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FIVE miles and a good a good road." Such was the information given me by an obliging person in a velvet smoking-cap and pink petticoats. He had never heard of the place I was asking about, and merely wanted to say what would please me and send me on my way. He was not an Irishman, but an Oriental.

Two bedizened parrot-cages on wheels, called eccas, received me and mine. They were attached by bits of rope, some blue glass beads, and a mouldy strap or two to two rats of ponies. The passengers sat on the floor of their cages; the drivers sat somewhere or anywhere or nowhere. When they clicked their tongues the rats started, and to the jingling of bells they kept going in the most marvellous manner. We clicked off at 10 A.M., and in three hours' time had jingled three times five miles. At this point a stray mile-stone said that we had another twenty miles to go. This upset me very much, but no one else minded. The ponies, however, were said to require rest and refreshment. They were loosed from their cages, stripped of their harness, and then rolled in the dust. Black balls of garlic and raw sugar were thrust down their gullets, and we continued. There was no road, only a wide expanse of ruts. Three hours later I was aroused from the miserable the miserable

stupor into which I had fallen for another dust bath and more garlic and sugar. In this way we continued to lurch across the plains of Hind, then traversed the scrubby outposts of Himalayan forests, then entered the foothills forests themselves, and then at 8 P.M. the benumbing jingling ceased and we were there. I staggered into a thatched bungalow, and heard the sound of running waters.

I was out early next morning having a look at what I then called my river, but which later became Karpreen's River. Great things had been said of it into my ear secretly, for we don't like the fame of really good mahseer rivers bruited abroad. But I did not fancy the look of it much. It didn't look fishy. It ran in several channels over a stretch of boulders 1000 yards across. Five miles off rose the outermost barrier of the Himalayas, and the river, rejoicing in its freedom from gorges, seemed to be squandering its strength on boulders, forgetful that what fish and fishermen love are deep rocky pools and long runs, with holts and lurking places. I was reflecting whether yesterday's thirty-five mile agony was worth this, when, without moving, I passed from sunlight into shadow. Turning to see the cause, I perceived that a small man on a large elephant, both salaaming, had intervened

"We have come."

I eyed the farther bank, and saw better water there. Moti carried me over, and while I fished she retired a short way, and couched like an obedient

"In the same way as I always at this season of the year help Karpreen sahib. Indeed, I thought that you were he. Nevertheless, I will now help you."

I said I was much obliged, but that I had always found myself quite sufficiently terrifying to fish without adding an elephant to my bulk.

"But pause," said the little man. Consider that great stretch of boulders which you will have to cross to reach the water. My elephant shall carry you over and save your feet. Next, having reached the bank, you will fish. You will kill fish, or you will not kill fish. God only knows. But having fished that bank, you will assuredly, even as Karpreen does, consider the other bank a much better one. But the water is deep. You will then use my elephant as a bridge, her four legs being strong pillars, her back the roadway. She is steady, and you may even fish off her back as Karpreen sahib does."

There appeared to be a grain or two of sense in my sententious friend's wordiness. So I put my rod together, and on my way to the water-side the boulders scrunched beneath Moti's careful tread, not mine. I fished the hither bank, and

and I became aware that my original bank was the better after all. By lunch-time I had landed a 21-pounder, and he did not die at all up to the traditions of a mahseer of his weight. He looked well enough, but made absolutely no fight. I should probably have skipped lunch and continued fishing, had not a log, the first of a whole procession, taken me, not too hard, in the hinge of my off knee and sent me,

kneeling, up to my waist in water. Wood-cutters were evidently busy up-stream, and I had to quit.

On reaching the bungalow, I found Moti lunching off a bamboo-tree, and the sententious one waiting to tell me more about Karpreen. A good deal was said that was not to the point. What was relevant was this, that Karpreen never called fishing here fishing. Sport only began twelve miles up the river in the hills, where it ran in a narrow bed, full of pools and rocks. A little touch was added, which decided me to move there at once. It was that at a certain place reachable by nightfall that day, a little, warm, clear stream flowed into the great river, and that at this junction Karpreen always pulled out his largest fish. I ordered an immediate inspan-not of my parrot-cages,

but of Moti. From a bridge I converted her into a lorry. But as lorries are notoriously concave, and as elephants are obviously convex, we had some difficulty in converting and loading her. However, by leaving behind my tente d'abri, bed, camp-table, and chair, we all crowded in or on-the mahout, my servant, self, rifles, rods, and four days' food. We made one false start, caused by an unseemly kettle which vexed Moti's starboard quarter so much that we had to halt and reorganise loads. However, at 2 P.M. we were off, and for four miles a path carried us well, and then suddenly ended in a cliff. We retraced our steps for a mile, and found another path which would o'erleap the cliff. We followed this for two miles, and it died away against the same cliff, but much higher up. To the path the mahout used a term of the most recondite filthiness, but it is such a hackneyed word that it has lost the mordant savour of its far-fetched indecency, and it quite failed to alter the path. Once more it was necessary to turn and seek a yet higher path known to the mahout. But Moti had a poor lock, and could not turn on a narrow cliff-beset path. So we had to put her into reverse for full fifty yards ere we could get her round, and no elephant likes going backwards on a narrow dangerous path. For a mile we retraced our steps, and then to reach our third path we were faced with such an almost vertical

