100 DAYS AND NIGHTS OF SALMON FISHING. 



ing forward to secure these, round came my basket, fish, 

 and all, over my head, and fairly capsized me. With 

 some difficulty, and even risk of drowning, I got my head 

 above water, and my hand on the crown of a sharp rock. 

 There I stood, screaming and disconsolate, casting a 

 wistful look at the late bright inmates of my basket, 

 which were tilting down the weeds through the gullet 

 into a tremendous pool, vulgarly called Hell's Cauldron. 

 Into that same pool with the ominous name had I 

 myself very nearly passed, and thus had followed my 

 hat, which was coursing about in the eddy or wheel of 

 this fearful depth. Thus vanished before my eyes my 

 whole day's sport, for dead fish immediately sink ; and 

 it was not without some skilful fishing up that my hat 

 and I renewed our acquaintance. I have before ob- 

 served that when I was quite an urchin I never wore 

 a hat, or any covering over my hair ; but as I grew 

 older, I thought it decorous to follow the fashion. 



At another time, whilst still a puer, and only pos- 

 sessed of one single bait-hook, to my utter confusion I 

 found that solitary hook had been swallowed by a 

 duck, which a mass of sedges under the bank had con- 

 cealed from my view. There we were, Mrs. Duck and 

 I, dashing, swashing, and swattering down the stream ; 

 the duck all the time declaring her sentiments by the 

 utterance of af earful noise, and I endeavouring by every 

 means in my power to prevent my only hook from being 

 ravished from me by my feathered opponent. In the 

 meantime a group of lasses, who were washing clothes 

 at the river side, and were friendly to the bird, set upon 

 me, first with their tongues, of the use of which they 



