CHAP, I.] HIGHLAND LAKES. 7 
CHAPTER I. 
Highland Lakes—Steam-boats—Small Lochs—Wild Cats—Ravens—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. 
TuHE 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 Dhu, 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 a certain number of 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 
its surface, as if to gaze at their own fair forms in its glassy 
