122 BEGINNING TO DESPAIR. [PART I. 
killing “clegs” (horse-flies), the number of which 
was only equalled by their determination and 
ferocity, and getting in my fish, my hands were 
pretty well occupied. 
We had been thus engaged for the best part 
of four days, leading pleasant lives enough, though 
the weather was somewhat unfavourable, but on 
the whole beginning to despair of getting hold of 
one of the big fellows. On the afternoon of the 
fourth day we halted in a wooded bay on the West 
shore of Loch Garry, a delightfully pretty and shel- 
tered spot, where, whilst we lounged away the hour 
we did not then so much grudge for luncheon, 
John Cameron practically explained the mysteries 
of ember-cooking fish, which I have before men- 
tioned, a couple of Trout of about a pound each 
serving as subjects for the lecture. Luncheon 
over, before yielding myself to that pipe of pipes 
which succeeds such a repast, perhaps the highest 
state of pure physical enjoyment of which man is 
susceptible, I took stock of my remaining spinning 
tackle. I then found it had suffered so much from 
the nibbling of the small Trout, that the flight of 
hooks I had up was the only one of the proper 
size left, and, to make matters worse, the single 
gut attached to this was frayed half in two 
