14 ICHTHYOGRAPHY 



rapidity of the water, the current, owing to 

 its great depth, is comparatively smooth. On 

 the right bank the throw extends for fifty or 

 sixty yards ; but the wading is peculiarly 

 dangerous, the bottom, which is of rock, 

 being eaten by the water into round deep 

 holes, quite deep enough to imprison the 

 foot, while the water runs with sufficient 

 velocity to make it extremely likely that a 

 man so caught will be thrown down, and in 

 such a position will hardly escape severe 

 bodily injury. The throw is much more 

 easily fished from the left bank, though here 

 the standing is confined to a single point, a 

 cliff which rises perpendicularly out of the 

 water to the height of twenty-five or thirty 

 feet. The largest fish are to be met with 

 here. The strength of the current is its 

 only danger. It is not without rocks, but 

 the fisherman, being so high above his fish, 

 need not fear them. Should the fish, how- 

 ever, head down stream, the fisherman must 

 not allow him more than fifty yards of line, 

 as it is impossible to follow him, and the 

 strength of the current then becomes too 

 great to permit him to turn. The fish, there- 



