THE TWEED — PEEBLES. 59 



bodies, however, are shocking poachers, and we should 

 imagine the Tweed bailiffs would like to have an 

 Aladdin's lamp to shift the town to some other quarter 

 of the globe during the winter season. At this point 

 the Tweed is in every way adapted for all kinds of 

 poaching implements — straik-net, cairn-net, rod, leis- 

 ter, and cleek, can all be used with the most mur- 

 derous effect. In the district of which Peebles is the 

 head-quarters, many hundreds, probably thousands, of 

 spawning salmon and foul fish were last year killed. 

 As respects trout-fishing, perhaps the chief drawback 

 to Peebles is the expertness of the inhabitants them- 

 selves in the art. Some of the adepts of the town 

 would be " bad to beat," and they are much addicted 

 to fishing, know the water of course thoroughly, and 

 even a good angler may chance to find himself obliged 

 to sing very small when baskets come to be compared 

 by the river side, or to be talked of in the evening at 

 the Tontine. Besides the Tweed, the waters com- 

 manded from Peebles are the Lyne, the Manor, and 

 the Eddlestone, which have already been noticed, and 

 several burns, like that at Hayston, which would pro- 

 bably repay examination. There are excellent hotels 

 at Peebles, of which the Tontine is the chief, but in 

 the Commercial, the Crown, and the Cross-Keys, all 

 the accommodation that an angler or a traveller may 

 want can be obtained. For those disposed to make a 

 stay there are plenty of lodgings. 



Innerleithen, popularly believed to be the St. Ronan's 

 of Sir Walter Scott's novel, is six miles below Peebles, 

 a convenient distance for a day's angling, or it may be 

 reached by an omnibus which runs between it and the 



