A FORLORN QUEST, ETC. 225 



a very serviceable mahseer reel, fitted with their 

 patent brake, which, though lacking the complex 

 mechanism of the orthodox American reel, would, 

 I doubt not, have been found efficient if the tunny 

 had given it a chance to do itself justice. Such 

 is an outline of my preparations for the trip, and 

 I have devoted so much space to them, not merely 

 because the preparatory stage is often the most 

 interesting reminiscence of such expeditions, but 

 by way of reviewing them in the reader's company 

 and asking myself whether they look incomplete. 

 Many heads are better than one, particularly 

 when that one is mine ; but I confess to have been 

 a little staggered by a friendly criticism, which 

 Mr. Rowland Ward made on my want of success. 

 {< Ah," he wrote, " you should have taken a guide 

 from Santa Catalina, used to the work." I 

 venture to predict that if anyone inducts a Cali- 

 fornian guide into the mysteries of tunny-fishing 

 at Funchal, he will as likely as not be shot for his 

 forethought. 



Equipped, then, with a care and completeness, 

 with an outfit, compared with which the kit of 

 a Knight Templar setting out of old to the Cru- 

 sades was slipshod, and accompanied by a friend, 

 who shall herein figure as A. K. M., and whose 

 fishing had hitherto been for Irish and Norwegian 

 trout, I embarked in April on the Armadale 

 Castle and had a blameless and unemotional 



16 (2272) 



