68 SPORT IN ASIA AND AFRICA 



usual violent rush, but at a good, steady pace, 

 inclining to the left bank of the river, from which 

 I was fishing. There was a tree in the river 

 near this bank, which had been carried down by 

 a flood, and at the time my only anxiety was that 

 the fish might foul this tree. When he passed 

 it I thought that he was mine, but the fish had 

 other ideas on the subject. As he approached 

 the rapid at the head of the pool below he shot 

 across to the right bank and went down the 

 rapid with incredible speed and broke the trace, 

 which presumably touched a stone. The slightest 

 check, when a big fish is running, is fatal. I 

 made no mistake on this occasion, and the fish 

 fairly beat me. 



A friend of mine told me a story of a Bengali 

 Babu, who had fished for some weeks without 

 success in one of the tanks at Calcutta, and who 

 at last hooked and successfully played a very 

 large fish. The boy with him put the landing- 

 net under the fish, but the fish was heavy and the 

 net was rotten, and the fish went through the 

 bottom of the net and disappeared. The Babu 

 gave the boy a sound box on the ear, and then 

 burst into tears. I did not cry, but I have not 

 yet got over these two disappointments. The 

 Bias fish in particular, was, I am sure, a very 

 large one. 



In some parts of India fishing can not be de- 

 scribed as a gentle art. I spent the Christmas 

 of the year 1904 with my friend Mr. (now Sir 

 Henry) Wheler, at the rest-house on the Bombay 

 side of the famous Gairsappa Falls, a beautiful 

 spot between Bombay-Canara and Mysore, 



4 



