96 DAYS AND NIGHTS OF SALMON FISHING 



the satisfactory office of bagging him, I came to a 

 part of the river which, being contracted, rushed 

 forward in a heap, rolling with great impetuosity. 

 Here, after a little flogging, I hooked a lusty fellow, 

 strong as an elephant, and swift as a thunderbolt. 

 How I was agitated say ye who best can tell, ye 

 fellow tyros ! Every moment did I expect my 

 trout tackle, for such it was, to part company. 

 At length, after various runs of dubious result, the 

 caitiff began to yield ; and at the expiration of 

 about half an hour, I wooed him to the shore. 

 What a sight then struck my optics ! A fair five- 

 pounder at the least ; not fisherman's weight, mark 

 me, but such as would pass muster with the most 

 conscientious lord mayor of London during the high 

 price of bread. Long did I gaze on him, not without 

 self -applause. All too large he was for my basket ; 

 I therefore laid the darling at full length on the 

 ground, under a birch tree, and covered over the 

 precious deposit with some wet bracken, that it 

 might not suffer from the sunbeam. 



I had not long completed this immortal achieve- 

 ment ere I saw a native approaching, armed with 

 a prodigious fishing rod of simple construction guilt- 

 less of colour or varnish. He had a belt round his 

 waist, to which was fastened a large wooden reel or 

 pirn, and the line passed from it through the rings 

 of his rod : a sort of Wat Tinlinn he was to look at. 

 The whole affair seemed so primitive there was such 

 an absolute indigence of ornament, and poverty of 

 conception, that I felt somewhat fastidious about it. 

 I could not, however, let a brother of the craft pass 



