THE FINDHORN 167 



this flood occurred on 2nd, 3rd, and 4th August, and Sir Thomas 

 Dick Lauder in his book on the Moray floods gives a very full 

 account of the awful damage done, the new river courses 

 opened, and the trees, bridges and houses that were carried 

 away. Writing of the scene at the Haugh of Rannoch on 4th 

 August, he says : " Before I left the spot, I saw one of the 

 under-gardeners wade into the water as it had begun to ebb 

 on the haugh, and with his umbrella, drive ashore and capture 

 a fine salmon at an elevation of 50 feet above the ordinary level of 

 the Findhorn." Most remarkable accounts are given of the 

 humorous and pathetic incidents which occurred during those 

 three fearful days. Four fishing boats sailed up over the 

 flooded country from the village of Findhorn, to rescue people 

 from their house-tops, sailed miles and miles over the fields 

 and hedges round Forres, the boat bottoms sometimes brushing 

 through the tops of wheat and oat crops. The skipper of the 

 " Nancy," which carried a crew of six men, wrote a log of his 

 extraordinary cruise, in a breezy, amusing style. For instance, 

 after making his passage down the turnpike road and landing 

 at the Little Bridge End, he set off again, and writes, " set all 

 sail, scudded with a fair wind over Mr. Davidson's farm, and 

 steered for a small house on the north side of the estate of 

 Tarmachy. . . . Having taken in Mr. Smyth of Waterford's 

 grieve and two men servants, we sailed down the market green, 

 and by the end of the Lee-brig, and out the road to Waterford." 



There were many branches of the lower Findhorn when the 

 floods began to subside, and it is impossible nowadays to 

 picture the scene of wreckage and desolation. The Divie 

 opened a considerable stretch of entirely new course. I believe 

 floods of more recent date have at times reminded the 

 inhabitants of this fertile Forres region of what happened in 

 the past. Strangely enough, Forres is one of the dryest regions 

 in the country, and if it be true that the average rainfall in 

 Scotland or elsewhere is slowly becoming less and less, they 

 may be secure in trusting that the like will never occur again. 



Here and there in the gorge above Sluie the water is hard to 

 reach, but if early fish were allowed up, there is much of the 

 river which would become of greatly increased value ; and at 

 the same time the distribution of the available stock would 

 become much more uniform at the spawning season. 



