218 WILD LIFE AND THE CAMERA 



she would have said, but the running water made 

 so much noise that I could not hear her remarks. 

 Then, smiling, — and thatwas contemptible — I asked 

 her which of the many aforesaid reasons was the 

 one which accounted for the loss of the immense 

 (I put emphasis on that word) fish. Soon she had 

 another and lost it, so we called quits and had 

 a good laugh over our bad fishing. No luck fell 

 to our lot that afternoon. We caught nothing 

 heavier than three-quarters of a pound. Evidently 

 very few large fish had come so far up the river. 

 So we decided to work down stream until we 

 should meet them. 



John thought it would be wiser to use a large, 

 flat-bottomed boat for the trip, as we could then 

 fish from it with comfort, whereas the smaller one 

 was so cranky that fishing from it, when loaded, 

 would have been rather too exciting, and in 

 places, even dangerous. The flat-bottom boat was 

 evidently quite safe unless she took it into her head 

 to sink, and from the way the water poured 

 through the seams when "w^e launched her, this 

 was by no means a remote possibility. The next 

 morning when we went to load her she was safely 

 ensconced on the bottom. Fortunately the water 

 was not very deep, and after some difficulty we got 

 her afloat and loaded, but for the rest of the trip 

 bailing was an important part of the day's pro- 

 gramme. At nearly every pool on the way down 

 we caught fish. Many of them were large ones, 

 and gave us no end of fun, and as, unless they were 

 injured, we always returned them to the stream, 

 we felt there was no necessity for hmiting our catch. 



