Nay, I will even go farther and express a grave suspicion whether the Scotland of these bookish romances is not the daring imposture of a _ben trovato_. For, after a prolonged residence of over a fortnight, I have never seen anything approaching a mountain pass, nor a dizzy crag, surmounted by an eagle, nor any stag drinking itself full at eve among the shady trunks of a deer-forest! I have never met a single mountaineer in feminine bonnet and plumes and short petticoats, and pipes inserted in a bag. Nor do the inhabitants dance in the street upon 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, as if on a monument, I could not succeed in catching the eye of any passing fish, and so, severely disheartened by my ill-luck, I was strolling on, shouldering my rod, when--odzooks! whom should I encounter but Mister BAGSHOT and a party of friends, who were watching his keepers capture salmons from a boat by means of a large net, a far more practical and effectual method than the cumbersome and unreliable device of a meretricious fly with a very visible hook! And, just as I approached, the net was drawn towards the bank, and proved to contain three very large lively fishes lashing their tails with ungovernable fury at such detention! Whereupon I made the humble petition to Mister BAGSHOT that, since he was now the favourite of Fortune, he was to remember him to whom she had denied her simpers, and bestow upon me the most mediocre of the salmons, since I was desirous to make a polite offering to the amiable daughter of my host and hostess.