16 
LAND & WATER 
July 26, 1917 
Some Rivers of Scotland 
By William T. Palmer 
FROM Tweed to Brora is a far cry. One has lieard 
the music of many waters and beHeves that every 
river in Scotland has its own song. In the darkest 
hour one should not confuse the brawling of the 
Spey with the melody of the Tweed, the soft purling of the 
Forth with the murmur of Ythan, the sobbing chorus of the 
Dee with the majestic music of the Tay. 
From the moors beyond Peebles away down to Berwick, 
the Tweed changes not its tune. Certainly the refrain swells 
and falls ; it quickens, races, diminishes, slacks, but it never 
halts. The song ages and mellows with the length of the way. 
Streams come in from Cheviot and from Lammermuir without 
breaking, even for a mile, the constancy of the music. The 
silent Till is indeed the only stream which retains iy, character 
to the very edge oi Tweed. The others come early within the 
magnetism of the great main stream. 
The thin wafble as the rivulet escapes from the moorland 
bogs becomes a mighty diapason, a veritable .organ-swell as 
the mature flood sweeps through the lower salmon pools and 
then blends its voice in the^mystic chorus of the^ea- Tweed 
possesses true Scottish energy. It is never reckless of strength, 
never boisterous in rejoicing, never extravagant in desire or 
despair. Crags and ramparts of rock in its course exist, but 
■ to be assailed, turned and worn away. Tweed never wanders 
far, never slinks aside to avoid an obstacle. Its every curve 
is strong and full of purpose. Down the slopes of bare rock 
glides the river, down the gap where it has pounded the 
boulders into a ladder it thunders and tumbles. Even in its 
sternest hour, when the spate rises in -might and volume, 
Tweed never forgets its pride, its dour purpose, its ancient 
respectability. If the inland rains command a rise, a rise 
there must be, but the river is swift to withdraw to its own 
domain. There is no mad riot, no surly sweeps over un- 
resisting plains. 
In this matter the Forth is a far different stream. One 
meets the waters from Balquhidder roaring and foaming 
down, the pass of Leny. There is a merry lilt, a sportive 
dashing, as the stream dances away from the foot of the 
Trossachs. The Teith iiows swift, merry and strong. But 
when all the streams from west and south and north reach 
the carse of Stirling, the Forth welds them into a river of 
muted voice. So mmor is the lay that on a«ummer afternoon 
one may rest long by the Old Bridge before one is certain 
that the water has even the feeblest message at all. 
Even in winter, in flood-time. Forth itself believes little 
in hurry. When the mountain torrents over-charge the 
river-bed the extra volume spreads slowly, lazily over meadow 
and ploughland. And when the stress is over, the flood 
seems just as unwilling to depart. Great pools and basins 
lie about for days, then soak tardily into the fields ^s the 
drains come into operation again. 
The song of Tay is for the most part more boisterous, 
merry, and less responsible than either Tweed or Forth. 
The former is proud, the regnant stream of a fighting Border, 
its fords the historic gathering place for armies in battle array. 
The latter, looking up to Scotland's royal fortress, is more 
placid in its loyalty. Tay passes through wild country, 
though its lower course compares well for richness with either 
the carse of Stirling or the merse of Berwick. 
One has heard the infant Tay singing softly through the 
snowdrifts on Ben Lui, and heard again its roar, as after its 
hours of check, it hurls its foaming, vicious force against the 
tide, and harries back the sea-water mile after mile. As the 
Dochart one has heard it chafing and splitting past the rock- 
island at Killin, which forms the last resting place of the 
Chiefs of MacNab, and as full Tay one knows it draining away 
from the great loch to pass through woodlands and pleasant 
pastures toward the sea. 
Tay is, however, scarcely const'ant in its music. Even the 
main water sees many changes. It bickers down the old 
forest of Central Scotland to become almost mute in Strath 
Fillan : it shouts again with joy as it passes from the twin 
lochans with their memories of Bruce and John of Lorn. 
Its voice is lost altogether in Loch Tay. But the worst 
is still to come. There is a sad hour when riotous Garry, 
fresh from the steep plunge of Killiecrankie, overwhelms the 
quieter stream and hurls it along in spume and fury. But 
the genius of old Tay, though hustled aside for a moment, 
gradually reasserts its power, assumes a new leadership and 
song, and in time vanquishes completely the turbulent intruder 
■from the wild glens, the bens, and lochs of the Grampians. 
