102 TWO DIANAS IN ALASKA 



ing triumphant with a boat-hook which she said was 

 to be improvised as a new form of fishing-rod. In 

 vain I pleaded that we had been told that these two 

 kinds of salmon were not really nice to eat. She 

 merely retorted 



" How do you know until you have tried them 

 yourself ? I do not believe all I hear in Alaska, and 

 not always what I see, so therefore you can watch 

 me catch a salmon, and help me eat it afterwards." 



True to her word she very soon hooked out several 

 fine fish, weighing about eight or ten pounds each ; in 

 fact the whole procedure was ridiculously easy, since 

 the fish kept jostling each other up over the shallows 

 in such crowds that many of them were almost driven 

 ashore by sheer weight of numbers. Agnes, who 

 does not profess to be a fisherman, had no compunc- 

 tion in slaying about half-a-dozen in this unsports- 

 manlike fashion. I am bound to confess that when 

 subsequently cooked on our return to the ship these 

 fish were by no means bad eating, although the 

 colour of their flesh was almost white, and they could 

 not compare, in my opinion, with the magnificent 

 king salmon, which when fresh killed is almost as 

 good as the true Salmo solar of European waters. 



As it drew towards evening we decided to follow 

 up the river bank and take up some position whence 

 we could obtain a view towards the distant foot- 

 hills from which we knew bears must come, since it 

 was here that they laid up by day, hidden in dense 

 alders which heavily fringe the hillsides. In its 

 lower reaches the river flowed through a low, sandy 



