152 AN ANGLER'S RAMBLES 



x. 



And night, with dewy forehead bent, 

 Holdeth its vigil solemn, 



Till the red architect of morn. 



Upon a cloud-car slowly born, 

 Erects his amber column ! 



THE CONOK 



I AM led, passing from the Blackwater, to say something of 

 its recipient, the Conon, a main discharge flowing into the Portus 

 Salutis, as the Cromarty Firth was named by the Romans. It 

 was the first of the Ross-shire rivers which I disturbed with my 

 rod, and I did so under the impression a Lowlander is liable to 

 form of this river at first sight, viz., that it abounds in yellow 

 trout. In the portion of its course fished by me on the 8th of 

 July 1835, that which stretches betwixt Muirton and Scatwell, 

 this conclusion, I admit, is not greatly favoured. One or two of 

 the casts, however, promised well ; and as they were in good 

 trim for fly-fishing I was led to expect something satisfactory in 

 the way of sport. On this head, however, I was disappointed ; 

 the result, indeed, of the whole day's labour, for it could not be 

 called amusement, was disheartening in the extreme. The only 

 agreeable incident, that of playing and landing a beautifully 

 formed fresh-water trout of about two pounds' weight, occurred 

 when I was on the point of winding-up line and accepting the 

 pressing hospitalities of the occupant of Scatwell cottage, Mr. 

 Alexander Mackenzie of Millbank, to whom, from a common 

 friend no other than the late Professor Wilson I had a note 

 of introduction. In Mrs. Gordon's Life of the Professor, vol. i. 

 p. 224, a letter is inserted, bearing upon the circumstances which 

 led to an intimacy betwixt them ; and I well recollect an occa- 



