THE BLA.CKWEIL. 117 



never disappoint you. Fish it as you did the G-reenup, that is, 

 first very cautiously, with grilze and sea trout flies, next with 

 minnow. If the waters be in good order go on with the min- 

 now. Noble streams and pools await you ; the rough water all 

 the way down to Shanna Bank and Abbey St. Bathan's, furnish 

 the finest angling ground in Britain. In the boat hole alone, as 

 it is called, with the water clear, and a strong easterly wind 

 blowing, I have taken, with a pair of flies, six dozen trout. This 

 pool is near Shanna Bank. 



Now come the streams and stepping-stones across from the 

 village to the hill-side, and lastly, that terminating in the Mill- 

 dam. In these streams you may take as many trout as you 

 like. They do not fear the people crossing the stepping-stones. 



But should you have time, pass the Mill-dam, and try the 

 stream below at the Whereburn mouth. You may take a two 

 or three pound trout in this stream should the water be in good 

 order. They take fly readily, but minnow is the bait here, and 

 in the next stream below, at the turn where the river is about 

 to enter the woods of the Eetreat. 



Take care how you attempt to reach Cockburn's Path from 

 St. Agnes, or from the Cottage ; dangerous and terrible clefts in 

 the elevated and hilly land intersect your road, in which run 

 the streams that join the ocean near Dunglass. An unhappy man, 

 in the prime of life, returning to the sea-side late in the evening, 

 missed his way, and fell into one of these deep clefts. Happy 

 would it have been for him had he been killed by the fall, for it 

 appeared that, merely breaking the thigh bone, he had crawled 

 down the rocky bed of the stream for many hours, perhaps 

 even days. Rendered furious with hunger, he had, before 

 death, gnawed the flesh off his own shoulder. When suffering 

 from hunger, a sort of insanity seizes some persons. Thirty- 

 eight hours without food of any kind, and in active exercise 

 during a part of the time, is as much as most men can sustain. 



If the angler can find a resting-place at St. Bathan's, which I 

 doubt, he ought to remain here ; if not, he must either return 

 to the Cottage or push on for Dunse. It is a wild country, 

 without inns or hotels, cabarets, or places of refreshment of any 

 kind. The angler must look to his own resources. He cannot 



