262 SPORTING IN BOTH HEMISPHERES. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



TROUT-FISHING AT BRUKENAU, IN BAVARIA. 



DURING the summer of 18 I was attracted, together with 

 a multitude of valetudinarians, real and imaginary, pleasure- 

 seekers, and summer tourists, to the baths of Kissingen, in 

 Bavaria. This watering-place, in consequence of the eulogiums 

 passed upon it by Dr. Granville, in his work on the " Spas of 

 Germany," had gained great popularity in this country, and 

 was the resort of dyspeptic sovereigns and overfed magnates 

 from most of the German States, where they hoped to wash 

 away the effects of previous excesses, and enable their consti- 

 tutions, or rather digestions, to support a fresh tax upon 

 their powers. 



I took the usual route by the Rhine, Frankfort, Aschaffen- 

 burg, and through the beautiful forest of Speissart to this 

 place, and found it crowded with visitors from all parts of 

 the world. 



Fishermen are generally drawn towards each other by 

 some mysterious sympathy; and I had not long joined the 

 motley throng of water-drinkers on the daily promenade, 

 when I formed an acquaintance with an amateur of the 

 gentle art, who, after his usual sanitary process in the 

 morning, devoted his days to trout-fishing excursions in the 

 environs. He had discovered several pretty streams, and by 

 paying a fee to the proprietor, or purchasing the weight of 

 fish he killed, managed to get some very tolerable sport; but 

 as the rivers were continually netted, for the sake of sup- 

 plying the different hotels with trout, our success was rather 

 uncertain, although we now and then killed a large fish in 



