188 THE VALLEY OF ENCHANTMENT 



the greater you will find the vigour of all Salmonidce. 

 Certainly this is borne out within the limits of our own 

 little island, as those will testify who have compared the 

 strength of a 2-lb. trout in a Hampshire stream with one 

 of like weight hooked from the shore of a Highland loch. 

 Have you nerve and delicacy of touch to control the first 

 rush of the English fish ? the rest is child's play ; but the 

 Highlander wiU fight hard to the last gasp. But the chief 

 advantage enjoyed by the Norwegian salmon in his fight 

 with man lies in the force of the stream. You can fish 

 these clear Scandinavian torrents when they are in such 

 spate as would render most Scottish rivers quite unfish- 

 able. Hook a log in such a stream, and you will realise 

 that a big salmon has only to turn his side against the 

 current to become nearly unmanageable. Your art con- 

 sists in pulling him off his balance over and over again 

 till he is beaten. 



Rude must have been the schooling of the pioneers of 

 salmon-angling in Norway. Frightful must have been 

 the disasters encountered by him who first cast a fly in 

 such a river as this, using a shallow, long-barrelled reel, 

 such as Scrope depicts in his inimitable Days and Nights 

 of Tweed Fishing ; when trees grew thickly along the 

 banks, and no friendly hand had as yet cast foot-bridges 

 over yawning rock-chasms ! 



For salmon-fishing above other field-sports, one im- 

 mense, one signal merit may be claimed — it inflicts no 

 unnecessary suffering and leaves no sting of remorse. A 

 salmon taken by the fly, wounded only in the gristle or 

 membranes of the mouth, feels no more pain than one 

 taken in a net — the pain inseparable from terror. If he 

 escapes from the hook, or even with the hook, he is none 



