72 AUTUMNS ON THE SPEY. 



The great advantage of these boots consists in 

 their excessive warmth. They should be very 

 large and capacious, especially in the feet, so as 

 to admit of the introduction of horsehair soles 

 at the bottom, and, if necessary, two pair of long, 

 thick worsted stockings, pulled over the legs of a 

 pair of ordinary tweed trowsers. Fortified in this 

 way, I have repeatedly waded for hours in rapid 

 streams, when the temperature of the water was 

 freezing, from melted snow, without experiencing 

 the slightest chilliness or inconvenience. 



When the sides of a stream or pool, along which 

 it is desirable to wade, are known beforehand, or 

 in ordinary shallows, these boots will answer all 

 purposes, and are exceedingly comfortable and 

 convenient, but where it is important to advance 

 into deeper water, with an uncertain footing among 

 slippery conical rocks below, to reach a goodly 

 salmon that has been rising at a tantalizing 

 distance ; or when making a voyage of discovery 

 among the labyrinthian mazes of the last three 

 miles of the Spey, which perhaps have been unex- 

 plored since their creation by the recent heavy 

 spates ; and especially if dealing with a strong 

 runaway fish struggling hard to return to the 

 ocean which he has just left, and threatening 

 every moment to break the single gut and tiny 



