WATERS OF WESTERN INDIA. I 
many fish more highly reputed; but an old fisherman’s joke is that 
“the flesh on a gurnet’s head is all poison” (there being none), and 
our catfish is in the same case. 
The murrells abound in some of the kolwbs, and reach a great 
size. Ihad once an odd experience in shooting at one across a 
channel, The heavy bullet, driven by four drachms of powder, not 
only cut the fish’s head off, but knocked the body clean out of the 
water on to the bank. He wasn’t a very large fish, but there was 
enough of him for breakfast and dinner. 
T never got an eel in Sind, but I heard of them, and no doubt 
they are there, only, as elsewhere in India, the local tackle is made 
up for other fish, and the eels escape it. If you want te catch eels 
in large quantities, you must fish for them with their own gear; 
except in the case of bottom fishing in some European waters, 
where they are apt to come unwished for, they might fairly say not 
quite uninvited. 
But all these and many others are mere accidents and superfluitics 
in Sind. When a man there talks of fish he means §“Palla,” as 
sure as aman using the same word on '{weed or Shannon means 
salmon. 
The capture and distribution of this fish are the chief livelihood 
of some thousands of persons. To the remaining population of the 
province it is an important article of food, and, in short, the whole 
business is one of the great freshwater fisheries of the world. Here 
alone does the Government of Bombay make a serious revenue from 
fisheries, and that on this fish alone, or almost alone, claiming one- 
third of the produce or its equivalent. The great riparian jaghirdars 
do the same, and the claim is never disputed. Having premised so 
much, it is time to say something about the Palla himself, and the 
first thing to say is that the term “Salmon of the Indus” is a 
“‘chee-chee” abomination, not.to be used amongst Christian men. I 
have said before of the mahscer that he was about as like a salmon 
as a buceaneer is like an officer of the Royal Navy. Alb four are 
pugnacious aquatic creatures, and that’s all, 
But when it comes to the poor Palla, the comparative mammal 
must not be a buecaneer, but the most timid coaster of the mosé 
timid nation, a Loochoo Islander perhaps, or an Otaheitan. 
The Mahseer does, indeed, resemble a salmon in taking a fly, 
although, as he would rather take anything else, the resemblance 
stops there. But the poor Palla never thinks of hurting a fly or 
