AUGUST 197 



early morning. Black streaks of rock on the hillsides 

 became hissing cascades. 



'If this rain continue to fall,' said my gillie in the 

 elaborate language of the English-speaking Gael, ' she 

 will fish properly in about an hour, whatever.' 



He underrated the sensitiveness of the Guseran. I 

 was perched on a rock full five-and-twenty feet above 

 the largest pool on the river, where the current, chafing 

 through a dark narrow channel, broadens suddenly and 

 spreads with gleams of amber and silver to fill an ample 

 basin, bordered with steep cliffs fringed with alder and 

 mountain ash. Upwards of thirty sea- trout must have 

 turned in succession at the flies as they twirled about 

 in the eddies. I managed to land half-a-dozen of them, 

 the largest being under two pounds; but I had my 

 eye all the time on the foot of the pool, where the 

 water draws into a steady flow, the very spot for a new- 

 run salmon. I ought to have gone there at once. 

 While wasting time with the small sea-trout at the 

 top, I became aware of a rising turmoil among the 

 rocks above. Presently the pool itself began to seethe ; 

 the spate was upon us. In ten minutes there was not 

 a yard of fishing water within view; all was a tawny 

 waste of angry, lashing waves. 



Such has been my first experience of the Guseran a 

 paltry half-dozen of sea-trout ; while my two compan- 

 ions who stayed at home to fish the Amhuinn Aoidh 

 well, comparisons are odious, and there is no need to 

 emphasise my discomfiture by giving details of their 

 success. It is bad enough to remember that the take 



