WEST COUNTRY 43 



length of gut, which he had patiently put on, he 

 got the artificial fly over the rising trout and so 

 won the victory. He struck me as one of those 

 real Britons who, alike in war and sport, play the 

 game and simply will not be beaten. 



The Tamar is a river of fine attributes. It 

 holds not only good trout, but salmon in season, 

 and also grayling. In the fishing season, how- 

 ever, all depends upon the state of the water. 

 Rains soon tell their tale, and if there has been a 

 downfall the Tamar is unfishable. It fines down 

 leisurely. Visitors to the hotel where I stayed 

 were enabled at certain times of the year to 

 obtain, upon written application, a day's permit 

 for a strictly-preserved length of the river. The 

 Duke who grants this privilege through his agent 

 thus confers a boon which is most gratefully 

 appreciated. The day I had, though the water 

 was not quite right, yielded a nice basket of 

 trout, and the scenery by the riverside almost 

 persuaded me that I was in Scotland. 



It is curious that from this welcoming, hospi- 

 table shire of Devon should have come the only 

 adverse comment of its kind I have ever heard 

 about visiting fishermen. " The idle rich who 

 come trout-fishing ! " was what one resident had 

 to say about us. He overshot the mark in 

 imputing riches to most of us. As for idleness, 

 he might have had the generosity or the common 

 fairness to admit that trout-fishing is at all events 

 an innocent and a wholesome recreation. But 

 the hinting or sometimes hissing of dispraise, 



