WADERS AND WADING. 107 
bank. The river at the point was about forty yards wide; 
deep; and the water discoloured by a fast rising flood; never- 
theless by dint of jumping, and striding like the Rhodes 
Colossus from point to point of rock, submerged or projecting, 
I managed to get across to the other side ; sed revocare gradum ? 
. . . After killing my fish, a very fine fifteen-pounder with the 
tide lice on him, I was fain to walk a good three miles round 
before I could find a fordable place. 
Talking of the Roughty reminds me of a gallant and 
enthusiastic salmon fisher ‘quartered’ in the neighbourhood at 
the same time that I was. The Major was remarkable for his 
steady absorption of ‘poteen,’ which he invariably carried, 
when fishing, in his pocket in a soda-water bottle. On one 
occasion whilst following fast after a fish that was tearing down 
stream he successfully cleared a post and rails—successfully, 
that is, as far as the fence was concerned ; but his activity cost 
him dear, for the sacred soda-water bottle, flapping about in 
his coat-tail pocket, jerked up as he jumped, striking him in 
the mouth and knocking two of his front teeth clean out. The 
Major’s language was a thing to be remembered—or rather 
forgotten! . . . But the Roughty was a real sporting river, and 
many a break-neck scamper I have had along its channel— 
pity it was so netted and poached. 
I could fill pages, as no doubt most salmon fishers could, 
with anecdotes of escapes or catastrophes in the wading and 
ducking line: personal explorations plummet-wise of widths 
‘obvious’ but depths ‘uncertain’—trifling errors in hydrostatics 
on the force of currents—unsuccessful ‘negotiations’ of the 
‘water jump,’ &c. &c. For such emergencies wading trousers 
are decidedly preferable on many grounds, to boots or leggings. 
They are also, I believe, far less dangerous, as, in case of having 
to swim for it, instead of getting instantly filled with water, the 
latter takes a ‘measurable’ time to make good its entry. An 
impression used to prevail that in case of sudden immersion 
the trousers would. buoy up the legs at the expense of the head 
—the latter performing the office of a-sort of plummet, and of 
