48 THE BORDER ANGLER. 



or interruption. Its banks, also, are in keeping with 

 its other advantages not naked and barren, neither 

 spongy and overgrown with rushes, nor yet crowded 

 with close and impervious wood, but mostly dry and 

 inviting, fringed in many parts with oak, ash, elm, 

 and beech, and in others hung over with the pleasant 

 alder, among the roots of which is often harboured a 

 goodly and well-grown trout, impatient for some drop- 

 ping fly or incautious worm. Most to our favour, 

 however, is its choice formation of bottom or channel, 

 fertile in food, provided with shelter, and admirably 

 fitted to the purpose of spawning." How many thou- 

 sands would add their affidavit to Mr. Thomas Todd 

 Stoddart's panegyric ! 



Although it is only some six or seven miles above 

 the Crook, we have never beheld the green well- eye in 

 the side of the same hill that gives birth to the Clyde 

 and the Annan from which issues the infant Tweed. 

 We the less regret this, however, since, in looking up 

 exact information on the subject, we have discovered 

 a joke, or rather a mild approach to one, in the Sta- 

 tistical Account of Scotland. " It may with truth be 

 said/' remarks the reverend author of the account of 

 the parish of Tweedsmuir, " that though the origin of 

 the Tweed be humble, it is not lowly, as the spring 

 whence it flows is fully 1500 feet above the sea's level." 

 To make this descent to stray from Erickstane-brae 

 with willing sport to the wild ocean the Tweed has 

 to run a course of fully a hundred miles. What angler 

 could not follow it lovingly, and, like Violet, 



" Be as patient as the gentle stream, 

 And make a pastime of each weary step, 

 Till the last step hath brought him t>"- 



