THE SPEY 149 



ground to the east of Loch Oich, near where the Roy flows 

 south to the Spean. 



Lonely little Loch Spey here catches the rivulets and unites 

 them into the little stream which has so many miles before it as 

 it flows away to the east and north. A mere tarn is Loch Spey, 

 and hard to get to, although the Highland Railway passes 

 within some 16 miles of it. An ill-defined track goes through 

 the pass beyond the loch to the head of the Tarff, and so down 

 into the great glen, as it trends north to Fort Augustus. 



The Spey for some miles below its loch of origin is gravelly 

 and well suited for spawning purposes. Before the Truim 

 joins it, however, in the deep wooded defile, one may see on the 

 left from the railway track between Dalwhinnie and Newton- 

 more a stretch of still water has supervened. The Truim is 

 also a fine spawning stream of crystal water, a natural place for 

 the spawning of the earliest spring fish. Down to Newtonmore 

 there is again some fine water. The growing district of Newton- 

 more sends in summer time a most noticeable and undesirable 

 supply of sewage to the river by a long pipe carried in a mound 

 across the local golf course. With plenty of room to adopt a 

 simple system of land filtration, it is a pity that quite an effort 

 should be made to reach the river with the direct sewage outfall. 



Below Newtonmore a stretch of sluggish water exists which, 

 with one break opposite Kingussie, terminates near Kincraig 

 in Loch Insh, which, as has already been said, is in reality a 

 widening or spreading out of the river over a flat part of the 

 strath. This loch is commonly described as about a mile long 

 and half a mile broad, but it is often extremely difficult to say 

 where the loch ends and where the river channel is, for in times 

 of flood the water gets over the retaining banks of the river 

 above the loch proper and covers a great extent of flat meadow 

 land. It is not an unfamiliar sight in passing by train between 

 Kingussie and Kincraig (the old name of which was Boat of 

 Inch) to see the water up to the top of the fence at the side of 

 the railway embankment, and to find it encroaching also on 

 the haughs beyond the railway. Yet in winter, when the water 

 is frozen, the track of the river out in the centre of the loch can 

 frequently be made out more certainly than at any other time. 

 It has often seemed to me that the making of hay on those 

 Loch Insh meadows must be peculiarly heartbreaking. I have 



