44 FISHING GOSSIP. 
an opportunity of investigating their sporting opera- 
tions. The lines, with one exception, were composed 
of grass cord, which was exceedingly strong, and 
about the size of ordinary whip-cord ; the hooks, of 
European make, of the description we use for eel- 
lines ; the sinker, a small heavy pebble with a hole 
in it; the bait, a flat ugly little worm, not unlike a 
juvenile centipede. There was but one rod, which 
was owned by the possessor of the exceptional line, 
who was about as ill-looking an old ruffian, grizzled 
and mummy-like, as you would find in a long day’s 
march, even through an Indian country—and that 
is saying a great deal. A very few minutes passed 
before I had examined his gear, overhauled his 
catch, patted him on the back, and pronounced 
him in my own mind a master hand, which during 
the couple of hours I passed in his company he 
fully proved himself to be, His line was, I think, 
of pine-apple fibre, or something very like it, beauti- 
fully twisted, very little stouter than salmon-gut, a 
large even coil of which was placed in a gourd shell 
at his feet; the sinker, a single. buck shot; the 
hook, the same pattern as the others, but covered 
with some kind of hard varnish, and sharpened at 
the point like a needle. The rod was a shoot from 
a tough shrub, about six feet long, and of very light 
proportions ; this was ingeniously looped by each end 
to the line, forming, so to speak, a mere continuation. 
