EQUIPMENT FOR SOUTH AFRICA 221 
England with the newer method impels me not 
to omit it from South African plans. 
In concluding my thoughts on rod-buying— 
they are not meant for the experienced angler, 
who knows all about these things—I would 
earnestly say: See that rod, reel, and line all 
balance. In buying your fly-rod, get one with 
a cork handle, with a good spike for the end of 
the butt, and be sure that the stoppers are there. 
Sentiment, pure sentiment, is at the bottom of 
this last piece of advice. An authority, for whose 
opinion on any piscatorial subject the angling 
world has regard, once showed me his favourite 
fly-rod. Its workmanship seemed perfect. It 
must have been a costly rod. But—the stoppers 
were missing! In a fashionable fishing-tackle 
shop in London the other day, one of the 
assistants took down a rod-case, extracted the 
rod, and—joy !|—began to remove the stoppers. 
He must have been amused at my request : “‘ Oh, 
do put those stoppers back, and then take them 
out again, please /’’ The sound of rod-stoppers 
being removed is like that lovely, spontaneous 
bark of laughter when, a humorist having told a 
joke perfectly, the audience, as one man, explodes 
with laughter. When you go a-fishing always 
put the stoppers in your right-hand trousers 
pocket. If you prefer it, you can put them in 
your hat or underneath your socks—fishing is a 
go-as-you-please game. - But, if you have put 
them in your right-hand trousers pocket, they are 
always there when you wind up and are preparing” 
