122 HAPPY HUNTING-GROUNDS 



of the cricketer, the first brief of the barrister, the 

 first baby of the happy mother, the first picture of the 

 artist, the first sparrow that falls to the schoolboy's 

 first gun. Who shall draw a comparison between 

 the relative delights of such triumphs as these ? 



Before the sun had sunk sufficiently low in the 

 heavens to allow of my sallying forth once more " on 

 high adventure bent," that fish had been cooked and 

 eaten. My palate still recalls its curdy firmness, its in- 

 comparable freshness. There was no novelty about the 

 taste of salmon in the abstract ; fish, and good ones too, 

 had furnished the staple of nearly every meal of which 

 I had partaken on my journey, and the jaded taste 

 might well have turned from the dainty, as the Israel- 

 ites did from the quails in the wilderness. My fish, 

 caught with my own rod and line, just fresh from the 

 sea, and boiled before the very next possible meal, was 

 not to be compared to any vulgar salmon of unknown 

 origin with which the guest makes his first acquaint- 

 ance upon the table. All honour to my fellow-travellers 

 and convives at the midday meal. They played up 

 to my enthusiasm, and shared, or affected to share, my 

 transports with such hearty goodwill that nearly all 

 the dish was consumed. 



That same evening I caught two more salmon, 

 weighing respectively twenty-one and fifteen pounds. 

 The three allotted days passed all too quickly, but pro- 

 duced altogether nine fish of the aggregate weight of 

 nearly a hundred and fifty pounds. I at once entered 

 the weight of each fish and the date of its capture 

 upon the first leaf of my fly-book, and although, as I 

 have said, I cannot lay my hand upon the record at 

 this moment, I think my memory, refreshed as it has 