From source to mouth Tay is magnificent. Its surround- 
ings are tinged with romance: it.is a river system with a 
past. For decades the population of its glens has been 
shrinking : the higher standard of life, of work and of pleasure, 
has tempted its sons and daughters away. Yet the Tay, the 
Lyon, the Garry, the Tummel, the Earn, have implanted in 
each heart a song : " We haste away, yet truly, and for ever 
will we desire to return." 
The Dee of Aberdeenshire marks a transition. It has 
come through a land of standing pines, of tall larches, of wild 
red deer and grouse and ptarmigan, through the sporting 
domains of kings and princes. Yet the song of Dee is humble : 
there is far more of royal pride in Tweed. There is in I^ee an 
undercurrent of heavy music, but it is broken. It has not the 
full round voice of the Border stream, nor the muted cadences 
which mark th^many lochs in the song of Tay. There is a 
hint, too, of the sad green forests which change neither 
winter nor summer. Tweed lives buoyantly through the 
bronze and rich green of oaks, which change their radiance 
with the passing of the year. 
The voice of Dee has always the harsh croaking of melting 
snow, the eagle's wild cry, the raven's call for carrion. The 
lofty mountains about the springs of the river hold great 
drifts and masses all through the year. Its flood song is 
mighty and continuous — continuous not with the sullen 
swelling of Forth, but with a rich quality of its own drawn 
from the thousands of forest ar<^hes where the rootlets hold 
back and steady the flow of storm-water. One has listened 
to the flood music of Dee as the young stream rattled past the 
foot of Cairn Toul and avoided the steep pike of the Devil's 
Point, and it has changed only in volume "except that' a 
sobbing, dragging under-tone has been added by the water- 
falls, narrows and rock-ladders, when the river bids one fare- 
well at the harbour bar of Aberdeen. 
As regards the twin river of the granite city, the Don, 
one can write little from personal knowledge of its upper 
reaches. As it comes down the dark defile above the bridge 
of Balgie, one detects a less happy melody. Can it be that 
the waters are disappointed, that the ocean is too soon 
reached ? There is indeed little of similarity between the 
two streams. Dee races free and bright over an open course, 
but Don swings sjlently from one dark pool to the next, 
and without a note of triumph ebbs into the sea. Yet one 
woiild not be sure that the song of Don is full of weeping. 
No great river of Scotland sobs its way in the manner of 
certain streams of Wales. and Ireland. 
Spey is merely a huge torrent : its last level sweeps through 
Moray check not the rough glory of its voice. One has heard 
the midnight shouting of the river across a forest of dark 
pines and found pleasure in the sound. There is no snarl in 
the song, whether heard at Aviemore or out where Tay falls 
into the sea beyond Fochabers. It is just a devil-may-care 
lilt, the pipes played by a youth to whom strength has been 
abundantly given, but not yet the experience of war. Spey 
never reaches discretion. It is a river of mad pranks, of 
strong buffetings, of fords where the rushing waters seek 
without mercy to overwhelm both horse and rider. Spey 
has very little of the loch music in its song. The sobs and 
rashes are those of surging waterfalls, of cascades, of rock- 
ladders. There is long hastening down the glens, there is the 
swift rush through the forest, there is the sudden swirl as a 
great boulder bars the wary, as the bar of shingle sways the 
current this way or that. 
- Though the Ness is but a fragment of flowing water, it 
represents the tribute of a mighty land of mountains, of long 
glens, of a skein of lochs. From Glen Garry, from Glen 
Morriston, from Glen Urquhart, the great streams rush into 
Loch Ness, and that wavering crashing note which runs 
through the long cadences is a memory of the thunder-chasm 
of Foyers. In former times, there was no wavering in that 
staccato note : the great fall has since been robbed of most of 
its waters, and it is only in winter, when the dams are over- 
flowing, that one is sure to hear the sound at all. 
Space runs out too swiftly — it is like the northern torrents. • 
There is Beauly and Conon, there is Carron and Oykell, there 
is Sihn from the heart of Sutherland. And, last of all, is 
Brora, typical of the sterile north. There is little of fertility 
now in the straths, less even of grass on the hill-tops. The 
song of the waters is in accord with surroundings. Tlie 
Brora on a summer day Hq^ nothing of the lilt and laugh of the 
southland : its minor voices are but those of a torrent hushed 
by drought. Forest-trees are scarce, a wild melancholy 
sohtude broods oyer the highlands. Can it be that Brora 
should be anything but gloomy? But the river speaks the 
• .high' bravery of the north.^; Its gJoom is a mere film over the 
nobler spirit. Brora "is a ; truie warrior to whom tears and 
moahings are but memories o^f- childhood days. 
