76 Sporting Sketches 



of necessity have scales on it. While fish certainly 

 have much to do with the pleasures of fishing, still 

 the surroundings are important factors in rounding 

 out the charm of a day's sport. A glance at a three- 

 mile stretch of the river should give an idea of the 

 typical surroundings. 



At the starting-point the stream is eighty yards 

 wide and about twenty feet deep. Near either bank 

 extends a bronzy-green mat of trailing growths, 

 grasses, lily-pads, with here and there small belts 

 of rushes and reeds. Owing to the level country, 

 the river's course is very erratic, and if we follow 

 one bank, we find a shallow and a deep channel 

 alternating at every bend. One side filling up, the 

 opposite cutting away, is the rule, and the graybeards 

 know that at many points the river once ran one 

 hundred or more yards from its present bed. Many 

 a noble tree has been undermined and swept away 

 when the spring floods came down. 



The banks vary at every bend. At one they are 

 almost sand-flats ; at another, easy, well-wooded 

 slopes; at yet another, soft curves of richest green, 

 swelling up to the farms above, and next to these 

 are miniature cliffs of yellow, sandy clay. Not 

 seldom two of these types are opposed, especially 

 the low flat and the cliff-like formations, which prove 

 how the river deposits and cuts away. The vegeta- 

 tion presents a rich variety. Here towers a mighty 

 sycamore, its grand trunk sheathed in silver mail, 

 its strong arms stretching far to slender twigs, from 

 which the oriole swings his hammock. In vain 

 does the bare-footed urchin longingly eye that 

 treasure pouch the glistening bark is treacherous, 



