62 AN ANGLER'S RAMBLES 



From Fort Augustus I proceeded by way of Strath- Errick to 

 the General's Hut, not far from the Fall of Foyers. The range 

 of country through which I passed abounds in small lochs, all of 

 which communicate more or less directly with Loch Ness, and 

 contain yellow trout ; some of them pike. The day being a 

 Sunday I left them to their repose, which did not appear as if 

 at any time it was much distui'bed by the angler. My respects 

 to the celebrated waterfall were paid in course of the same 

 afternoon. 



I may here remark that all sights and sounds in which water 

 acts a leading part, exercise a special influence, quite distinct 

 from what they maintain over the generality of view-hunters, on 

 the mind of the angler ; and although, as in the case of the 

 Foyers Falls, there is nothing, properly speaking, pertinent to 

 the sport, I defy him, with the roar and turmoil that greet his 

 ear, with the flash, the spray- mist, and the rainbow, the seething 

 caldron, the precipitous rock and its mossy vegetation with the 

 whole combination, in fact, of sounds and sights presented to him 

 not to associate thoughts of his favourite pastime. An angler 

 thoroughly imbued with the spirit of his art, will connect its 

 practice, in spite almost of reason, with much more improbable 

 places than a Highland waterfall like that of Foyers ; indeed, I 

 have known among my friends more than one who could not 

 look upon any accumulation of the watery element a puddle, for 

 instance, in the street of a town or city, occasioned by a defect 

 in its drainage without yielding himself up to the idea that it 

 contained subjects of sport with the rod and line. 



To my fondness of scenery, taken by itself, I fear I am 

 too far implicated in the piscatorial mania to do proper justice ; 

 and I begin to doubt if, even as the spectator of such a cataract 

 as Niagara, I could separate the loftier emotions of awe and 

 wonder, with which naturally the mind becomes filled in its pre- 

 sence, from that exercise of the fancy which would convert the 



