55 



adorned with fine wood, which adds so much real 

 beauty to all running water scenes, but which is 

 often an impediment to the free and unshackled 

 exercise of the fly-rod. 



The country in this section of the Clyde is very 

 interesting to Scotchmen especially, on account of 

 the poetical associations connected with it, and like- 

 wise as being one of the chief battle-fields where the 

 Covenanters fought and suffered for the sake of reli- 

 gious freedom. There was a great slaughter made 

 of them at Both well Bridge, in the early part of the 

 sixteenth century; and there is scarcely a remote 

 dell or sequestered rock, for many miles on each side 

 of the river, that is not hallowed as a traditionary 

 hiding-place of some of these truly heroic and cruelly 

 persecuted men. This locality is likewise considered 

 as the cradle of Scottish poetry and song. " Oh ! 

 Bothwell bank, thou bloomest fair," carries with it 

 both the feelings of antiquity and admiration in the 

 minds of the country-people in the neighbourhood. 

 And a story is told by historians of credit, connected 

 with this popular air, which, though it may appear 

 to ordinary readers as partaking of the marvellous, 

 is, to our minds, perfectly natural, and, we have no 

 doubt, perfectly true. The fact is derived from a 

 work published at Amsterdam, in Holland, in the 

 year 1605. It runs thus : A Scotch gentleman, 

 travelling through Palestine, recognised a female at 

 a door lulling a child to sleep, to the tune of Both- 

 well Bank. Under the influence of surprise and 

 delight, he accosted the female. She said she was 



