232 ANGLING REMINISCENCES. 



mingled with shrubs and saplings, which steal down 

 luxuriantly among the rill-worn fissures. Here, 

 with imprecating arms, a storm-cleft oak towers 

 over the abyss there an ivy mourns and, 

 beyond it, 



*' Self-pleased, a graceful birch 

 Nods to its image in the glassy pool." 



To eye Findhorn to advantage, one must adopt 

 the angler's method of river-coursing. Its channel 

 he must convert into his highway, and plunge un- 

 hesitatingly through such fords as promise to lead 

 him towards the best view-stances and juts of observe. 

 Your knapsack-tourists will gain nothing by confining 

 themselves to the pinnacles and embankments ; they 

 must e'en descend to the water's surface, and look 

 for an eye- feast upwards, not, as is their use, over 

 and across. 



As an angling water, we found Findhorn at certain 

 points incomparable. The period, however, of our 

 visit was such that it required little or no skill to 

 take fish. Five, eleven, and nine salmon, were the 

 several results of our operations during the three 

 days preceding the 15th, when the waters, to our 

 great disappointment, became shut up, and we were 

 forced to adopt our route southward, without testing, 

 as we originally intended, the primest of salmon- 

 rivers, Spey. 



May. A mighty mortification, indeed, Master 





