THE SPEY 143 



bounds it stays there for a long time. The river banks seem con- 

 stantly breaking away, and much labour is expended in combating 

 the force of the water. The cause of the whole difficulty is the 

 action of the Eiver Feshie, a tributary of some size, which enters the 

 Spey a short distance below the loch. The Feshie rises in the heart 

 of the Grampians south of the Cairngorm range, on the western side 

 of the divide which separates the new-born Dee on the one hand 

 from the source of the Tilt flowing to the Tay on the other. It has 

 in early ages scooped out a deep glen of the most wild and 

 picturesque sort, and poured vast quantities of detritus into the 

 Spey valley, levelling up the natural gradient and damming back 

 the upper waters. Landseer painted many of his deer in Glen 

 Feshie, where, when last I visited it, a studio hut, with the moulder- 

 ing fragments of a large subject of grouped stags was still visible 

 on the plaster. Thompson of Duddingston also painted those wild 

 solitudes where, he said, " the sky over such a scene seemed the floor 

 of heaven." The Feshie is still subject to most violent floods, and 

 is still carrying down its talus of gravel. Yet the feat of draining 

 Loch Insh is not insurmountable, although greater interests than 

 those of the salmon would be necessary to promote it. 



It is curious that in close proximity we should have Loch Insh 

 and Loch an Eilan, two lochs with Gaelic names meaning practically 

 the same thing. The island in the latter, with its ruined castle, the 

 erstwhile home of the osprey, is sufficiently evident and completely 

 beautiful. The Insh or Inch of the other loch is only existent in 

 times of flood. At the northern end of the loch, where the river 

 again takes shape, there is a double knoll of considerable extent, 

 covered with trees. This is at times converted into an island, and 

 is the origin of the name Loch Insh. It is, moreover, of such remark- 

 able interest as to demand some notice. The more northerly of the 

 two knolls is called Ion Enonan, otherwise the Island of Adamnan. 

 Now, Adamnan was the biographer of Saint Columba, and became 

 himself a saint. On this knoll is the modern church of Insh, which 

 occupies the site, and is actually built upon the remains, of what is 

 I suppose the oldest ecclesiastical edifice in all broad Scotland. The 

 dedication of the early building to Saint Adamnan is recorded as 

 having been conducted by Saint Columba himself when on his visit 

 to the Picts north of the Grampians, about the year 690, and although 

 several churches may have taken shape on these foundations, the fact 

 remains, it is believed, that Christian worship has been carried on 

 continuously on this spot since the seventh century. 



