236 ANGLING 



districts, we have both railway and steamboat con- 

 veyances, very conveniently directed to most of the 

 popular and fashionable places of resort for sporting 

 tourists. Edinburgh and Glasgow are both good localities 

 from which to make a start into the " Land o' Cakes." 

 Commencing, however, with the great facilities which 

 the Clyde navigation affords to the rod-fisher, and the 

 regular and direct transit which characterises all its 

 ordiuary movements, we can place the angler on the 

 banks of some of the charmiag mountain streams in a 

 very short space of time. 



An angler placing himself in one of the Clyde steamers 

 may reach Dumbarton, or the banks of the river Leven, 

 in an hour. This water runs out of Loch Lomond. 

 This stream has been immortalised by Smollett, who was 

 born and educated on its banks, in an ode which is justly 

 considered one of the finest in our language. 



" On Leven's banks, while free to rove, 

 And tune the rural pipe to love, 

 I envied not the happiest swain 

 That ever trod the Ajcadian plain. 

 Pure stream ! in whose transparent wave 

 My youthful limbs I wont to lave ; 

 No torrents strain thy limpid source, 

 No rocks impede thy dimpling course, 

 That sweetly warbles o'er its bed 

 With white, round, polished pebbles spread. 

 While lightly poised the scaly brood 

 In myriads cleave thy crystal flood : 

 The springing trout in speckled pride. 

 The salmon, monarch of the tide, 

 The ruthless pike, intent on war. 

 The silver eel, and mottled par, 

 Devolving from thy parent lake, 

 A charming maze thy waters make. 

 By bowers of birch, and gi'oves of pine, 

 And edges flowered with eglantine. 

 Still on thy banks so gaily green 

 May numerous flocks and herds be seen. 

 Attentive, then, to this informing lay. 

 Read how he dictates as he points the way. 

 Trust not at first a quick adventurous pace, 

 Six miles its top points gradual from the base. 

 Up the high rise with panting haste I passed, 

 And gained the long laborious steep at last." 



