188 MOSTLY ABOUT TROUT 



the tents, and we hasten our ablutions and 

 preparations. After breakfast we start off in 

 different directions, full of hope and expectancy, 

 with the waterfall as the boundary between our 

 beats. These extend above and below it far 

 beyond the range of the most adventurous. 

 The upper beat is mine. We only muster one 

 landing-net in our combined equipment, and it 

 does not fall to my share to-day. My plan 

 of campaign is to try the dry-fly in suitable 

 spots, if trout or rises are to be seen; if not, 

 to search the waters with wet flies. 



Plop ! . . . I am walking along the bank, where 

 I cannot see over the edge on account of the 

 rank vegetation, and I don't seem to recognize 

 the note of that particular kind of " plop." 

 I walk on a few yards. Plop ! again. Then a few 

 more yards, and constantly these plops, coming 

 sometimes singly, sometimes in twos and threes. 

 The mystery is soon solved. Frogs, big and 

 little, but mostly little, are taking headers into 

 the water as soon as they hear or feel my foot- 

 steps approaching. Not long ago I was shown, 

 in a hotel in Durban, a six and a quarter 

 pound brown trout in prime condition, caught 

 (I could not find with what he had been beguiled) 

 near this part of the river. I wondered at the 

 time what diet had brought him up to that 



