AND ANGLING SONGS. 121 



IV. 



And again returning, boys, 



We '11 talk our triumphs o'er, 

 Tongue and bosom burning, boys, 

 As they have burn'd before ; 

 While we told 

 Feats of old, 

 We never, we never may equal more. 



Reverting to our piscatorial stroll in 1832 : from Bunaw we 

 started on the 3d of June, along the heights which superintend 

 Loch Etive, with the intention of fishing the river Etive in the 

 afternoon, and reaching Dalness about sunset. There was no 

 track, not even a shepherd's, across the deep, in some places 

 waist-deep, heather circling the base of Cruachan, through which 

 we had to struggle, nor as a guide to our destination was there 

 any needed, for the sea-arm stretched up towards the glen, and 

 lay below us in inflexible stillness. Such another natural mirror 

 as Loch Etive, one so reflective of the grand and the lovely, lies 

 framed nowhere within our island. Its summer's-day pageant, 

 in which cloud, precipice, and waterfall, masses of granite of 

 huge dimensions, the gnarled remains of forests, weeping birch, 

 heath, moss, and fern, severally take part, is fascinating beyond 

 all power of description. The loch itself is more like a feeler 

 than an arm of the salt abyss ; it stretches so far inland, and is 

 so insinuating, so silent in its approaches, and in the bearing 

 away of its mountain tribute. There is a glassy transparency 

 about it, at the same time, that excels what usually belongs to 

 fresh-water lakes. It is by the aid of this marine, or rather ultra- 

 marine complexion, more than by any other distinguishing 

 feature, the ebb and flow of the tide excepted, that its ocean 

 origin becomes betrayed. 



