NORWAY IN 1865 115 



pleased, and casting their flies on waters then almost 

 virgin, but now let for many hundreds of pounds a 

 season. The book is brightly and amusingly written, 

 and full of anecdotes of the folk-lore, superstitions, 

 manners, and customs, of a country then uncivilised ; 

 and as it is now very difficult to obtain, it would well 

 repay reprinting. 



As I devoured its picturesque pages the resolve 

 that I would some day visit this Mecca of the fisher- 

 man formed itself in my boyish mind. I also was a 

 fisherman ! and some day perhaps I might achieve the 

 supreme triumph of landing a salmon. In 1865, just 

 after the birth of his present Majesty King George, 

 I attained this object of my ambition. At that date 

 there was one tackle-maker in London who made a 

 speciality of supplying the needs of the Norwegian 

 angler. This was Macgowan of Bruton Street, who 

 furnished me with an eighteen-foot hickory rod, treble 

 gut casts, and a fly-book and flies, which I believe I 

 have somewhere still, although I cannot at this moment 

 lay my hand upon it. The flies were not the same one 

 uses now " Jock Scott " and " Durham Ranger " were 

 not. The wings were plainer and the bodies thicker 

 and rougher. To this rule there were exceptions. I 

 remember one special fly for bright weather known as 

 the " Sun Fly," with nearly the whole of the wing 

 made of golden pheasant topping. I have never seen 

 its like in any tackle-maker's shop since, but it caught 

 fish, and I do not doubt that it would do so still if 

 anyone had the temerity to try it. 



I was then a Balliol undergraduate, and it was 

 one of my earliest and idlest long vacations. My 

 companion was Alfred Gurney, then a freshman at 



