then there was a heave, a roll, a splash, a slap like a pistol-shot; down
went Sam, and up went the salmon, spun like a shilling at pitch and toss,
six feet into the air. I leaped in just as he came to the water; but my
foot caught between two stones, and the more I pulled the firmer it stuck.
The fish fell in a spot shallower than that from which he had leaped. Sam
saw the chance, and tackled to again: while I, sitting down in the stream
as best I might, held up my torch, and cried fair play, as shoulder to
shoulder, throughout and about, up and down, roll and tumble, to it they
went, Sam and the salmon. The Twister was never so twined before. Yet
through crossbuttocks and capsizes innumerable, he still held on; now
haled through a pool; now haling up a bank; now heels over head; now head
over heels; now head and heels together; doubled up in a corner; but at
last stretched fairly on his back, and foaming for rage and disappointment;
while the victorious salmon, slapping the stones with his tail, and
whirling the spray from his shoulders at every roll, came boring and
snoring up the ford. I tugged and strained to no purpose; he flashed by me
with a snort, and slid into the deep water. Sam now staggered forward with
battered bones and peeled elbows, blowing like a grampus, and cursing like
nothing but himself. He extricated me, and we limped home. Neither rose
for a week; for I had a dislocated ankle, and the Twister was troubled
with a broken rib. Poor Sam! he had his brains discovered at last by a
poker in a row, and was worm's meat within three months; yet, ere he died,
he had the satisfaction of feasting on his old antagonist, who was man's
meat next morning. They caught him in a net. Sam knew him by the twist in
his tail.--_Blackwood's Magazine_.

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DIAMONDS IN BRAZIL.