62 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 



throughout ; whether or no, a regular, firm, 

 and equal strain must be kept on the hook, or 

 the fish escapes ; if the strain be too strong, 

 the rod, or the line, or the gut, or the hook, 

 or the hold in the mouth is broken; if it 

 be slack, it is at once, and with ease, shaken 

 out. On the whole, I wish we had no worse 

 enemies than fishermen !"* 



* I should think so ! In a water I once rented, I killed 

 during six weeks, at an expense of a hundred pounds, forty- 

 fish, and was considered to have had good sport. Out of 

 one pool on the same water, eighty fish have been taken at 

 a single haul of the net ! 



