2 8o Notes oil Sport and Travel i 



level of the sea ; and old Ross of Tongue, who is 

 not given to romance, assures me that he has caught 

 what he calls trout-char, weighing from half a pound 

 to a pound and a half, on the fly in the lochs of 

 Ben Hope. What are they ? 



In Assynt the lakes are in number infinite, and 

 in variety endless. From noble Loch Assynt, with 

 its islands and woods, down to the little rock-set 

 basin not ten yards across, with its circular wreath 

 of water-lilies, and its smooth, gray, ice-worn, gneiss 

 banks dashed with strips of purple heather, they 

 meet you at every turn. There you may launch 

 your boat twenty times a day without going far from 

 the road ; and if you find the trout in one wee lochie 

 too small or too shy, walk or drive over the bank 

 and find another and another loch, till you come to 

 one that suits you. 



I do not care much for loch-fishing myself; but 

 I am of so fishy and webby a nature that I take to 

 the water at once, or I should have told you to look 

 at the rocks instead of the lakes. Yet what should I 

 have profited if I had ? For are not the mountain 

 wonders of Assynt and the West coast indescribable, 

 and would you not have looked at them at once on 

 arriving there, without being told to do so, that is, if 

 you could see them ? Unfortunately for the passing 

 tourist, these western mountains are very coy of 

 discovering their charms, and are much given to the 

 shrouding them for weeks at a time in thick veils of 

 Atlantic mist. But however long you have to wait 



