A FRAGMENT.

"Good luck to your fishing."-The Monastery.

IF, as "Thomas Best, Gent., late of his Majesty's Drawing-room in the Tower," saith, "Patience is highly necessary for every one to be endowed with, who angles for carps, on account of their sagacity and cunning," that virtue is still more essential as an endowment to the angler who goes after the great Thames trouts. He must be content to spend much time in dropping down from stream to weir, from pool to stream, and from stream to weir again, and to burn all the skin off his face many times before he has even a run: moreover, unless he wears gloves-and no one handles his tools with mittens so well as he does without-he will have to present a pair of hands at the dining-table only to be rivalled in their nut-brown hue by those of the gipsy or the graveldigger. But when he does get a nine or ten pounder into his well, the look-down upon the fish, after all the hair-breadth hazards of losing him when hooked, is worth the weariness of many blank days, and the production of those unpresentable hands to boot.

To be sure, it does sometimes happen, even to the best of sportsmen, that, after the struggle is apparently over, and the fish is close to the boat's side, something will give way, leaving the unhappy Piscator with a straight rod and suddenly slackened line, and also with a sensation as if he had been suddenly deprived of his back-bone.

But for a lover of nature, even when fortune smiles not, this kind of fishing has many charms :-the bright river, the continual change of scene, the rich beauty of the highly cultivated and picturesque country through which it flows, and the exhilarating [freshness of the air as it comes laden with the perfume of the new-mown hay, or of the honeysuckle blossoms from

"the cottage of thatch,

Where never physician has lifted the latch,"

make mere existence a pleasure.

Then there is always something to be seen by one who has eyes and knows how to use them. There are the wild flowers that enamel the banks, the insects, the fish-it requires a practised eye to see them—the birds. Here, a king-fisher shoots by like a meteor-there go the summer-snipes-the swift darts by close to the boat, like

That back-water is positively carpeted with the green leaves and snowy star-bloom of the water-lily-and the nightingale hard by, in shadiest covert hid, fairly sings down all the host of day-songsters, though the black bird and thrush make melody loud and clear.

On one of these expeditions not long ago, we observed below Lock, just as a thunder-storm was coming on, a pair of swans with seven young ones. There was evidently something more than usual going on-some sensation, as the French say, among them. The young were collected between the parents, and the whole party pushed up

stream. At first we thought they were nearing our punt, as we were dropping down from trying the weir, in the hope of bread: but three of the young ones mounted on the back of the female swan, who elevated her wings to receive them, the brilliant whiteness of her plumage contrasting beautifully with the grey down of the little creatures, and there was a scared appearance about the whole party. The cause was soon manifest.

A magnificent swan, worthy of Leda herself, came ploughing up the water, indignant at a trespass on, his domain. The family hurried on; and in their haste, one of the young slipt off its mother's back. There was distress! A weakling was left behind in the wake of his father, and whilst he scrambled along, non passibus æquis, uttered shrill cries as the enemy advanced. Up came the mighty bird, and then the father, evidently inferior to the attacking swan in age, size, and strength, turned to meet him, while the little family, huddled close to the mother, made haste to escape up the river. Proud as the senior, the young father threw back his neck between his arched wings, and confronted the giant. This was unexpected: they kept sailing backward and forward abreast of each other, across the stream, like two war-ships; and the watchful turns of their graceful necks and bodies, as each tried to take the other at advantage, was a sight to see. We thought at last that they would do battle; for each of the rivals elevated himself on the water, and made show of combat to the outrance. But, by this time, the family, under the guidance of the affectionate mother, were safe, and the elder swan seemed to think that the better part of valour was discretion, and that he had driven the intruders from his royalty. So they parted. The young one went up to receive his reward from the mother of his family, and the old one rubbed his neck on his wings, and dived, and dropped down stream again, evidently comforting himself that he had given the trespasser a lesson.

