Night fishing !sx With the water so infernally low , besides turning over about five fish for every one landed , you were , in a mixed river like that , just as likely to find yourself fast in a chub or some foul bottom-grubber as a trout .sx Like Professor Brussiloff , in The Clicking of Cuthbert , it gave me the pipovitch .sx Next morning daylight revealed a placard , and the placard revealed that a Tradesmen's Excursion was in the near offing .sx For the information of those who do not know what these excursions are I may say , out of hand , that a Choir Treat is not in it with them .sx You set off at somewhere about 5 a.m. and return at what Whitaker calls 23.59. That indicates the depression to which I was reduced .sx The expedition landed me in paradise via the Carlisle and Maryport Railway , which is suggestive .sx Before me was the view up Borrowdale ; on my right flank rose Skiddaw .sx I walked up to the summit , I walked back , and so to bed , several hours later , via the Maryport , Carlisle , and Caledonian Railway .sx Next week there was another Tradesmen's holiday from a nearby centre .sx This time Arran was the objective .sx I got there too .sx I walked up that Temple of Beelzebub , Goatfell , and enjoyed myself in spite of the flies .sx I felt much better .sx I felt quite happy , even at Kilmarnock Station .sx My joy was a bit damped when I got home to find that the liquor in my whisky bottle had sunk the label .sx I did not enquire .sx I did not complain .sx I went round to The Blue Bell and got half a bottle of whisky and hung round its neck a card bearing the following legend .sx " Please help yourselves out of this bottle and leave mine alone .sx " From that day neither was touched .sx I weathered the winter and next year saw me on the hills as much as ever I could get .sx On my return I met the Doctor .sx He shook hands heartily and said heartily , " You are looking fit .sx What have you been doing ?sx " I told him .sx Then he said , still more heartily , " Damn that Lake District .sx It has lost me a promising patient .sx " FROM BARN TO BARN .sx By H. P. DEVENISH .sx By a curious paradox the South does not offer such hospitality to the thrifty wayfarer as may be found in such generous measure in the Northern Dales .sx In the South , possibly owing to the steadier winds , haystacks are the order of the day and , even when these are roofed over , the regrettably suspicious nature of these foreigners leads them to place them too near the farm buildings for convenience .sx The stout stone-built barn situated well apart from other habitations , which has stood four-square to all the storms for many a hundred years amid the hills typical of the dour yet kindly land which harbours it and which so thrills the heart on a winter's night , is there almost unknown .sx Yet even in the Yorkshire Dales a certain discrimination is advisable .sx Here , too , some barns are nearer the home farm than they should be , and indeed are sometimes incorporated with the farm buildings .sx While these cannot be ignored , their value is restricted , and the experienced barn-walker will only use them in emergency .sx The average farm-yard dog is apt to misconstrue the midnight wanderer's approach , and , should the ensuing ululations succeed in conveying to his bucolic master's mind the idea that something is amiss , the uninvited guest's rest is apt to be disturbed .sx A suggestion emanating from the Principality , that an emergency ration of poisoned meat should be carried for such occasions , may be at once discounted as unworthy of the true sportsman .sx Field barns may be divided into two classes , those which house cows and those which do not .sx The former offer the undoubted advantage of an admirable central heating apparatus and for this reason are much favoured by some schools of thought .sx It cannot , however , be too strongly impressed upon the novice that the countryman has not yet learnt the civilised habit of late rising , and his first waking thoughts always appear to tend cow-wards .sx At this hour his brain is , if possible , even more bemused than usual , and the effort to understand the explanations arising out of an unpremeditated meeting will only cause him needless pain .sx The tactful traveller will therefore arrange his departure at a still earlier hour .sx With the barns which harbour no animals so important as the cow , this inconvenience is considerably mitigated , though even here caution is advisable .sx No hard and fast rules can be laid down , where each case must be judged according to the particular circumstances , but , as a general indication of the accepted modern practice , the following suggestions for the time of departure are offered to the novice :sx 1 .sx Cow-barns .sx Half an hour before the arrival of the farmer .sx 2 .sx Cowless barns .sx Half an hour later than I. .sx Experience is undoubtedly the best teacher , but any serious infraction of these canons will tend to bring a fine sport into disrepute .sx Brewers , and others who possess a reputation , will probably require a further half-hour's handicap , and for this reason it is preferable that all members of the party should be of an approximately similar respectability .sx Some exponents of this pastime prefer to practice single-handed , but there is no doubt that double harness offers advantages which cannot be ignored .sx If , for instance , when the party retires to rest , a back-to-back position is adopted , it will readily be understood that the area of radiation per unit is very considerably reduced , a valuable conservation of heat being thus ensured .sx The experienced barn-walker will therefore choose his colleague for his bulk rather than his conversational ability , for when the temperature is several degrees below freezing , a man's more solid qualities will be better appreciated .sx A tendency to snore should also be deprecated , though this is not of vital importance if the sound practice outlined above be followed .sx It has been suggested that local guide-books should be published , giving the accommodation available in each district , with notes on the respective merits of the barns described .sx Such a course , it is submitted , would not be in the best interests of the pastime , and savours too much of the sybaritic tendencies whose increase has been such a regrettable feature of recent years .sx CHIPPINGS .sx ALPINE CLUB AND KINDRED CLUBS .sx F. H. Slingsby has been elected a member of the Alpine Club .sx T. R. Burnett was President of the Fell and Rock Climbing Club in 1927 , 1928 , and 1929 .sx We regret that this honour was not recorded at the time .sx W. M. Roberts became in 1931 President of the Association of British Members of the Swiss Alpine Club .sx THE CENTRE OF THE CLIMBING WORLD .sx There were once no two answers to the question where in this country is it to be found ?sx One only Wastdale Head , and the precise point round which the climbing world revolved was the famous billiard table with its game of fives .sx Mountaineers hear with a shock that the billiard table has gone !sx Now is the time to secure a leg , or a piece of the cloth , or even of the slate , for the remains are stored somewhere in the barn .sx Such relics may be of untold value in generations which will regard the removal as on a parallel with the destruction of other antiquities , and from such events will trace the down-ward path to , say , the removal of the " wall " at Zermatt , or the Kapelle Weg at Saas .sx The idea of motorists lounging where mountaineers smote and cheered fills one with a sense of ludicrous incongruity .sx No more will the smokeroom empty when wild howls , the thud of feet , and the crash of the ball announce that " the lamp is lit .sx " We can hear them now .sx Wastdale Head can scarcely be itself again till the billiard table has faded into a distant memory .sx Dow CRAGS OR DOE CRAGS .sx The Editor has no use for the iniquities of English spelling , and once more complains that he has got let in .sx The F. & R.C.C. guide-book being entitled " Doe Crags , " he supposed that his own pronunciation of Dow ( to rhyme with Cow ) was locally incorrect , and altered the spelling of the place in Benson's last article to the official form .sx Forthwith he learnt from the wonted amusing post-card that the author's " face had been blackened , " that Benson was .sx a protagonist in a furious controversy Dow or Doe ?sx on the side which rhymes Dow with Cow .sx For his action the Editor immediately presented his most humble apologies , and endeavoured to provoke another to share his indignation with our preposterous spelling , which makes the proper recording of our dialects and of our colloquial speech impossible .sx Benson followed up with an article in the 1931 Climbers' Club Journal in which he proved beyond contradiction that Dow rhymed with Cow , all in his usual delightful vein .sx Unluckily Haskett-Smith also wrote an article , in the 1930 ( i.e. , 1931 ) F. & R. C. C. Journal , which leant the other way .sx The latter , however , hinted that Lakeland dialect speakers are not clear between the two vowels ; only such a fact can make one of his statements credible .sx FASHION AND POPULARITY .sx One of the amusing Press stunts of the last year or so has been the attention given to " hiking " and " hikers .sx " Originating in Manchester and Sheffield , the fashion of going about on Sunday in a particular type of costume has spread to other towns , and boomed by the Press has reached even to Punch and the shop windows .sx Apart from Derbyshire , which appears to have been flooded with people every Sunday for years , there is undoubtedly a marked increase in the number of walkers close in to large towns and along certain routes .sx How far the movement really goes is a matter of dispute .sx The number of visitors to the Ingleborough area may not have increased , but certainly on some routes in the Leeds district there are innumerable parties of walkers to be seen , where once there were few .sx Conway's point , that the extension of transport facilities tends to fix the crowd more firmly to certain lines , has still much force .sx The best districts of our immediate area are , at the moment , no more visited than formerly , and the only hiker the writer has met , off the fixed routes , turned out to be a Rambler with his jacket packed up .sx How long will the present fashion last ?sx Some people hold that most of it is only a modern form of " petting party , " others that the walkers will once again revert to cycling .sx The latter sport has never ceased to attract a host of stout fellows , and plucky girls , but the turning of the roads intorailway tracks , the bad behaviour of many motorists and the ill-temper exhibited by most towards cyclists , have introduced a peril and discomfort into cycling which in the Editor's opinion must make " hiking " a more permanent competitor with cycling that has hitherto been the case .sx A regrettable feature is the distinct tendency in the Press to ascribe all sorts of hooliganism and misbehaviour to " hikers .sx " This kind of thing is performed by exactly the same classes and types as before the present fashion .sx and it makes no difference to them whether they have motored or walked at the present day they are more likely to have come by motor , public or private .sx An unfortunate consequence of this campaign of innuendo and depreciation may be a growth of hostility towards ordinary well conducted people on the part of employees of the land-owners .sx The worst of it is the landowner would be the sufferer in the public esteem .sx Lack of discretion towards the classes sympathetic with them , towards ladies and children , would recoil on them .sx Argue as people like , there is a distinction between trampling through crops , and walking along a lonely private road or over rough pasture .sx TRAVELLING CHANGES .sx It will probably be another fifty years before there are any improvements in the method of landing passengers from the cross-Channel steamers , but some sudden railway changes make one hope that the French companies may soon be able to afford chalk and blackboards sufficient to announce whence and when their trains leave .sx