IN THE WEST COUNTRY 43 
length of gut, which he had patiently put on, he 
got the artificial fly over the rising trout and so 
won the victory. He struck me as one of those 
real Britons who, alike in war and sport, play the 
game and simply will not be beaten. 
The Tamar is a river of fine attributes. It 
holds not only good trout, but salmon in season, 
and also grayling. In the fishing season, how- 
ever, all depends upon the state of the water. 
Rains soon tell their tale, and if there has been a 
downfall the Tamar is unfishable. It fines down 
leisurely. Visitors to the hotel where I stayed 
were enabled at certain times of the year to 
obtain, upon written application, a day’s permit 
for a strictly-preserved length of the river. The 
Duke who grants this privilege through his agent 
thus confers a boon which is most gratefully 
appreciated. The day I had, though the water 
was not quite right, yielded a nice basket of 
trout, and the scenery by the riverside almost 
persuaded me that I was in Scotland. 
It is curious that from this welcoming, hospi- 
table shire of Devon should have come the only 
adverse comment of its kind I have ever heard 
about visiting fishermen. ‘The idle rich who 
come trout-fishing !”’ was what one resident had 
to say about us. He overshot the mark in 
imputing riches to most of us. As for idleness, 
he might have had the generosity or the common 
fairness to admit that trout-fishing is at all events 
an innocent and a wholesome recreation. But 
the hinting or sometimes hissing of dispraise, 
