2 Introductory, CHAP. i. 



object in writing. It is not that I have the assurance to think I am the 

 right man to undertake the task. On the contrary, I know that there 

 are many who have enjoyed much better opportunities of sport in 

 Indian waters, and who have consequently more experience, as well as 

 better leisure. They are the men who ought to write a book on the 

 subject, but they do not, and it is not my fault that they do not. It 

 is not that I have nothing better to beguile the tedium of a P. and O. 

 steamer voyage back to India, though that may be my opportunity 

 for scribbling. It is that I have an idea it is the sort of thing some 

 fellow ought to do out of purely philanthropic motives for his brother 

 .anglers ; and as nobody else will do it, I suppose I must. It seems 

 so selfish to have discovered that there is right good fishing to be 

 had, and then to keep it to oneself. In short, I cannot do it; so 

 " here goes." 



There may be some six hundred books or thereabouts on fishing 

 in general, but there is not one that I know of on fishing in India. 

 The subject is scarcely overwritten, therefore, in spite of the six hundred 

 books aforesaid. 



Thus I wrote some three-and-twenty years ago, and I will let it 

 stand as indicating my reasons for first writing, though I may have 

 picked up a crumb or two of knowledge since then. 



Englishmen have few relaxations indeed in this land of their exile. 

 Very, very differently situated in this respect is the Public Servant in 

 India and his congener in England. "All work and no play makes 

 Jack a dull boy," but I venture to say from experience that an energetic 

 Mahseer telegraphs such an enlivening thrill of pleasurable excitement 

 up the line, down the rod, and through the wrist and arm, to the very 

 heart of the man who has got well fixed, that it makes his pulse beat 

 quicker, and is altogether as good as a tonic to him. Be he ever so 

 cool in the management of a heavy fish, even the old hand cannot but 

 experience a certain amount of exhilaration, 



" The stern joy which warriors feel 

 In foemen worthy of their steel." 



I maintain that a few such electric currents before breakfast do 

 a man good, and send him in to his daily work much more wide-awake 

 and cheerful. All other electric batteries are nothing to it. Con- 

 sidering the amount of refreshing good it does a fellow, it is a wonder 



