"Why, the truth is, Sandy, that I do not choose to haud on at present, because I came forth in quest of a bonny salmon, and cannot go home without one. Could you not help me to such a thing?” At this Sandy took a pinch of snuff from his mull, and seeing my eyes fixed upon the length and protuberance of his pocket, answered quaintly enough, "Ay, that can I, and right glad am I to do ye a favour. Ye shall no want for a salmon whilst I have one." So saying, he pulled forth a ten-pounder, which occupied all the lower regions of his jacket. "How the beast got here," said he, as he extracted him gradually, “I dinna ken, but I'm thinking that he must have louped intil my pocket as I war wading the river."' *-(P. 193.) Mr Scrope concludes the Poacher's Garland with the Confessions of Tom Purdie, who one Sunday, instead of wending his way to Traquair kirk, took a walk on Tweedside, and was tempted, by the sight of goodly kippers, to arrange a leister adventure for Monanday, the first o' the morning,' when the Sabbathday was little mair than o'er;" but we must not fritter down the enjoyment which our readers will receive from perusing Tom's own account of the perils and alarms which attended this breach both of the moral and the civil law. 6 The two last chapters of Mr Scrope's volume are devoted, by way of climax, to the bolder occupations of the salmon-fisher. The fear of being wanting in details, or perhaps his artistic habit of relieving the masses on his canvass by subsidiary touches, has induced our author to include in these two chapters an account of some of the minor and less inviting processes of salmon fishing; but even these are rendered interesting to the general reader by the vivacity and humour of his dialogue; and a dramatic character is given to the concluding chapter by the appearance on the stage of Mr Tintern, the classical artist, Tom Purdie, and Sir Walter Scott himself. We must, however, refer the reader to Mr Scrope's pages for the arts of trolling or cross-angling, harling, and fishing with bait, minnow, and parr's tail; and devote the rest of our space to the more exciting and fatal processes of sunning and burning the water—throwing the sun's light among the salmon by day, and the fire light among them by night, till they hide their heads in darkness, and fall under the deadly spear of their adversary. The art of sunning a river consists in taking salmon with the spear by the light of the sun. The river must be quite low, and the water clear, and its surface unruffled; so that sunshine, and calm weather, and pure water, are all necessary to the sport. The passes, or gorges, or heads of streams being carefully watched, or secured by nets, in order to catch the fish which may escape during the sunning process, the boat or boats begin by rowing over the pool with some white object, such as a horse's skull, hanging in the water from the stern. Frightened at the unusual sight, the salmon hide themselves beneath the stones and cliffs, and sometimes even lie stupified beside them. When a sufficient degree of terror has been inspired, the spear-holder looks out for his prey; and all his dexterity, and even science, is called into exercise to meet the various emergencies of partial exposure under small stones, or of oblique exposure under rocky ledges, or of the more forlorn hope of a projecting tail. When the fish are wholly concealed under a large stone, two or three often congregating together, Mr Scrope operates by throwing a strong casting-net over the stone, and poking the fish out by the pole of the spear. The fish often escape wounded from these assaults, especially if not struck near their centre of gravity. It has been asserted that a Highlander can never pass a seal, a deer, or a 'salmon, without having a trial of skill with him;' and, in illus tration of this, Mr Scrope informs us, that the late Staffa, be'fore he came to his title, was once sunning the Pavilion water ' with John Lord Somerville, and perceiving that the fishermen in their boat had struck a salmon that was likely to get off the 'spear when he might attempt to lift him, in the true spirit of a Highlander, and without saying a word to any one, plunged at ' once into the Tweed with his clothes on, dived down to the 'fish, and brought him into the boat with his hands.' Mr Scrope suggests a stuffed otter* as an excellent substitute for the horse-skull, as a bugbear for the salmon. In the upper parts of the Tweed, we have seen them float the yellow ragweed down the streams that were to be sunned; and, when our own skin was less tanned by time than it is now, we have when bathing, and at the earnest desire of the sinners, as they would be called in Aberdeen, performed the part of horse-head, by swimming down a long and rapid cast of the Tweed. The boat generally used for burning the water is larger than the usual fishing-boat. In the centre of it, close to the side on which the leisterers strike the fish, is a pole fixed vertically, with a frame at top of it, formed of ribs of iron, to contain the ' combustibles. Three men are sufficient to man the boat-one at the head, another at the stern as boatman and leisterer, and the third at the centre, to kill the fish and trim the fire.' In burning, of course, as well as in sunning, a calm night and a clear stream are essential to success. These requisites were vouchsafed to the burning party whose exploits Mr Scrope has recorded. We would recommend a painted board, illuminated by means of a large lens, as a good object of alarm. The condensed light of the sun moving over the bottom of the river might be still better. cano. All being now ready, a light was struck; and the spark being applied to rags steeped in pitch, and to fragments of tar-barrels, they blazed up at once amid the gloom, like the sudden flash from the crater of a volThe ruddy light glared on the rough features and dark dresses of the leisterers in cutting flames, directly met by black shadows-an