220 SPORTING IN BOTH HEMISPHERES. 



and a fisherman. Accordingly, taking my passage in the 

 Soho to Antwerp, I proceeded by rail to Liege, and from 

 thence, by a voiture, to the Hotel de la Poste at Huy, at 

 which place I arrived the beginning of the year 18 . I dis- 

 covered that the trout-fishing on the Hoyoux, about five 

 miles higher up, was excellent, but, with the exception of 

 some very small parts of it, strictly preserved by one of the 

 magnates of Belgium, whose goodnature having been once 

 imposed upon by some wanton acts of poaching committed 

 by some Englishmen whom he had permitted to fish, had 

 resolutely refused to give leave again to one of that nation. 



A small property, however, on the border of the stream, 

 for about half a mile in extent, and adjoining the best part 

 of the Count's fishing, belonged to a proprietor who resided 

 at Huy, and who very well knew the value of his right of 

 fishing, even over this small space, and in fact kept a man in 

 a cottage on the spot for the sake of preserving it, and 

 netting the fish for stew ponds. 



With some difficulty, and much chaffering, I hired the sole 

 permission, or rather proprietorship, of this extent of fishery 

 for the sum of three hundred francs per annum ; quite enough, 

 it will be said, for any trout stream of similar extent, but, as 

 it was my chief inducement to reside in the neighbourhood, 

 and I had some hopes of extending my privileges gratis, I 

 thought it as well to secure the best thing I could. This, 

 as well as the hiring apartments in an ancient chateau, then 

 a farm-house, not far distant, I effected through the agency 

 and assistance of a most hospitable and jovial inhabitant of 

 Huy, whose acquaintance I made by accident, and of whom 

 more hereafter. 



I began to fish early in the month of March, but although 

 with great success as to size and quantity, found their con- 

 dition was too bad, and therefore discontinued until the latter 

 end of April, when I astonished les braves Beiges, or rather 



