THE 'MARE'S POOL ' 437 



expressions in reply. ' Why . . . did you not cut off 

 \\\\xX.y yards of line, and not feet ? The frayed part was 

 thirty ya7'ds up the hne. not ten.' 



The above but serves to prove what I said regarding 

 the necessity there is for a fisherman to see to every- 

 thing himself, and never to trust to the carrying out of 

 a verbal order. Instead of cutting off the line above 

 the frayed portion, the stupid idiot had but cut off a 

 few feet, which, by reason of the dressing having worn 

 away, appeared white, and thus given me about as bad 

 a time of it, in order to save a well-hooked fish and my 

 fly and cast, as any man need wish for. The cast alone 

 cost me I2S. 6d., for it was very difficult to procure 

 such gut then, and absolutely impossible nowadays. 



Another curious coincidence occurred a few days 

 afterwards, when 1 was fishing on the neck of a 

 celebrated pool, called the ' Mare's Pool,' on the same 

 river. It is a difficult pool to get down to from any 

 point, but especially so at the neck, the rocks being 

 several score of feet above, and when these have been 

 successfully descended there is just room to stand 

 properly on one foot, and but small purchase for the 

 other, and that only when standing sideways, and when 

 fishing it is impossible to stand in any other way with- 

 out risk of falling into the well-nigh unfathomable depth 

 of water below. The pool is full of grilse and salmon 

 during most of the summer months, and is well worth 

 the difficult climb to reach it. I have hooked as many 

 as thirty grilse in a day in this pool and two others 

 below it in the month of June. On the day in question 

 it was full of fish, and as the water was rather low it 

 had to be fished carefully. While fishing the neck of 

 the pool standing sideways, something in the river 



