iO The Mahseer a sporting fish. Chapt. ii. 



thousand different gradations of "the stern joy which 

 "warriors feel in foeman worthy," whether mentally or 

 physically "of their steel." It is the love of conquest. 

 What is wanted is not conquered worlds, but "more worlds 

 "to conquer." Who cares to pull out a dead pike on a 

 night line? The pot-hunter, not the sportsman. To 

 battle with a heavy salmon, or kill a good game trout 

 on a very light line, is quite another matter. From this 

 point of view it is that I say a Mahseer shows more sport 

 than a salmon. Not that you can kill more of them, 

 which you may also do, but that each individual Mahseer 

 makes a better fight than a salmon of the same size. I 

 am prepared to expect that on this point, as on most 

 others not capable of being proved to demonstration, some 

 will disagree with me. Quot homines tot sentential. For 

 my own part I can only say that my prejudices were all 

 in favor of the salmon, both as being a salmon, a sort of 

 lion of the waters, whom I had grown up looking on with - 

 respect from my childhood, and as being a fellow-country- 

 man. But the Mahseer compelled me to believe in and 

 "honor him in spite of my prejudgment to the contrary. 

 I came to the conclusion that though he might not make 

 so long a fight of it as a salmon, he yet made a much 

 more difficult one, because his attack was more impetu- 

 ously vehement, his first rush more violent, all his ener- 

 gies being concentrated in making it effective, though his 

 efforts were not, and from that very cause, could not be, 

 so long sustained. Trying to account for this I had the 

 curiosity to measure and compare the size of his tail and 



