150 THE SALMON RIVERS OF SCOTLAND 



seen haycocks 'floating about in autumn, and once the water 

 gets beyond the proper bounds it stays there for a long time. 

 The river banks seem constantly breaking away, and much 

 labour is expended in combating the force of the water. The 

 cause of the whole difficulty is the action of the River Feshie, 

 a tributary of some size, which enters the Spey a short distance 

 below the loch. The Feshie rises in the heart of the Grampians 

 south of the Cairngorm range, on the western side of the divide 

 which separates the new-born Dee on the one hand from the 

 source of the Tilt flowing to the Tay on the other. It has in 

 early ages scooped out a deep glen of the most wild and 

 picturesque sort, and poured vast quantities of detritus into 

 the Spey valley, levelling up the natural gradient and damming 

 back the upper waters. Landseer painted many of his deer in 

 Glen Feshie, where, when last I visited it, a studio hut, with 

 the mouldering fragments of a large subject of grouped stags, 

 was still visible on the plaster. Thompson of Duddingston 

 also painted those wild solitudes where, he said, " the sky over 

 such a scene seemed the floor of heaven." The Feshie is still 

 subject to most violent floods, and is still carrying down its 

 talus of gravel. Yet the feat of draining Loch Insh is not 

 insurmountable, although greater interests than those of the 

 salmon would be necessary to promote it. 



It is curious that in close proximity we should have Loch 

 Insh and Loch an Eilan, two lochs with Gaelic names meaning 

 practically the same thing. The island in the latter, with its 

 ruined castle, the erstwhile home of the osprey, is sufficiently 

 evident and completely beautiful. The Insh or Inch of the 

 other loch is only existent in times of flood. At the northern 

 end of the loch, where the river again takes shape, there is a 

 dduble knoll of considerable extent, covered with trees. This 

 is at times converted into an island, and is the origin of the 

 name Loch Insh. It is, moreover, of such remarkable interest 

 as to demand some notice. The more northerly of the two 

 knolls is called Ion Enonan, otherwise the Island of Adamnan. 

 Now, Adamnan was the biographer of Saint Columba, and 

 became himself a saint. On this knoll is the modern church of 

 Insh, which occupies the site, and is actually built upon the 

 remains of what is, I suppose, the oldest ecclesiastical edifice in 

 all broad Scotland. The dedication of the early building to 



