Chapt. vi. Mahseer are early to bed and early to rise. 9 1 



The time of day is also a thing to be considered. 

 My experience is that it is of no use exposing yourself 

 to the sun, however keen you may he after sport, for the 

 fish will not take much after nine in the morning or be- 

 fore four in the afternoon; and directly after sunset 

 also they seem to go to bed, and tuck themselves in. The 

 keenest reader may I think be content to take me on 

 trust in this .matter, for when by the riverside I have 

 been so keen myself as to go on fishing into the dusk 

 and dark, though the place was densely forest-clad, and 

 the margin marked with fresh tracks of crocodiles and 

 panthers, only taking the precaution of having a man 

 behind me with a loaded rifle, and trusting to his having 

 sufficient care for his own vile body to keep a good look 

 out in my rear. My own plan is to be at the river's side 

 as soon as ever it is light in the morning, which is half-past 

 five or six, and to fish till half-past eight or nine. After 

 that it is of very little use, and knocking off then enables 

 you to scramble through a bath and breakfast, in time 

 for office hours at ten, and those three hours of fishing are 

 as much as a business man can generally get in a day. 

 But time was made for slaves, galley slaves like Indian 

 Collectors, and if you are not a "humble servant," and 

 your time is your own, you may be at it again from four, 

 or in the hot weather five, till sunset. But it is of little use 

 trying before four, and none, I am convinced, after sunset. 

 And now for where; where, in the two senses of in 

 what waters, and in what parts of those waters. As to 

 Mahseer and other fine fellows of the carp family I be- 



12* 



