A little further down the river, a singular mode of taking fish excited the travellers’ attention. “In a place where the water fell from a height, the fishermen had dug out pits about the size of a house, and laying them with stones in the form of the lower part of a cooking furnace, they had heaped on stones above the pits, leaving only one passage for the water to descend; they had piled up the stones in such a manner that, except by this single passage, there was no other for the fish either to come or go. The water of the stream finding its way through these stones, this contrivance answered the purpose of a fishpool. In winter, whenever fish were required, they opened one of these pits and took out forty or fifty fish at a time. In some convenient place of the pit, an opening was formed, and excepting at that outlet, all the sides of it were secured with rice straw, over which stones were piled up. At the opening was fastened a kind of wicker-work like a net; the two extremities being contracted were brought near each other. In the middle of this first wicker-net was fixed another piece of wicker net-work, in such a way that the mouth of this last might correspond with that of the other, but its whole length be only about half of that of the one first mentioned. The mouth of this inner net-work was made very narrow. Whatever entered, passed of necessity into the larger wicker-net, the lower part of which was so constructed that no fish could escape back. The lower part of the mouth of the inner wicker-net was so formed, that when fish had once entered the upper part, they were forced to proceed one by one down to the lower part of its mouth. The sharpened sticks forming the lower part of the mouth were brought close together: whatever passed this mouth came into the larger wicker-net, the lower passage of which was strongly secured, so that the fish could not escape; for if it happened to turn and attempt to swim back, it could not get up in consequence of the sharpened prongs that formed the lower mouth of the small inner wicker-net. Every time the fishermen bring their nets, they fasten them on the water-course of the fishpool, and then take off the covering of the fishpool, leaving all its sides secured by the rice straw. Whatever they can lay hold of in the hollow pit they seize, while every fish that attempts to escape by the only issue left, necessarily comes into the wicker-net that has been mentioned, and is taken there.”[20] The Mogul chief entered familiarly into conversation with the fishermen, who, being from among the lowest caste of Hindoos, had no great scruple at entering into conversation with Mahomedans. “Have you plenty of game in these jungles?” asked the Mogul. “Enough of that, but it is no easy matter to come at it; for there are numbers of animals to share it, which don’t hesitate at laying their armed paws upon intruders.” “But a man ought at any time to be a match for a brute.”