effect which those will best understand, who, in the Eternal City, have seen the statues in the Vatican by torchlight. Extending itself, it reddened the shelving rocks above, and glanced upon the blasted arms of the trees, slowly perishing in their struggle for existence amongst the stony crevices; it glowed upon the hanging wood, on fir, birch, broom, and bracken, half veiled, or half revealed, as they were more or less prominent. The form of things remote from the concentrated light was dark and dubious; even the trees on the summit of the brae sank in obscurity.' -(P. 238-9.) The boat being then pushed up the cheek of the stream till it reached the head of it, she shot across the gorge, and then drifted down broadside foremost. During this brief navigation the leisterers are striking their fish, while other fish are running past towards the head of the cast. The boat is accordingly taken up a second time; and, during its descent, a huge fish mocks the false stroke of the spearman. Bent on his prey, however, he pushes his boat a third time up the stream, pulls her aside, and jumping ashore, he seizes a brand out of the fire, and plants it in the hands of a ' male Thais.' Thus lighted on his way He stood upon a rock which hung over the river, and from that eminence, and with the assistance of the firebrand, examined the bottom of it carefully. His body was bent over the water, and his ready leister held almost vertically; as the light glared on his face you might see the keen glistening of his eye. In an instant he raised up his leister, and down he sprang from the rock right into the river, and with that wild bound nailed the salmon to the channel. There was a struggle with his arms for a few seconds; he then passed his hands down the pole of the weapon a little way, brought himself vertically over the fish, and lifted him aloft, cheered by shouts of applause from his friends on the shore.' -(P. 241.) The produce of the burned water was a hundred and two fish, great and small—whitlings, bull-trout, and salmon; but, notwithstanding this great success, the sport was not over. After shooting through one of the arches of Melrose bridge, and lighting up with their red flame its lofty roof, the party entered the salmon cast called the Whirls,' where they encountered a hungry otter devouring a twelve-pound salmon in the dry channel of the river. Disturbed at his meal the otter plunged into the shallows, where no boat could follow him. Charlie Purdie, the hero of the party, assailed the otter by a distant throw of his leister; but having to move his arm, he leaped out of the boati to the river, and thus gave his amphibious adversary the advantage of element. The men,' says Mr Scrope, were all eager and in commotion; so what with boat and lights, to say nothing of the dreadful tridents, the beast was fairly confused and almost surrounded. Purdie, who had sent away his leister upon a vain errand, albeit unarmed, continued the chase on foot, and at length gripped the brute by the tail; there was pulling and splashing, till at last he held the otter up aloft triumphantly. Now as this position, though not precisely vertical, did not happen to suit the brute's convenience, the subtle animal managed to twist round, and to fix his teeth on the captor's arm. This was rather disagreeable to Charlie, as the teeth of the otter abound in practical experiments. The posture of affairs then, you see, was as follows-the tenacious Purdie had hold of the vermin with his dexter, and was loth to relinquish his grip; the foe, nothing behind in tenacity, fixed his teeth in Charlie's sinister with equal perseverance; thus both his arms were fully occupied. Nothing daunted, Charlie cried out with Spartan endurance, "Hey, lad, but twae can play at that!" so, extending his jaws, he fixed his grinders in the animal's throat and worried him exceedingly. In fine, after a very ludicrous struggle, he shook off my excellent namesake, (Harry Otter,) and flung him on the shore, where he was dispatched with the leister before he could regain the river. Thus ended "the battle of Otterbourne," and thus ended also our sport for the night.'—(P. 252–3.) We have thus endeavoured to give our readers some idea of Mr Scrope's volume. His thorough knowledge of the subject of which he treats, his great powers of description, and his humorous delineations of character, are as favourably displayed in this work as in his Art of Deer-stalking.' Such productions, therefore, recommend themselves to all classes of readers-to those who know nothing of our river and mountain sports, as well as to those who are familiar with them. We regret only that the expensive character of their embellishments may give to the wealthier classes the monopoly of their perusal, though we trust that in a cheaper and more portable form they may yet find their way into a wider circulation. VOL, LAXVIII. NO, CLVII, H ART. V.-1. Les Français, Peints par Euxmêmes; Texte par les Sommites Littéraires; Dessins par MM. GAVARNI et H. MONNIER. 9 vols. grand oct. Paris, 1840-1842. 3. 2. Physiologie de l'Employé, par Balzac, dessins par Trimolet. de l'Etudiant, par L. Huart, dessins par Alophe. de l'Homme Marié, par Paul de Kock. de la Lorette, par Maurice Alhoy, dessins de Gavarni. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. du Garde National, par L. Huart, dessins par Trimolet. du Tailleur, par le même, dessins de Gavarni. de la Portière, par James Rousseau, dessins de Daumier. de l'Ecolier, par Ourliac, dessins de Gavarni. des Amoureux, dessins par Gavarni. du Célibataire, par Couailhac, dessins de H. de l'Homme de Loi, dessins par Daumier. du Médecin, par Louis Huart, dessins de Tri- de l'Homme à bonnes Fortunes, par E. Lemoine, dessins de Janet-Lange. du Théâtre, par Couailhac. du Flaneur, par L. Huart, dessins d'Alophe. du Troupier, par Marco Saint-Hilaire, dessins du Voyageur, par Maurice Alhoy, dessins de de la Parisienne, par Delort, du Charivari. |