KASHMIR. 275 



a light over the water in shallow places and transfix- 

 ing the fish with short spears. So plentiful are these 

 creatures, that between two and three dozen were 

 caught in about half an hour, and many of them 

 above a pound weight. I cannot say much of them, 

 however, as articles of diet. The flesh was insipid 

 and soft as putty, and they were as full of bones as 

 a serpent. Vigne acutely observed that the common 

 Himaliyan trout varies so much in colour and appear- 

 ance, according to its age, season, and feeding-ground, 

 that the Kashmiris have no difficulty in making out 

 that there are several species of- it instead of one. 

 Bates mentions eleven kinds of fish as existent in the 

 waters of Kashmir ; but, with one exception, all the 

 fish I had the fortune to see seemed of one species, 

 and were the same in appearance as those which 

 abound in prodigious quantities in the sacred tanks 

 and the ponds in the gardens of the Mogul emperors. 

 The exception was a large fish, of which my servants 

 partook on our way to the Wular Lake, and which 

 made them violently sick. Elmslie agrees with Vigne 

 in mentioning only six varieties, and says that the 

 Hindus of Kashmir as well as the Mohammedans, 

 eat fish. Fly-fishing is pursued by the visitors to 

 this country, but .the fish do not rise readily to the 

 fly, and Yigne says he found that kind of fishing to 

 be an unprofitable employment. Much, however, de- 

 pends on the streams selected for this purpose, and 

 an Angler's Guide to Kashmir is still a desideratum. 



