CHAP, i.] HIGHLAND LAKES. 



CHAPTER I. 



Highland Lakes Steam-boats Small Lochs Wild Cats Ravenf Drag- 

 ging the Lake The Crea Fishing at Night Pike Trolling large Trout 

 on Loch Ness Flies, Otters, &c. Fishing with the Otter Spawning 

 Trout 



THE beauties of Loch Lomond, Loch Awe, and several other of 

 the Highland lakes, are almost as well known to the English as 

 Regent Street or Hyde Park. Lovely and magnificent as all 

 these visited lakes are, and worthy of the praise of the poet and 

 the pencil of the painter, there are unnumbered other Highland 

 lochs whose less hackneyed beauties have far greater charms for 

 me. Visit Loch Lomond, or many others, and you find yourself 

 surrounded by spruce cockneys, in tight-waisted shooting-jackets, 

 plaid waistcoats, and (so called) Glengarry bonnets, all of whom 

 fancy themselves facsimiles of Roderick Uhu, or James Fitz- 

 James ; and quote Sir Walter to young ladies in tartan scarfs, 

 redolent, nevertheless, of the land of Cockayne. Steam-boats 

 and coaches are admirable things, but they spoil one's train of 

 ideas, and terminate one's reverie when enjoying the grandeur 

 and sublimity of one of these spots of beauty. Though a steam- 

 boat, at ;i certain numberof miles' distance, with its stream of smoke 

 winding over the rocky shore of a large lake, and adding a new 

 feature to the scene, may occasionally come in with good effect ; 

 when it approaches and comes spluttering and groaning near you, 

 with its smoke drifting right into your face, and driving you from 

 some favourite point or bay, you are apt to turn your back on lake, 

 boat, and scenery, with a feeling of annoyance and disgust. I 

 well remember being one bright summer's day on the shore of 

 Loch Ness, and enjoying the surpassing loveliness of the scene. 

 The perfectly calm loch was like a mirror, reflecting the steep red 

 crags of the opposite shore ; and the weeping-birch trees, fea- 

 thering down to the very edge of the water, and hanging over 

 iU surface, as if to gaze at their own fair forms in its glassy 