hillside that I scarcely believed it possible for an elephant, heavily loaded too, to climb. Elephants are clever, and usually know what they can do, but they are not infallible, and I have known them fall, and I have seen even their sagaciousness deceived by quicksands. The mahout said she could do it on her head, Moti agreed, and I climbed off and watched her. She did not do it on her head, but a good deal on her fore-knees, and by parbuckling her trunk round trees she knew would not render. Her hind feet also churned her up, and great junks of the hill went thundering down and over the cliff and into the river 300 feet below. When she stood on the desired third path, I felt that patting her was a puny inadequate thing to do, but it was all the gratitude I could show her, so I patted her. We followed our new path through dense forest till darkness fell, and then sought for a small clearing to bivouac in. But there was no clearing. So we converted our lorry at once into a steam-roller, and she rolled out a little campingground for us in less than no time. Most of the growth she flattened in her stride. To a largish tree she applied her forehead, and down it came. To an incommoding branch or two she applied her trunk, and down they came. Then, divested of her load, she went off to get her supper, and returned with just the sort of foliage she fancied piled on her back. After dark two small fires

punctuated the gloom of our halting-place. From one came a loud slapping sound. This was the mahout making large chupatties for his slave and small ones for himself. From the other came the sizzling of my own dinner. We all went to bed early. It was a fairly quiet night. Moti kept on noisily eating branches and eking out her chupatties till rather late, and when she had finished everything to the last leaf, she started rumbling like a distant thunderstorm working up. Digestion, I suppose, or indigestion.

At the moment of writing this, a good many years later, I do not at all recollect anything very unpleasant about this day. But there must have been, for I note that the last entry in the diary is, “All very miserable." It is lucky that when we look backwards we usually do so through rose - tinted glasses.

We were away early next morning, meeting a stream of burden-bearing folk returning to their winter quarters from which we were ascending. When the rainy season begins, and until it is well over, the forests that skirt the foot of the Himalayas are uninhabitable, and for four or five months are vacated by man and cattle. These go to higher ground. Grass of astonishing height at once submerges these winter settlements and grazing grounds. People were hard at work clearing them as we passed along. But even now, in November, the district was none too salubri

ous, there was much malaria, and my small supply of medicines had already diminished. By noon, after a terrific zigzag descent, which tried my nerves if not Moti's, we reached our objective. The mahout had described it accurately, for the river here (one of India's greatest) was chained within a gorge, and its whole bulk ran swift, deep and silent ity yards from bank to bank. My bank was India; the other was Nepal.

I bivouacked on a little beach of white sand, and across this, from up a narrow side valley, burbled a stream of clear warm water. This ran into the cold milky waters of the great river. It did not mingle with them, but preserved its clearness and its warmth for full 100 yards. Some 300 yards below us was a long and impossible rapid, or rather cataract.

Karpreen was said to have succeeded with natural bait here. So we proceeded to search for it. I had a cast-net with me, but no skilled man who could whirl it round his head and send it flat on the water, to the bottom of which its leaded circumference immediately sank. The mahout, however, showed me how Karpreen did it. He seized a boulder, waded out into mid-stream, panicked the little fishes under the nearest boulder, and then dropping his boulder on that, the fish floated out dead or stunned. In this way we filled our can in a few minutes. I took the biggest of our catch, one about eight inches long,

and set him to the end of a very stout unused gimp trace. One little thick treble hook nestled almost invisible in the region of the tail. The water being very heavy, I added some lead wire to the end of my line, and waded to a rock (Karpreen's, of course) a few yards out. Silent and swift the line flicked off the silex and the bait fell flop far out towards the farther bank. At that moment I had an easy mind, founded on perfect faith in a 14-foot split cane, steel-cored salmon rod, 200 yards and more of new line and backing, a roomy silex reel with a powerful brake, and a gimp trace that might be sawed asunder but could never part otherwise. I felt I could face the biggest fish. The line began to swing round in a great arc, but so strong was the pull of the water that the checked winch began to tick over. I had to apply the brake. Round swung the line and farther round, till it just entered the clear water poured in by the little stream. And at that moment the bait was gently but firmly taken, and gently but firmly marched off with. I put up a short prayer of thanks for perfectly sound tackle, for nothing but a very heavy mahseer, a cock of the walk fearing no competition, would take a lure thus gently and depart thus deliberately. There was no screaming of the reel. It just ticked over, but I could not stop the ticking. I knew nothing could break, so I spared not the butt, and put every

strain my muscles were capable of on to the line. It made not the smallest difference to the steady down-stream march of the fish. There was no pause, no haste, just a relentless elephantine progress. I glanced at the reel. About half the line was out. I peered at the spot where line met water, now 100 yards away, and it was still distinguishable. The march continued. I glanced again at my reel. It was still covered with line, but now not with very much. I peered again along its taut length, but could no longer follow it to the water. All I knew was that it must be nearing the rapids. I clambered off my rock, reached the sandy beach, and began to reel myself towards the fish. But I did not bring him back to me. The sand ended, and rocks, almost impassable, began. I progressed twenty yards, and could get no farther. The fish must now be in the head of the rapids. I had a momentary gleam of hope as no more line went out. The fish was either sulking or, more likely, the line was foul of one of the many jagged rocks. A gentle vibratory message came humming down the tight line, along the bent rod to my left forefinger, and so to my brain. It confirmed the latter alternative. The drag of the fish, the urge of the water, and my own efforts against a rock were slowly sawing through line or trace. I lowered the rod point and tried to ease matters. I raised it and re