I took off the flies and put on one of those phantom minnows which have immortalised the name of a certain Mr. Brown.  The minnow swung on a long line as the boat passed back and forth across the current, once, twice, three times—­and on the fourth circle there was a sharp strike.  The rod bent almost double, and the reel sang shrilly to the first rush of the fish.  He ran; he doubled; he went to the bottom and sulked; he tried to go under the boat; he did all that a game fish can do, except leaping.  After twenty minutes he was tired enough to be lifted gently into the boat by a hand slipped around his gills, and there he was, a lachsforelle of three pounds’ weight:  small pointed head; silver sides mottled with dark spots; square, powerful tail and large fins—­a fish not unlike the land-locked salmon of the Saguenay, but more delicate.

Half an hour later he was lying on the grass in front of the Inn.  The waiters paused, with their hands full of dishes, to look at him; and the landlord called his guests, including my didactic tourists, to observe the superiority of the trout of the Grundlsee.  The maids also came to look; and the buxom cook, with her spotless apron and bare arms akimbo, was drawn from her kitchen, and pledged her culinary honour that such a pracht-kerl should be served up in her very best style.  The angler who is insensible to this sort of indirect flattery through his fish does not exist.  Even the most indifferent of men thinks more favourably of people who know a good trout when they see it, and sits down to his supper with kindly feelings.  Possibly he reflects, also, upon the incident as a hint of the usual size of the fish in that neighbourhood.  He remembers that he may have been favoured in this case beyond his deserts by good-fortune, and resolving not to put too heavy a strain upon it, considers the next place where it would be well for him to angle.

Hallstatt is about ten miles below Aussee.  The Traun here expands into a lake, very dark and deep, shut in by steep and lofty mountains.  The railway runs along the eastern shore.  On the other side, a mile away, you see the old town, its white houses clinging to the cliff like lichens to the face of a rock.  The guide-book calls it “a highly original situation.”  But this is one of the cases where a little less originality and a little more reasonableness might be desired, at least by the permanent inhabitants.  A ledge under the shadow of a precipice makes a trying winter residence.  The people of Hallstatt are not a blooming race:  one sees many dwarfs and cripples among them.  But to the summer traveller the place seems wonderfully picturesque.  Most of the streets are flights of steps.  The high-road has barely room to edge itself through among the old houses, between the window-gardens of bright flowers.  On the hottest July day the afternoon is cool and shady.  The gay, little skiffs and long, open gondolas are flitting continually along the lake, which is the main street of Hallstatt.