WESTERN WATERS 143 



moving in a manner which increases my im- 

 patience. However, I am too old a hand to 

 neglect precautions in my haste, and my cast 

 is carefully soaked and straightened, and the 

 joints of my rod firmly tied together before I 

 select my flies, a small blue doctor for the tail- 

 fly, and two very small sea-trout flies, a claret 

 body and on orange, for droppers. Of course, 

 droppers would not do in many salmon rivers, 

 but in this one there are but few stones, and 

 what there are I know well ; and I have often 

 been surprised at the luck I have had with 

 them : the salmon taking the tiny flies when 

 they have refused the larger. 



Above me, on the opposite bank,* is the 

 wood of Kirnan, called after the farm just 

 above, the birthplace of the poet Campbell, 

 and the scene of the " desolate garden " he 

 found on "revisiting Argyleshire." If his ghost 

 were to walk there now he would not find " one 

 rose of the wilderness left on its stalk, to show 

 where a garden had been," or anything at all 

 resembling the ideal landscape depicted by 

 Millais on the subject, but substantial farm- 

 buildings, with oats and potatoes growing up 

 to the very door. The pool is the shape of a 

 horse- shoe, or, rather, of a boomerang. The 

 river runs sharply over a shallow at the top, 

 and deepens under the opposite bank, running 

 briskly till it comes to the turn, where a back- 



