210 SPORTS AND ANECDOTES. 



deep water the fish in the heat of summer used to 

 lie, and it was all but impossible to get a bait low 

 enough down for them. Having paid out about thirty 

 yards of line, the remainder was wrapped round a flat 

 piece of wood, and if the hooks chanced to get fast on 

 any obstacle, such as a stump or a piece of rock, the 

 stick was let go, and the piece of wood floated until 

 the boat could be stopped to try and disengage it. 



I must own I never caught anything but perch 

 with this underground article. It was far too mono- 

 tonous for my taste to drag such a piece of machinery 

 all day long at the stern of a boat ; but the people 

 of the country sometimes did, and I remember my 

 boatman, when I lived at Laveno, coming to me one 

 day and bewailing a pike he had had hold of, and 

 which broke a single thin copper wire just as he 

 was getting him up to the boat to haul him in. He 

 had no gaff, and no means of securing him, and he 

 described him as a beast of a great magnitude, but 

 would not tell me how big he was, because he said 

 he was sure I should not believe him. This boat- 

 man, who rejoiced in the name of Dionege Festorazzi, 

 was a great character. He had been at one time 

 irrnhe Austrian service, and had been more than once 

 in prison, and bastinadoed for insubordination. He 



