SCHNAPPER AND BLACK BREAM 145 



than that of bank-fishing up the Thames. Bass 

 of large size are caught throughout the summer 

 on the beaches close to Folkestone Harbour and 

 under the Castle Hill at Hastings, and at many 

 another resort of Kent and Sussex, as well as at 

 Sidmouth and Seaton, in the extreme east of Devon, 

 bass are taken in this manner from the land. 



I had never done any rock-fishing in those days 

 worth speaking of, and the cliff-climbing in Aus- 

 tralia was a fearful revelation. To clamber down 

 the face of the North Head, or along the equally 

 appalling wall of Australia beyond Coogee, was, 

 even in broad daylight, enough to stop the beating 

 of any heart but a goat's. The return climb 

 from the pit in the dimmer light of evening, with 

 fish to carry, and with the conviction that a false 

 step meant a very hurried transit through a couple 

 of hundred feet of air into the sharks' dining hall, 

 scarcely bears writing about. Yet many such 

 dreadful journeys I made, on any one of which it 

 was Carnegie's Diplodocus to a new-hatched tad- 

 pole that I should break my neck. My guide on 

 these occasions was the secretary of the largest 

 angling association in Sydney, which had very 

 courteously made me an honorary member soon 

 after my arrival in the city. He was a relative 

 and namesake of the author of " Vanity Fair," 

 and for his kindness in giving up many days to 

 showing me all the most appalling fishing spots 



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