crossed sword-blades—this is purely a London practice. Nor have I seen any Caledonian snuffing his nostrils with tobacco from the discarded horn of some ram.
Finding that my short kilt is no longer the mould of national form, I have now altogether abandoned it, while retaining the fox-tailed belly-purse on account of its convenience and handsome appearance.
Now let me proceed to narrate how I became the captor of a large-sized salmon.
Having accepted the loan of Mister Crum's fishing-wand, and attached to my line certain large flies, composed of black hairs, red worsted, and gilded thread, which it seems the salmons prefer even to worms, I sallied forth along the riparian bank of a river, and proceeded to whip the stream with the severity of Emperor Xerxes when engaged in flagellating the ocean.
But waesucks! (to employ the perhaps spurious verbiage of aforesaid Poet Burns) my line, owing to superabundant longitude, did promptly become a labyrinth of Gordian knots, and the flies (which are named Zulus) attached their barbs to my cap and adjacent bushes with well-nigh inextricable tenacity, until at length I had the bright idea to abbreviate the line, so that I could dangle my bait a foot or two above the surface of the water—where a salmon could easily obtain it by simply turning a somersault.
However, after sitting patiently for an hour,
