142 AN ANGLER'S RAMBLES 



ROSS-SHIRE. 



My first acquaintance with the rivers and lakes of Ross-shire 

 was formed during a pedestrian tour which dates from 27th June 

 1835, the starting-point, so far as fishing was concerned, being 

 the river Earn at Crieff. To this river and its tributaries I have 

 already referred ; also to the waters, including the Spey, Loch 

 Ness, etc., in which I clipped line on my way. At that date, I 

 may mention, there was little or no hindrance throughout Perth- 

 shire and Inverness-shire to angling with the rod for river-trout. 

 The proprietors of the waters themselves rarely interfered with 

 its pursuit, and it was not until shootings and fishings came to 

 be regarded as a righteous source of income that any arrestment 

 was laid upon the wandering will of the pedestrian armed with 

 waving wand among our lakes and rivers. I do not affirm that 

 this was the case everywhere ; but in the counties named, with 

 a sprinkling of exceptions which I may take the opportunity of 

 alluding to, it certainly was. 



My introduction to Ross-shire, in fact, brought me into imme- 

 diate contact with an instance of this sort, in the case of the 

 Rasay or Blackwater, in the vicinity of Contin. It was only a 

 portion of it, however, that subtending the Falls of Rogie, and 

 which might be said to consist of a succession of salmon-casts, 

 that the then proprietor, the late Sir George Mackenzie of Coul, 

 placed his veto upon. In ignorance of this state of matters, on 

 coming suddenly upon the river from Strathpeffer, I was about 

 to put together my rod with the view of taking a cast, when I 

 was accosted by a tall, homely-looking man, with a halt in his 

 gait, whom, by his pronunciation of the you and me (converted 

 into yow and rney\ I had no difficulty in recognising as a native 

 of Selkirkshire. The interchange of a few words served to intro- 

 duce him to me as an old friend of the Ettrick Shepherd. He 



