1 84 THE SALMON 



Highland home of Sir John Fowler. Certainly the 

 views from Ben Dearig Ben Lear, of the exquisitely 

 shaped Dundonell Hills, Loch Broom, and the 

 wilderness of fairy islands at its mouth, are a dream 

 of beauty ; but a like charm attaches to the beautiful 

 river which dashes through gorges and over boulders 

 at the foot of the biae. How lovely are the slopes 

 above in all the glory of their autumn clothing of 

 bracken and birch ! 



From the beautiful pool where one first casts a 

 fly, to the place where the river joins the sea, there is 

 not a spot where it would not be a pleasure to loiter, 

 even without a rod in hand. There is to me a fasci- 

 nation in a rushing stream which justifies the old 

 legend that all evil things are powerless to pass across 

 running water — the very sight washes the cobwebs 

 from the brain ; and if one cannot watch the red deer 

 in a state of nature as one may do in the corries 

 above, the pugnacious stags and the sentinel hinds, 

 the eagles soaring round the peaks, and the ptarmigan 

 crooning among the stones, it is no slight pleasure to 

 study the habits of the more homely creatures which 

 haunt the river and its banks. One comes suddenly 

 right upon an old heron first motionless in a shallow, 

 then blundering off with hasty flight and discordant 

 cry when it realises the presence of an intruder ; the 



