204 Dry-Fly Fishing. 



advertised for, there was no rest for the sole of one's 

 foot nor of one's troubled spirit ; it was hurry here 

 and away, and my dry-fly purist hobby, like a 

 will-o'-the-wisp, led me on and on, only to 

 disappointment as to sport with my favourite lure. 

 On my way back to Waterford to a previously 

 ordered dinner, I made up my mind with a sort of 

 forlorn hope that, in default of answers to my 

 advertisements, I would fix my headquarters for a 

 week or two at Killarney, for the very name seemed 

 to insure everything that a lover of Nature could 

 desire as to scenery, and to an angler a suggestion 

 of Eden with its four rivers, Pison, Gihon, &c,, 

 turned into lakes and surrounded by mountains. As 

 we heared Killarney I was approached while in the 

 train by a handsome boy, who invited me to put up 

 at his father's hotel on the lake ; another tout, a 

 commercial traveller, next recommended me .to his 

 particular hotel, while another man seized my creel 

 and rods from the light luggage rail, nor w r ould he 

 release them until I gave him money. Then a 

 tourist and his wife spoke to me in praise of the 

 temperance hotel they were going to, and I was, 

 unfortunately, caught in the trap. Outside the station 

 a crowd of excited roughs and touts surrounded a 

 dozen Irish hotel cars, all, in aggressive Irish brogue, 

 Clamorous for custom or for tips, and there was no 

 getting away from their importunity save by 