There was a dog belonging to the Lock-house. He, from experience, seemed to know that all swans are bullies; but still the encounter was something for a dog at a lock-house, where anything is an incident. And, indeed, this was so much more earnest in show than the usual conflicts, that he came down towards the brink, though the rain was coming on. At first he sat upon his tail; but, as the affair gave hope of becoming serious, he couched, and when the birds lifted themselves, as in act to fight, dropped his head on his outstretched fore-legs, with all the ecstacy of an amateur. When, however, he found that it was no go, and that the menaces ended as usual-much in the same way as they have done of late among the unfeathered bipeds-according to the new code of chivalry, he shook himself, like a sensible dog, and went back to shelter.

On another occasion, after fishing many miles of water with nothing but a few perch and jack in the well as the results, we dropped down Weir.

to

Wearied with my no-sport, I stretched my listless length on the dry boarding that flanked the main weir, and watched with half-shut eyes, through the tremulous aërial medium that often attends a warm summer's day, the osiers on my left. The thundering of the fall had, by degrees, something soothing in it, and I felt that I was sinking fast into a doze, when I was aroused by a sense of something near me. I turned

my head : a tall figure, in rusty black, with a club-foot, swarthy sharp visage, and an eye that positively glowed, was looking down upon me. "Ah!" said he, 66 no sport! Well, I, too, am a sportsman-and a very poor sportsman; but I am getting old, and I cannot walk the weirs now."

How he could ever have walked the weirs with that foot of his seemed a mystery; but the love of sport will carry people over anything. Finding I made no reply, the figure continued

"What would you give to have on your line that fish, whose glittering side you saw but now, as he leaped from the river, till his splash was heard above the noise of the waters? He that was afterwards chasing the bleak on the shallow till his huge shoulders and back-fin were fairly shown."

"Anything," replied I; for I had been watching this fish-a twelve or fourteen-pounder at least, strong on his feed, and making the small fish skip into the air before him-" anything!"

"I do not want anything very substantial," said he, meekly.

I looked up.

He produced a small but most brilliant fish-such a one as I had never seen, and I had seen many, a kind of miniature Opah or Kingfish-and fixed it on the hooks of the trace most skilfully.

"You don't repent ?" said he.

"No; but I am to have that great fish on my line?" "Yes."

"And land him ?"

"The fish shall be landed."

"I shall want to send him to town. Can you meet me at the church with a basket ?"

"I don't go much to churches," said he; " people would stare at me so; but if you mean there," (as I pointed with my rod towards the tower) "I will see you in the churchyard."

I examined my splendid bait to see that it was all right. Neither Wilder, Purdy, nor Goddard could have fixed it better. I tried it in the still water, and it spun admirably. When I raised my head to praise the baiter, he was gone.

I was anxious to try my bait; and beckoned to the fisherman, who was sitting on the other end of the long weir-beam by my companion, as the latter was fishing between the two last spurs, near the eddy in the corner. He came.

"Have you had a run?" said I.

"Yes," replied the fisherman; "but not from the big fish, though the one as come at us was a solaker-I put him at seven or eight pounds."

"Where was it?"

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There, in the corner; he come out of the foam, and took us in the wambling-but the hooks drew."

"Then the fish are on the feed?"

"Yes: the sun has draw'd the baits up close to the weir, and the fish are come up arter 'em. That great fish druv the baits right out of the water but now, at the far side there, just by that shrimple."

I showed him my bait fish; "Where did you get that?" said he; "and who put it on ?"

"Did you not see the man in black who was talking to me ?"

"No; I sid no man in black. I sid a great dark-looking heron fly away just beyond them osiers, and I wondered how he come to let you be so nigh him; you must ha' bin werry quiet."

I began to climb to the top of the weir-beam. again, think you ?”

"Is it any use to try

"It's a werry odd bait as ever I see," responded the fisherman; "but it's werry bright, and you may as well try the weir over with it." I stood on the weir-beam.

Now, no one who has not walked the Thames weirs can tell what a task it is to walk them, till practice has made it easy.

Weir is one that affords as steady footing as any; but to stand on that narrow beam for the first time, whilst the ear is stunned by the roar of the fall, and the eye reels as it is dazzled with the raging white water of the boiling pool, fifteen feet below, demands good nerves. To fish in such a position requires strong ones.

