CHAPTER IX. 



FRESH AND SALT. 



" Night came, and now eight bells had rung, 



While careless sailors, ever cheery, 

 On the mid-watch so jovial sung, 

 With tempers labour cannot weary." 



THE great advantage of sojourning near the sea-shore is 

 that if fresh water fails, you have plenty of salt close at 

 hand. Fresh-water fish may, and too frequently do, take 

 offence at adverse winds, and lose their tempers and become 

 blind because of a little clouded water ; your salt-water 

 denizens, on the contrary, are above (below perhaps I ought to 

 say) such trifling considerations as atmospheric changes and 

 an odd storm or two in the upper air. 



The Norfolk Broads when they do yield sport do so in no 

 stinted measure ; they bless you in basket and store. But 

 they are uncertain as the idle wind which you respect not. 

 The rivers Waveney and Yare contain roach, eels, and pike, 

 with cartloads of bream in the summer, but they, too, are un- 

 usually capricious in their behaviour. 



After some days of paltry sport, do not blame me if I tire 

 of the district and everything associated with it. I have had 

 a turn at three of the fourteen Broads a few miles inland 

 from the Norfolk coast ; have pulled through the watery 

 lanes bounded by walls of bulrush and sedge, and tried 

 my hardest under the blazing sun in the open water ; have 



