CHAP, XXIII.] SPEATS OF THE FINDHORN. 191 
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 
river has not room to spread, the danger is doubly great, owing 
to the irresistible force acquired by the pent-up water. The 
flood, when occasioned by a summer storm, soon subsides, and 
the next day no trace is left of it excepting the dark coffee- 
coloured hue of the water. Passing the lime-quarries of Copt- 
hall, the river flows through a fertile country and under a beau- 
tiful suspension bridge, which was built after the great floods of 
1829, when it was found that a bridge on no other construction 
would be large enough to admit of the floating masses of timber 
and the immense body of water during heavy floods. The net- 
fishing is in active operation from this point down to the sea, 
and the number of salmon and grilse sometimes caught is asto- 
nishing. Instead of rock and cliff, the river is banked in by 
heaps of shingle, which are constantly changing their shape and 
size. There seems to be a constant succession of stones swept 
down by the river: what in one season is a deep pool, is, after 
the winter floods, a bank of shingle. An endless supply seems 
to be washed off the mountains and rocks through which the 
river passes, and these stones, by the time they have been rolled 
down to the lower part of the river, are as rounded and water- 
worn in their appearance as the shingle on the sea-shore. 
