DELTA OP THE SPEY. 11 



the current throughout is necessarily very great.* 

 Numerous rapids, as well as deep pools, continually 

 succeed each other, and the water, even within a 

 hundred yards of the sea, is perfectly fresh at all 

 periods of the tide ; while from the frequent shift- 

 ing of the bed of the stream, this river, although 

 it ranks as the second in Scotland in its volume, 

 draining not less than 1300 square miles of 

 country, is not navigable. Indeed to the realiza- 

 tion of such an idea, fresh obstacles, more wel- 

 come to the salmon-fisher and the wild-fowl 

 shooter than to the political economist, conti- 

 nually occur during this portion of its final 

 course. 



And now the "haughs," or real winter banks, 

 of the Spey, withdraw gradually on either side ; 

 the intervening space, sometimes more than a 

 mile in width, being, in fact, the delta of the 

 river; a veritable wilderness of boulders and 

 shingle, varied with islands and peninsulas, some 

 mere sandbanks, others covered with alders, gorse, 

 and bushes, through all of which it meanders in a 

 perfect labyrinth of streams. These occasionally 

 meet, only to separate again ; and although they 



* "It is the most rapid river in Scotland. Its fall for the last 

 three miles of its course is sixty feet." Survey of the Province 

 of Moray, published at Aberdeen, A.D. 1798, page 98. 



