'BY STREAM AND RIVERA 173 



And as I watched the fat fishes reveUing in their 

 evening meal my stomach pinched me more and 

 more, till waiting was an actual and physical pain. 

 Such an appetite as I had was well worth keeping 

 unspoiled, but when a large moth blundered almost 

 into my mouth I could not help utilizing him as a 

 modest quencher, so to speak. He was not very 

 nice, and I hoped that Providence would not send 

 me any more. 



Slowly the hours passed by ; I could hear them 

 sounding along the river, above the sleepy whisper 

 of the water, from some distant church, and still 

 I sat and waited. The rest of the colony had 

 vanished along the banks this way and that — all 

 but one gray-nosed veteran, who sat at the mouth of 

 his hole and made an elaborate toilet, licking and 

 nibbling at his grizzly coat. Of him I learnt that 

 some had gone in quest of scraps left on the bank 

 by such of the revellers as had landed to eat their 

 lunch or tea, while others had crossed the water to 

 a small island in mid-stream, whereon a couple of 

 gay young fellows had pitched their tent, and were 

 living for a while the life of their savage ancestors. 



When I ventured to hint that there might be 

 better stuff nearer at hand, to be had without the 

 dangers of a long journey, he looked rather sur- 



