144 THE SALT OF MY LIFE 



Australia these opportunities are more extended, 

 for all the great cities lie in these inlets along the 

 coast, an arrangement which probably inspired 

 the colonial enthusiasm for sea-fishing. Certainly 

 the sport found adherents out in Australia long 

 before it was general at home, and clubs and 

 associations devoted solely to its interests, which 

 are quite new in the old country, have flourished 

 in Sydney these twenty years. Whether, as accli- 

 matisation societies gradually stock the barren 

 rivers with sporting fish, some of the amateurs will 

 shift ' heir allegiance to other scenes inland remains 

 to be seen. For all I know, such a change may have 

 come over the spirit of the sport since I was out 

 there, but in those days, with the exception of a 

 little trout-fishing in Victoria, about which very 

 few people seemed to know anything, it was a 

 question of fishing in the sea or not at all.' ^ i- I 



There was a third kind of fishing, to which no 

 reference has so far been made. This was rock- 

 fishing. At home in England, there was in those 

 days comparatively little fishing from the shore, 

 though it had some vogue in the neighbourhood 

 of Aberdeen, and both the sandy shore at Aide- 

 burgh and the rocks near Scarborough and Filey 

 afforded winter sport to those who knew them. 

 Of late years, amateurs at home have recognised 

 the advantages of this beach-fishing, which often 

 gives excellent results and at a cost no greater 



