130 PISH AND FISHING IN SCOTLAND. 



(for he rambled from home as often as he could), stands on a 

 rising ground not far from Yarrow's banks. I never hear his 

 name mentioned now ; yet he wrote some sweet songs, and was 

 no doubt a man of genius. But as Horatius Placcus eclipsed all 

 minor poets of his day, obscuring or even destroying reputations 

 which, but for the great luminary, would have sparkled and shone, 

 so Burns put out the lesser lights of his age. To the south of 

 Yarrow stretches a vast, naked, hilly country ; a sheep walk, in 

 fact, of great extent. It is Ettrick Forest, but like the Black 

 Forest of Caledonia, not a tree remains. 



Minch Moor separates Yarrow from Tweed. At the foot of 

 Minch Moor is Philiphaugh and Broad Meadows, and in the 

 village close at hand, the angler curious in such matters will find 

 a singular colony of Mulattoes. They originated in one coloured 

 man, brought, I believe, from India (but not a Hindoo), who, 

 marrying a white woman, gave rise to this progeny of Mulat- 

 toes. They consist now, or lately did, of several families. 

 When the gipsies come into the valley, they talk of these 

 Mulattoes as " our people," claiming a sort of kindred with 

 them ; and thus the black blood spreads and spreads singu- 

 larly enough, under circumstances seemingly adverse to it. Some 

 curious physiological inquiries, resulting from such experiments, 

 will naturally occur to my readers ; inquiries which might be 

 and have been extended from trout to man. 



Further than what I have said, I have no experience of 

 Yarrow and Ettrick. They seem good streams, but must in many 

 places be sadly fished and poached. Some fish with an instru- 

 ment called the otter, especially in the lochs ; it is very destruc- 

 tive, but I never saw it used ; I have alluded to it in the Intro- 

 duction of this work. 



I had almost forgotten to say that, in the Megget water, 

 which joins the Yarrow, near the Gordon Arms, pink-coloured 

 trout are reported to exist. When I was there the stream was 

 so low as to be wholly unfishable. It is a mere brawling burn, 

 but not to be despised on that account. 