My bait was, at one time, spinning far down in the pool thirty yards off-and at another, as I shortened my line, which then lay at my feet on the beam or hung down from it, and reversed my rod, it was glittering close beneath me in the foam on the apron. Suddenly I lost sight of it, and, at the same instant, there was a snatch that I felt to my spinal chord. I had him! I raised my rod in the twinkling of an eye, gave him the butt, and up he sprang into the broad sun-light, showing a side like a sow.

"Don't check him!" cried the fisherman, in a voice that was heard above the river-thunder. Out ran the line! Who can be collected at such a moment? It coiled round my ancle, and down I went headlong into the mad water below.

Strange as it may appear, my principal anxiety, as I struck out into the pool to avoid being sucked back under the apron, was to secure the fish, which I felt was still fast. This embarrassed me, and, notwithstanding my efforts, I was drawn back into the weltering waves under the weir. I looked round, and there I beheld that dreadful face glaring ghastly at me through the smooth glassy sheet of the falling water; and I felt the long deadly arms dragging me, feet foremost, under the apron. In the delirium of despair I cried out,-" You said I should land the fish." "I said," shouted the horror," that the fish should be landed, and that I would see you in the churchyard;" and he mercilessly pulled me under.

"Lord! Lord! methought what pain it was to drown." The long, cruel arms kept dragging me deeper and deeper. The brightness became less and less. My agony was inexpressible. Then came darkness, the blackness of darkness. Suddenly my sensations were even pleasant, and I fancied that I was in a delicious meadow.

A fearful change succeeded. I found myself in a well-known burialvault,

"Girt by parent, brother, friend,

Long since number'd with the dead."

And there was that grim feature still claiming me, and the long lean arms were stretched out to grapple me, and the grasp entered into my soul. I turned to make one desperate effort at escape, and, opening my eyes, I found myself still stretched on the dry boards. My companion was shaking me by the shoulder, and inquiring, with something like reproach, if I thought that was the way to get the great fish into the well.

VISIT TO THE SALT MINES OF SALZBURG.

THE sun was beginning somewhat to relax the intolerable fervour of its rays, as slowly and languidly we drew near the picturesque city of Salzburg. Our day's journey, although leading through one of the sublimest passes of the Tyrol, had, nevertheless, been productive of but little pleasure; and to those who can at all sympathise in the sweets and bitters of travelling, the circumstance of our having endured no less than five custom-house scrutinies, will give a ready solution to the state of ill-humour and fatigue in which the close of the day found us.

I have, in the course of my life, run the gauntlet of most of the European custom-houses-St. Petersburg and Constantinople not excepted; and although the entrance into these two magnificent arenas of despotism is attended with no little anxiety and difficulty, yet the visible strength and importance of such adversaries, silence impatience and enforce a passive acquiescence to the law of the land. Here, however, no such palliatives awaited us; and to be detained in a trumpery barrier village in the heat of a broiling July day-to be dunned with a hundred impertinent questions from a minion of office, with a surly, mock-important, high-life-below-stairs cut of face-to be alternately lead-sealed, examined, and visé-to hear all your dignified growls of remonstrance cut short by the snappish tones of the cur who is worrying your patent locks-and lastly, to have all these grievances multiplied by five in the course of one hot morning, are trials almost beyond the endurance of a neat elderly gentleman, whose temper at length presented somewhat of the same disorder as the contents of his ill-fated garderobe after the fifth inspection. To speak impartially, however, though these observations, and more, are strictly applicable to the Austrians, the Bavarian officers may be fairly acquitted.

But, to return to Salzburg, whose fair domes and lofty spires were now interposing between me and my aggravating recollections, displaying at every bend of the road some fresh and soothing feature; till at length the goodly 'picture-with its just proportion of river and rock, mountain, city, and castle-rose complete before me. It was the face of an old friend; I had visited it in the grand tour of my youth-how many years back I need not say; and I was fast falling into a reverie upon the ever-blooming front of Nature and the tottering steps of Mortality, when my grosser postilion intruded upon me the question of which inn in Salzburg I preferred. I mentioned the Hahn, where I had once fared sumptuously, and thought of the good landlord's three pretty daughters. The man shook his head, evidently thinking me a