106 In Pursuit of the Trout 



desecrate the stream which we Londoners 

 have come to venerate as the Egyptians 

 their Nile. But on the working days of the 

 week the Upper Thames knows scarce a 

 taint. The inmost recesses of the back- 

 waters of Hurley may be seen at early 

 morning in a virginal freshness ; while in 

 the evening, when the purple haze on the 

 wooded hillsides is turning to grey, and the 

 silence away from the weirs so supreme as to 

 seem almost a thing to be grasped — material 

 as the indescribable hum of the midsummer 

 air — they may be converted by a slight 

 effort of imagination into the untraced tiny 

 tributaries of some Amazon of the New 

 World. 



But the professional Thames fisherman has 

 not the time nor patience to let his mind slip 

 away into such realms of fancy as these. He 

 has only a few months every year, poor man, 

 in which there is any real chance of getting 

 hold of a trout that will screw his courage 

 to the sticking-point, and try his tackle even 

 to the middle joint of the rod. He has come 



