FLY-FISHING BY NIGHTLIGHT. 183 
able for the purity of its waters and the charming 
frame of mountain and pine forest, in which, like a 
huge mirror, dark in its own lustre, it was partially 
set. As the shortest way to test the accuracy of the 
information, I cross-lined an angle of it with some 
old river-flies supplied by my friend ; but the evening 
was too calm, and the “mount” too imperfect, for a 
satisfactory experiment. So I returned to the gardens, 
to witness half the hierarchy of Olympus playing at 
“aquatics” through all the curious devices of 
hydraulic engineering, amongst which Fame, perched 
on her lofty column in front of the palace, shot a 
dazzling jet of purest crystal high above the neigh- 
bouring elms, on which it returned in copious showers 
of prismatic spray, as many-hued and evanescent as 
the fallacious voices of her own trump. 
If the indulgent reader who has followed me 
through this rather devious introduction to the im- 
mediate object. of this paper be not wearied with my 
discursive flights, I would respectfully invite him to 
join me in a night excursion to a locality at home, 
where better sport was to be had in former days than 
in the royal preserves of San Ildefonso. It is only 
a stone’s-throw (or a “ good shout,” as our imaginative 
boatman awaiting us measures space) beyond the 
green hills in the distance. The glories of a summer 
sunset will illumine, the dews of evening refresh us 
on the way. By night-angling, however, I would 
