148 Strategic movements. Chapt. xii. 



looking monster, and makes a cruel gap in their closely 

 packed column. It is pitiful to behold. Poor little things, 

 how like they are to soldiers when a great round shot has 

 torn through their ranks. They close up again and press 

 on. 



"They fill 



"The ranks unthinned though slaughtered still." 



Dash goes another monster, or perhaps the same one, 

 and again there is an obvious gap. "Close up, close up," 

 is the word, and so they keep pressing on up stream, ap- 

 parently very much frightened, but still unwavering in 

 their purpose of pressing on up the river, with all their lit- 

 tle strength. What their purpose is in resolutely strug- 

 gling up stream, and whether they are small fish or fry 

 I do not know ; but steadily on they go, and the big fish 

 attend them, and when all the little fish have clean passed 

 by, you may as well leave off fishing ; for all the big fish 

 have gone on with them, and there are none left to care 

 about your bait, however well you may ply it. 



But if you can hit off the turn of the tide, if you can 

 be on the spot half an hour, or a quarter of an hour, 

 before it commences to flow, you will have excellent sport 

 for the brief period that the small fish are passing. Put 

 on a dead fish, and spin as for jack with stout hooks on 

 gimp. Gut will not do, it will be cut through in a trice. 

 The gimp too must be stout. I have had every available 

 bit of tackle broken by successive fish in twenty minutes. 

 But then I was learning ; I was buying my experience a 

 great deal dearer than you will buy this book. But I 



