94 WANDERINGS AND MEMORIES 



was a female Common Golden- eye, a bird not at 

 this time supposed to visit Iceland. Trout were 

 scarce, rather shy, and not particularly large, but 

 from the excellent feeding they were in grand con- 

 dition, and fought like lions. I got one of two and 

 a half pounds that raced about like a five-pounder, 

 but by three in the afternoon had only five fish. 

 The sun was now hot and raised a swarm of Sorg 

 flies, certainly bad enough to send Thorgrimmer 

 home, but mere innocents compared with their 

 fellows at Myvatn. Wandering on up the stream, 

 I at length reached a deep, still pool at the bottom 

 of a series of rapids. It was fifteen or twenty feet 

 deep, almost as clear as crystal, and sailing about 

 in its liquid depths were eighteen or twenty splen- 

 did char. As usual they absolutely refused to 

 look at a fly. Then I tried them with pretty nearly 

 every lure in the fishing-basket, but nothing seemed 

 to be of the smallest attraction. It was hard to 

 be defeated, and, sitting on the bank, I watched a 

 splendid pair of White-tailed Eagles soaring above 

 the river a few hundred yards away. An apolo- 

 getic cough was now heard from the top of the 

 bank, and a small and shaggy Icelander made his 

 appearance and surveyed my fishing paraphernalia 

 with a look of supercilious wonder. In mock 

 pantomime I begged his assistance by pointing to 

 the big char and the useless trumpery of the fishing- 

 tackle maker, shaking my head sadly. He under- 

 stood in a moment, and began to feverishly over- 

 turn huge rocks and sods of earth. Of course; 

 what an idiot I was ! Why had I not thought of 

 the seductive worm of boyhood's days ? In less 

 than a minute down into those limpid depths sank 



