360 Incidents of Foreign Field Sport. 



not be stopped till we got into smooth water, by 

 which time my prize was drowned. It was only two 

 pounds in weight. It was spotted, and might, by a 

 stretch of imagination, be called an Indian trout. I 

 then passed the village and our camping-place, and 

 so on over four rapids to the very extremity of the 

 furthest gorge, where there is a weir, without a single 

 strike ; but on our way back I caught two fish, one 

 three and a half pounds and the other one and a half 

 pounds, and was beginning to think the fish not 

 worth the candle ; but in the heaviest gorge, while 

 trolling very deep with my largest spoon on, I hooked 

 a big fish. At the first rush it took out about 100 

 yards of line. I did not like to unduly check it, so 

 got the boat to a sandbank and landed to play it. It 

 struggled desperately, and for half an hour I did not 

 get a sight of it. The sun was not very high, but 

 its rays poured on my face, and the perspiration ran 

 down till I was nearly blinded. I then drew the fish 

 into shallow water, and watched its every movement. 

 It did all it knew by lying down on its side and 

 rubbing its head and leathery mouth into the sand to 

 get the hooks off, but without avail. At one time, a 

 fish every bit as big as the captive approached it, but 

 was received open mouthed. General B. now joined 

 me and looked on, and eventually after threequarters 

 of an hour's struggle, 1 landed about the handsomest 

 specimen I ever saw. It weighed between twenty- 

 eight and thirty pounds. The scale I had that trip 

 was graduated only to twenty pounds, so to weigh it, 

 we had to cut it in two ; it thus lost weight. For our 

 next trip I had a scale which marked up to sixty 

 pounds, but I never caught one more than forty-four 



