82 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 



The Tamar is a splendid river, with steep wooded slopes 

 on either side, bed slaty with occasional boulders, of fair 

 width, and it is one of the troutiest-looking streams 

 imaginable. But my meagre basket would have satisfied 

 even Major-General Incredulity. In two days only nine 

 brace gladdened my eyes, but the trout were excellent 

 representatives of the river handsome, plump fish of two 

 and a half to the pound, and game as trout of double and 

 treble their size from some other counties I know of. The 

 Dartmoor trout, like the denizens of all peat-bound streams, 

 were dark ; the Tamar fish were perfectly shaped and beauti- 

 fied. I must confess to an indictable offence committed 

 while thigh-deep in the Tamar. I caught and slew a young 

 salmon, evidently a last year's fish. The unhappy victim 

 took a black fly down his little gullet, and not surviving the 

 surgical operation incident to the removal of the hook, gave 

 up the ghost, leaving me and the superintendent to mourn 

 his untimely decease. 



The Inny is a tributary of the Tamar, and full of trout. 

 Wading in the main stream should be done with care, for 

 there are shelves which, without warning, will drop the 

 heedless sportsman from five inches to five feet of water. 

 The scenery at Endsleigh I shall not attempt to describe 

 it is superb. The Duke of Bedford's lodge is perched up 

 on the side of a finely wooded declivity, on which whole 

 shrubberies of rhododendrons gleamed purple and lilac. The 

 famous trees of Fountains Abbey are not more towering or 

 wide-spreading than those in the Duke of Bedford's woods 

 at Endsleigh. A little cottage maiden brought me a plate 

 of brown bread and fresh butter and a mug of new milk at 

 midday; and this meal, after laboriously whipping three 



