The Eden. 219 



" From Yair, which hills so closely bind, 

 Scarce can the Tweed his passage find, 

 Though much he fret and chafe and toil, 

 Till all his eddying currents boil." 



or of the famous Ettrick, oft-besung, or the romance- 

 shaded dreamy Yarrow; or of long-flowing, legend- 

 laden Teviot ; or of Gala Water — " Braw, braw lads on 

 Gala Water ; " or of the ominously named Whiteadder 

 and Blackadder, yet lower down. After all these 

 there are still three tributaries of the Tweed, which, 

 on their separate and contrasted accounts, may claim 

 from us a little more attention. These are the Eden, 

 and the Till, and the Quair. The former is in places 

 a very narrow stream, gathering into bouldery-spread 

 pools, with steep banks on either side, so steep indeed 

 that not seldom the fisher must wade either up or 

 down ; and it has very considerable falls here and 

 there, the most notable of which is the Newton Don Fall 

 (often called Stitchell Linn), where the water gathers 

 into a comparatively wide basin, for the volume of the 

 stream above, and throws itself foaming, and divided, as 

 it were, into different streams, down a series of stairlike 

 shelves, parted from each other again to form a wide 

 basin below, where the water, after slowly eddying 

 round, seems to pause restfully, recovering from the 

 effects of its turmoil before proceeding on again. This 

 fall is, in every respect, beautiful and striking, being 

 something over sixty feet in height. This is a height 

 far beyond the power of salmon to ascend; and it 

 forms a barrier also to the passing and repassing of 

 some kinds of trout, and hence the character of the 

 trout above differs in several points from those found 

 below. 



Though sixty feet is far beyond the power of salmon 



