276 THE OSMANTHUS 



St. Paul's, Knightsbridge, who a few years ago, being 

 then more than threescore and ten, did encounter and 

 overcome eighteen heavy salmon in the compass of a 

 single day on Birghain Dub. The largest of them 

 scaled, if I remember right, thirty-five pounds, and 

 their aggregate weight was somewhere about 350 

 pounds. Such a performance is a test to the endurance 

 of anybody's back and arms. 



So, as you allow your fly to circle slowly round in 

 the rippling water, you may suddenly see the line 

 drawn taut and feel that vigorous snatch, followed by 

 a mighty pulling and a whirring reel, which tells that a 

 good fish has been deceived. You have gone afloat 

 with disdain at heart for a stream that looks more 

 like the haunt of barbel than of salmon, but, perhaps, 

 you may wind up in the dusk repeating after Mr. 

 Andrew Lang : 



' Unseen, Eurotas, southwards steal ; 



Unknown, Alpheus, westward glide ; 

 You never heard the ringing reel, 

 The music of the waterside.' 



LXII 



Among the few shrubs in full flower at this late 

 The season there is one which is not so often seen 



osmantnus ag j t deserves to be, Osmanthus ilicifolius. 

 It is well named osmantkus flower of fragrance 

 ilicifolius, holly-leaved for its small clustered flowers 

 of pure white smell deliciously, superlatively sweet, and 



