JULY 157 



brimming with the gracious rain. So impossible was it 

 before leaving thirsty London to imagine the materials 

 for a spate, that I had made up my mind that the first 

 morning of liberty should be devoted to exploring a 

 certain hill tarn, reputed to hold good store of ponderable 

 trouts. Now this was my third visit to Knoydart forest. 

 Forty years ago — an Eton boy not yet ' in tails ' — I made 

 the same resolve, and again last year ; but this loch lies 

 fifteen hundred feet up the steep breast of Creagan- 

 Dochdair ; to ascend that hill involves crossing the river ; 

 at each attempt the spell of running water has prevailed, 

 for what man, when the river naiads beckon, cares to 

 court the kelpie of the loch ? and so it has come to, pass 

 that never to this day has my eye beheld, or my angle 

 been cast upon, that lonely tarn. 



Up the glen, then — ^up early, for the mist is down upon 

 the hill, the rain clouds are lowering on the sound, the 

 triple crest of Rum is blotted from view, the ash-trees 

 round the lodge are moaning in their heavy verdure — 

 everything bodes the coming of another spate. 



The most impatient angler, if he would enjoy all the 

 resources of his craft and take his fill of the delights of 

 such a paradise as this, will have eyes and ears even for 

 creatures that have no scales. 



My eyes are about me, therefore, as I step it up the 

 strath. The absence of birds is curious. The lofty ridge, 

 some two thousand feet high, bordering the river closely 

 on the south side, is dark and shaggy with natural wood, 

 but the north side, along which the bridle-path runs, is 

 open and lies fair to the sun. The track leads across 

 several ferny, stony little glens, just the very place where 

 one should hear the warning note of that true mountaineer, 



