Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 705, June 30, 1877

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Various. Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 705, June 30, 1877

FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH

THE BRITISH ANGLER ON THE CONTINENT

THE LAST OF THE HADDONS. CHAPTER XXX. – MRS TRAFFORD'S HAPPINESS

LAMPREYS

THE DUKE'S PIPER: A STORY OF THE WEST HIGHLANDS. IN FOUR CHAPTERS. – CHAPTER IV

THE MONTH: SCIENCE AND ARTS

THE SOLAN GOOSE

THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. FROM THE GERMAN

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It is a curious delusion, especially among writers of guide-books, that when an Englishman crosses the Channel and takes up his abode as a traveller in a strange country, he thereupon necessarily ceases to care for that truly English pastime, angling. The sportsman is expected to become a connoisseur of architecture, to delight in nothing but sweet or majestic landscapes, or to feel unwonted pleasure in a continual series of mountain walks. That some such delusion must exist is shewn by the persistent manner in which hundreds of persons who at home are ardent fishermen, and who would gladly take a holiday in Hampshire or seek some Scottish river, pass by the excellent streams and lakes which abound throughout the continent. The angler, with a martyr-like resignation, thinks only with a sigh of the trout feeding beneath the old gray willow-tree at home, but never attempts to try that skill in foreign waters which practice from boyhood has often rendered almost perfect. It is singular indeed how fishing is neglected on the continent by those who would find it a renewed pleasure; for in whatever land it may be pursued, no amusement is more refreshing to the brain-worker, with its variation of gentle or strong exercise, and its pleasant alternations of monotony and excitement.

A combination of fishing and travelling has the important advantage of rendering the traveller quite independent of that bugbear of all tourists, bad weather. In after-days he can call to mind how he has often seen the regular routine traveller pacing the salon of his hotel when the mists were rolling along the mountain-side and the passer-by in the valley was drenched with rain, whilst he was setting forth for a day among the grayling in some rushing Tyrolese stream, or pondering upon those charming and descriptive lines of Sir Henry Taylor's; and he will feel, we should hope, that not the least pleasurable days which the travelling angler meets with, have been those when the trout lay safely sunning themselves in the clear water:

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But if angling is a fascinating pastime to numbers of thoughtful minds among the familiar scenes of an English landscape, it becomes even more attractive, at anyrate for a time, when practised amid the scenery of a country new to the beholder. The angler finds many features in the landscape, charming perhaps in their minuteness, which the through-going traveller, who rushes quickly from place to place, can never enjoy. Nor are the opportunities of mixing with the various country-folks to be lightly prized; for the increasing number of large hotels, the numerous railways, and improved systems of travelling, not to speak of the numbers of actual travellers, render a leisurely acquaintance with the natives more and more difficult. And it must always be a pleasure to look back to the quaint, honest, and kindly folk with whom the traveller would never have come in contact had he left his rod and tackle at home.

We can remember a professional fisherman whose acquaintance we made one afternoon in a distant hamlet on an Alpine pass, from which the mighty mass of the Ortler Spitze could be seen glowing under the beams of the setting sun. The sporting instincts of this man were small, and like most foreigners, he looked upon fish solely as an article of food or merchandise. But how ready was he to explain every little detail that we inquired about; how genuinely pleased by the present of a few English flies; and how gratified to be asked for a brace of his own singular specimens of the fly-maker's art. Nor can the quaint stout landlord in the Black Forest be forgotten, who took such an ardent pleasure in telling of the manifold advantages of large hooks and a powerful line in order to haul the pike into the boat with as little of what an English angler would term 'play' as possible.

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