258 THE TROUT 



lightships, and were sometimes the cause of bitter 

 disappointment. We remember one morning at a 

 venerable gasthaus in Tyrol, .the host coming in 

 clutching at his cropped hair, and seemingly on the 

 brink of a suicide like that of M. Vatel. The river 

 had come down in spate during the night, and the 

 fish-chest had gone floating down with it. And by 

 the way, when we tried comfort on that occasion, by 

 reminding him of the noble trout we had brought home 

 the day before, he made a hasty exit, speechless and 

 embarrassed. If we are not greatly mistaken those 

 beautiful trout of ours had been chopped small and 

 cast out as food for the living. 



In Switzerland, before the railways had brought 

 excursionists in battalions, from Basle to Lugano the 

 trout was everywhere as much the plat de maison as 

 the chamois in the Bernese Oberland or the Savoy 

 Alps. Trout were expected at all repasts as much as 

 a matter of course as fresh herrings in an Hebridean 

 steamer in the tourist season. Apropos to that, Dumas, 

 in his delicious ' Impressions de Voyage en Suisse,' 

 tells a comically pathetic tale in his own most character- 

 istic manner. He had got to Bex, in the Valais, and 

 ordered trout for breakfast. He was told the manner 

 of catching them was peculiar, so perhaps he might 

 like to see it. Always on the alert for a sensation, or 



