318 IN THE LAND OF THE BORA. 



the Government has established. These, I may 

 add, are to be let, and are well worthy the atten- 

 tion of English sportsmen. Some idea of the 

 extent of them can be formed from the fact that 

 this one, with the adjoining one, forms an unbroken 

 area extending thirty miles in length by more 

 than half that width. In these no gun has been 

 fired for years except illegally, and probably very 

 little so. 



Often and often during those first days did I 

 wish I was a fisherman. The first day the water 

 was, of course, too bright and clear ; but after that 

 night's rain, or better still the next day when it 

 had cleared a little, even a duffer ought to have 

 been able to grass some of the big Narenta trout 

 with a worm. Unfortunately, not having wetted 

 a line since boyhood, I had no tackle of any sort, 

 nor any means of getting at them short of the only 

 one I believe prohibited here — powder and shot. 

 I must own to having looked covetously at the 

 first fish I saw lying in one of the tributary brooks, 

 and had he been bigger I think I should have 

 given him a barrel — a proceeding rarely attended 

 with any success, except, indeed, with big pike 

 among the reeds on a hot summer day. Certes, I 

 did once, in France, pot a carp — and a viper in the 

 same pond — with a rook rifle, to the unbounded 

 wonder of the natives; but that, as Mr. Kipling 

 says, is another story. The sad fact remained that 



