AND ANGLING SONGS. 139 



the way of concocting, by help of a few pocket-stores, small in 

 bulk, which he usually carried with him, dishes presentable to 

 a prince of the blood-royal. Soyer could not have improved 

 upon his treatment of simples, in the shape of ham and eggs 

 alone, the separate and combined qualities of which had evi- 

 dently been a matter of intense study to him in a time of pres- 

 sure ; and, talking of Soyer, where got Monsieur Alexis that 

 invaluable receipt, introduced as No. 54 into the ninetieth thou- 

 sand of his shilling Cookery-Book for the People, anent the 

 boiling of salmon? ' A salmon weighing ten pounds will take 

 one hour gently simmering, when the water commences boiling. 

 Head and shoulders of six pounds, forty minutes ! ' What a 

 process of reductio ad absurdum for the king of fishes to undergo ! 

 It is more like the treatment of tripe than what is due to a 

 dainty, the curd and complexion of which, its nutritive juices 

 and excellences, are dependent upon careful and tender usage. 



To revert, however, to the subject of this chapter, viz., my 

 juvenile experiences as an angler, such, in the neighbourhood 

 of Edinburgh, are associated principally with the river Almond 

 and its feeder, the Gogar Burn ; the Esks, North and South, 

 which discharge themselves as one at Inveresk; their feeder, 

 G-lencorse Burn, along with the artificial reservoir situated in the 

 heart of the Pentland Hills, known as the Compensation Pond. 

 I used to commence the season, according to state of tide and 

 weather, sometimes at the mouth of the Almond, and sometimes 

 at the bridge on the Queensferry road beyond Barnton, fishing 

 down with fly, and occasionally with the spinning-minnow. It 

 was seldom, indeed, that I basketed what I would now consider 

 a remunerative quantity of trout ; but in those days I felt amply 

 rewarded for my small measure of skill by the capture of half-a- 

 dozen, the largest of them not exceeding nine or ten inches in 

 length. Occasionally, however, in the course of my excursions 

 in that direction, I met with excellent sport, and often had the 



