44 FISHING GOSSIP. 



an opportunity of investigating their sporting opera- 

 tions. The lines, with one exception, were composed 

 of grass cord, which was exceedingly strong, and 

 about the size of ordinary whip-cord ; the hooks, of 

 European make, of the description we use for eel- 

 lines ; the sinker, a small heavy pebble with a hole 

 in it ; the bait, a flat ugly little worm, not unlike a 

 juvenile centipede. There was but one rod, which 

 was owned by the possessor of the exceptional line, 

 who was about as ill-looking an old ruffian, grizzled 

 and mummy-like, as you would find in a long day's 

 march, even through an Indian country and that 

 is saying a great deal. A very few minutes passed 

 before I had examined his gear, overhauled his 

 catch, patted him on the back, and pronounced 

 him in my own mind a master hand, which during 

 the couple of hours I passed in his company he 

 fully proved himself to be. His line was, I think, 

 of pine-apple fibre, or something very like it, beauti- 

 fully twisted, very little stouter than salmon-gut, a 

 large even coil of which was placed in a gourd shell 

 at his feet ; the sinker, a single buck shot ; the 

 hook, the same pattern as the others, but covered 

 with some kind of hard varnish, and sharpened at 

 the point like a needle. The rod was a shoot from 

 a tough shrub, about six feet long, and of very light 

 proportions ; this was ingeniously looped by each end 

 to the line, forming, so to speak, a mere continuation 



