CHAPTER VII 



SCOTTISH SALMON-FISHING 



IT is somewhat painful to admit the fact, but 

 from time immemorial the proverbial fisherman is 

 supposed to inherit the taint of Ananias. So rooted 

 is this conception that even exact records of facts 

 are apt to be received with incredulity. We of the 

 old school who crossed the North Sea in the good 

 ships Tasso, Eldorado and Sappho of a truth listened 

 to fish tales in the smoking-room that fairly made 

 us gasp. The man who, on being asked the size 

 of a monster salmon he had landed, replied that 

 " he did not know, but it must have been immense, 

 since on its capture he noticed the river had fallen 

 a foot," was regarded as a poor creature in com- 

 parison with the giant who asserted that the steamers 

 on the Fraser River often threw with their paddles 

 on the deck such a quantity of salmon that the ship 

 was in danger of being submerged. As a matter 

 of fact, an audience of fishers love these old romances, 

 not only because they add to the joy of life, but 

 because they enable each and every one to tell 

 his own story of some marvellous happening, and 

 know that (true or otherwise) it will be accepted in 

 its proper ratio. 



Truth is often fiction and fiction truth, since 

 many novels are more true to life than ponderous 

 blue books, and it is indeed a curiously unobservant 



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