212 SHIKAR SKETCHES. 



could find an easier place. Ah! those easier 

 places are seldom found, and a little want of 

 decision and determination at the right moment 

 sends us home, put out, discontented, and inclined 

 to pooh-pooh the accounts of our rivals, who, 

 owing to doing the right thing at the right mo- 

 ment, have enjoyed all the delights of that fast 

 forty minutes. 



Or maybe we are anglers, and devote our time 

 to the capture of the lordly salmon and the 

 speckled trout. How many occasions are there 

 when, owing to having put too much strain on 

 our fish, or not caring to follow him over some 

 nasty ground, or through tumbling into a hole 

 when doing so, or by committing some of the 

 hundred and one mistakes we are all prone to 

 do sometimes, we have seen the delicious bend 

 of our rod straighten out, arid our line, perhaps, 

 minus a cast, and a half-crown fly, floats back, 

 slack arid useless, whilst we mutter, below our 

 breath, c D it, he's broken me !' 



Or we may have played our fish with consum- 

 mate skill : have alternately fought with and hum- 

 oured him, until he floats broadside helplessly 

 in the shallow water beneath our feet. Cauti- 

 ously we advance the deadly gaff or the landing- 

 net ; another moment, and he will be ours : and 

 won't we just drink his health in a nip of pure 



