74 MONTENEGRO 



of our path and basking tortoises lay passively in it, 

 drawing in their heads and toes, resigned to the worst. 

 All was light and warmth, colour and checkered shade, 

 active life and indolent content. 



Such was the Eden upon which we burst, intent 

 upon dealing death after the manner of our kind. 

 There were plenty of trout fleeting over the sparkling 

 shallows, and some goodly two-pounders lurking in the 

 eddies ; but the stream was all too swift and rough for 

 the dry-fly, and the prevailing glare ruled the wet-fly 

 out of court. Indeed it seemed marvellous that fish, 

 having no eyelids, could endure the rays of that 

 glorious sun, reflected from the white bed of the limpid 

 brook. 



Presently up came a splendid young gentleman, who 

 turned out to be, not an Albanian chief as his dress 

 and mien betokened, but a garde-chasse, who informed 

 John the Baptist that there was better fishing higher 

 up the valley. Thither we hied, therefore, and found 

 the very ideal of water for dry-fly work a steady, 

 brimming current, winding through flat meadows and 

 cultivated ground. Trout we could see also, and lusty 

 ones ; not rising indeed, for there was no fly up, but 

 hanging about in likely places, whence a drop minnow 

 or a lively worm must certainly have extracted them. 

 But, as I have said, we had forsworn such sordid lures, 

 and pinned our credit to the floating simulacrum. 



Pinned and forfeited it ; forasmuch as stealth and 

 solitude, two main postulates in dry-fly work, were 

 denied us. The seely angler loveth to move slowly 

 through the meadow, peering along the reaches and 



