in upon me, and upon once more putting severe
pressure upon him or her, as it might he, I perceived
a great swirl in the water about twenty
yards from the rod. The tackle would bear anything,:
and I strained so heavily upon my adversary
that I soon reduced our distance; hut the water
was exceedingly deep, the hank precipitous, and he
was still invisible. At length, after much tugging
.and counter-tugging, he began .to show; eagerly
I gazed into the water to examine my new acquaintance,
when I made out something below, in
shape between a'coach-wheel and a sponging-bath;
in a few more moments I brought to the surface
an enormous turtle, well hooked. I felt like the
old lady who won an elephant in a lottery: that
I bad him was certain, but what was I to do with
my prize ? It was at the least a hundred pounds’
weight, and the bank was steep and covered with
bushes; thus it was impossible to land the monster*
that now tugged and dived with the determination
of the grindstone that his first pull had suggested;
Once I attempted the gaff, but the trusty weapon
that had landed many a fish in Scotland broke in
the . hard shell of the turtle, and I was helpless*
My Arab now came to my assistance, and at once
terminated the struggle. Seizing the line with both
hands, utterly regardless of all remonstrance (which,,
being in English, he did not understand), he quickly
hauled our turtle to the surface, and held it, struggling
and gnashing its jaws, close to the steep bank*
In a few moments the line slackened, arid the turtle
disappeared. The fight was over ! The sharp horny
jaws had bitten through treble-twisted brass wire
as clean as though cut by shears. My visions of
turtle soup had faded.
The heavy fish were not in the humour to take, I
therefore shot one with a rifle as it came to the surface
to blow, and, the water in this spot being shallow, we
brought it to shore ; it was a species of carp, between
thirty’ and forty pounds ; the scales were rather larger
than a crown’ piece, and so hard that they would have
been difficult to pierce with a harpoon. It proved to
be useless for the table, being of an oily nature that
was only acceptable to the Arabs.
In thè evening I went out stalking in the desert,,
aridi returned with five fine buck gazelles. These
beautiful creatures so. exactly resemble the. colour, of
the ‘ sandy deserts which they inhabit, that, they are
most difficult to distinguish, and their extreme shyness
renders stalking upon foot very uncertain. I
accordingly employed. an Arab to lead a camel, under
cover of which I could generally manage to approach;
within a hundred yards. A buck gazelle weighs from
sixty to seventy pounds, and is the perfection of muscular
developinent. No person who has seen, the
gazelles iri confinement in a temperate climate .can;
form an idea of the beauty of the animal in its native
desert. Born in the scorching sun, nursed on the
burning sand of the treeless O and shadowless wilderness,
the gazelle is among the antelope tribe as the