182 



WILD SPAIN, 



white bread and the deHcious cream-like cheese known as 

 queso dc Bim/os, washed down with the rough red wine of 

 Eioja, cheaper than "smallest beer," and most refreshing. 



In every hamlet hung fishing-nets : every day we saw 

 the "fishermen " fixing them, and heard of two-pounders. 

 Yet to us, striving with all the skill we possess, appeared 

 none of these leviathans. Nothing we could do availed to 

 cajole them — that is, assuming their existence. A basket 

 of one to two dozen trout daily, including sundry half- 

 pounders, appeared to be the measure of the river's 

 capacity, or of our skill. 



Our best basket in this Province of Santander was 

 twenty-eight trout, weighing eight and a half pounds, and 

 the best fish a fine trout of just over the pound. Him we 

 killed in a deep pool so embedded amidst crags and so 

 difficult of access, that it may be doubted whether 

 feathered fly had ever before flown over its virgin depths. 

 Our friend rose boldly to a small "red palmer": and 

 within a few minutes two more, of hardly inferior weight, 

 had joined him in the basket. 



