2i6 WILD SPORTS OF THE HIGHLANDS chap. 



the golden line of the sand-hills of Culbin, dividing the plains 

 of Morayshire from the Moray Firth, while beyond the line of 

 blue sea-water are the splendid and lofty rocks on each side of 

 the entrance of the Bay of Cromarty, backed by a succession 

 of various-shaped peaks of the Sutherland and Caithness, the 

 Ross-shire and the Inverness-shire mountains. Opposite you 

 is the massive and square mountain of Ben Wyvis : to the 

 west, on a clear day, you can see far into the peaked and 

 sugar-loaf-shaped mountains of Strath Glass and Glen Strath- 

 farrar, cutting the horizon with their curious outlines. The 

 inland mountains of Suthe^and on a clear day are also visible, 

 and Ben Morven, in Caithness, in its solitary grandeur, always 

 forms a conspicuous object ; while the Moray Firth, gradually 

 widening till it joins the German Ocean, and dotted here and 

 there with the white sails of the passing ships, completes the 

 scene. It is worth all the trouble of a voyage from London to 

 see this view alone. Far and wide may you travel without 

 finding such another combination of all that is lovely and grand 

 in landscape scenery — wood and water, mountain and cultivated 

 ground, all in their most beautiful forms, combine together to 

 render it pre-eminent. The river has a wider and more open 

 current as you leave the woods, and is little confined by cliff 

 and rock. Many a destructive inroad has it made into the 

 fertile plain below, carrying off sheep and cattle, corn and 

 timber, to be deposited on the sand -banks near Findhorn 

 harbour. Calm and peaceful as it looks when at its ordinary 

 height, the angler, on a bright summer's evening, is sometimes 

 startled by a sound like the rushing of a coming wind, yet 

 wind there is none, and he continues his sport. Presently he 

 is surprised to see the water near which he has been standing 

 suddenly sweep against his feet ; he looks up the stream and 

 sees the river coming down in a perpendicular wall of water, or 

 like a wave of the sea, with a^ roaring noise, and carrying with 

 it trees with their branches and roots entire, large lumps of 

 unbroken bank, and every kind of mountain debris. Some 

 mountain storm of rain has suddenly filled its bed. Sometimes 

 on the occasion of these rapid speats I have had to gather up 

 my tackle and run for my life, which was in no small risk till I 

 gained some bank or rock above the height of the flood. When 

 this rush of water comes down between the rocks where the 



