|
Findhoru River, Scenery, Falls, Old Salmon-fisher, Anglers, Heronry.
CHAPTER XXIII.
Findhoru River-Bridge of Dulsie-Beauty of Scenery-Falls of River-
Old Salmon-fisher-Anglers-Heronry-Distant View-Sudden Rise of
River-Mouth of River.
Nothing can exceed the beauty of the river and the surrounding scenery when it suddenly leaves the open and barren
ground and plunges at once into the wild and extensive woods
of Dunearn and Fairness. The woods at Dunearn are particularly picturesque, in consequence of the fir-trees (at least those
near the river) having been left rather farther apart than is
usual, and no tree adds more to the beaut}'' of scenery than the
Scotch fir, when it has room to spread out into its natural shape.
The purple heather, too, in these woods forms a rich and soft
groundwork to the picture. What spot in the world can excel
in beauty the landscape comprising the old Bridge of Dulsie,
spanning with its lofty arch the deep black pool, shut in by grey
and fantastic rocks, surmounted with the greenest of grass
swards, with clumps of the ancient weeping-birches with their
gnarled and twisted stems, backed again by the dark pine-trees ?
The river here forms a succession of very black and deep pools,
connected with each other by foaming and whirling falls and
currents, up which in the fine pure evenings you may see the
salmon making curious leaps. I shall never forget the impression this scenery made on me when I first saw it. The bridge of
the Dulsie, the dark-coloured river, and the lovely woodlands,
as I viewed them while stretched on the short green sward above
the rocks, formed a picture which will never be effaced from
my memory. I cannot conceive a more striking coup d'ĉil, nor
one more worthy of the pencil of an artist. On these rocks are
small flocks of long-horned, half-wild goats, whose appearance,
with their shaggy hair and long venerable beards, adds much to
the wildness of the scene.
The blackcock and the roebuck now succeed the grouse and
red-deer. The former is frequently to be seen either sitting on
the trunk of a fallen birch-tree or feeding on the juniper-berries,
while the beautiful roebuck (the most perfect in its symmetry of
all deer) is seen either grazing on some grassy spot at the water's
edge, or wading through a shallow part of the river, looking
round when half way through as timid and coy as a bathing
nymph. When disturbed by the appearance of a passer by, he
bounds lightly and easily up the steep bank of the river, and
after standing on the summit for a moment or two to make out
the extent of the danger, plunges into the dark solitudes of the
forest.
On the left side of the river, as it proceeds towards the sea, is
a succession of most beautiful banks and heights, fringed with
the elegant fern and crowned with juniper, which grows to a
very great size, twisting its branches and fantastic roots in the
quaintest forms and shapes imaginable over the surface of the
rocks. The lovely weeping-birch is everywhere, and about
Coulmony are groves of magnificent beech and other forest-trees. On the opposite side are the wooded hills and heights of
Relugas, a spot combining every description of beauty. The
Findhorn here receives the tributary waters of the Dure, a burn,
or rather river, not much inferior in size and beauty to the main
river. Hemmed in by the same kind of birch-grown banks and
precipitous rocks, every angle of the Findhorn river presents a
new view and new beauty, and at last one cannot restrain the
exclamation of " Surely there is no other river in the world so
beautiful." At Logie the view of the course of the river, and
the distance seen far up the glen till it is gradually lost in a succession of purple mountains, is worth a halt of some time to
enjoy. The steep banks opposite Logie, clothed with every
variety of wood, are lovely, and give a new variety to the scene
as we enter on the forests of Darnaway and Altyre. The woodpigeon coos and breeds in every nook and corner of the woods,
and towards evening the groves seem alive with the song of
blackbirds and thrushes, varied now by the crow of the cock
pheasant, as he suns himself in all his glittering beauty on the
dry and sheltered banks of the river.
Still for many miles is the river shut in by extensive woods
and overhung by splendid fir, larch, and other trees, while the
nearly perpendicular rocks are clothed with the birch and the
ladylike bird-cherry, the holly and bright-berried mountain-ash
growing out of every niche and cleft, and clinging by their
serpent-like roots to the bare face of the rock; while in the
dark, damp recesses of the stone grow several most lovely
varieties of pale-green ferns and other plants. In the more
sunny places you meet with the wild strawberry and purple foxglove, the latter shooting up in graceful pyramids of flower.
Between Logie and Sluie are some of the highest rocks on the
river, and from several hundred feet above it you can look
straight down into the deep pools and foaming eddies below you.
At a particular gorge, where the river rushes through a passage
of very few feet in width, you will invariably see an old salmon -
fisher perched on a point of rock, with his eye intent on the
rushing cataract below him, and armed with a staff of some sixteen feet in length ending in a sharp hook, with which he
strikes the salmon as they stop for a moment to rest in some
eddy of the boiling torrent before taking their final leap up the
fall. Watch for a few moments, and you will see the old man
make a peculiar plunge and jerk with his long clip into the
rushing water, and then hoisting it into the air he displays a
struggling salmon impaled on the end of the staff, glancing like
a piece of silver as it endeavours to escape. Perhaps it tumbles
off the hook, and dropping into the water, floats wounded away,
to fall a prey to the otter or fox in some shallow below. If,
however, the fish is securely hooked, there ensues a struggle between it and the old man, who, by a twist of his stick, turns
himself and the fish towards the dry rock, and having shaken
the salmon off the hook, and despatched it with a blow from a
short cudgel which he keeps for the purpose, covers it carefully
up with wet grass, and lowering the peak of his cap over his
eyes, resumes his somewhat ticklish seat on the rock to wait for
the next fish. On some days, when the water is of the right
height, and the fish are numerous and inclined to run up the
river, the old man catches a considerable number; though the
capture of every fish is only attained by a struggle of life and
death between man and salmon, for the least slip would send the
former into the river, whence he could never come out alive.
I never see him catch one without feeling fully convinced that
be will follow the example of his predecessor in the place, who
was washed away one fine day from the rock, and not found for
some days, when his body was taken out of the river several
miles below. In these pools (every one of which has a name)
you will see some sportsman angling, not like the sansculotte
shepherd's boy at Coignafern, with his hazel-wand and line
made by himself, but here you have a well-equipped and well-accoutred follower of the gentle craft in waterproof overalls,
and armed with London rod and Dublin fly, tempting the
salmon from their element with a bright but indefinable mixture
of feathers, pigs'-wool, and gold thread ; while his attendant,
stretched at his ease, wonders at the labour his master undertakes, and watches quietly the salmon as he rises from some dark
abyss of the water, poises himself for a moment steadily opposite
the glittering hook, makes a dash rapid as thought at it, and
then swims slowly back to his ambuscade in the depth of the
water, not aware, till he feels the jerk of the line, that he is
carrying with him, not a painted dragon-fly, but a carefully
prepared and strong weapon of death, which he will only get
quit of with his life. The nets are at work too, sweeping a
deep and quiet pool, but seldom with much success, owing to
the inequalities of the bottom of the river. Making a wide
turn here, the river passes by an object of great interest, the
Findhorn heronry, a collection of these birds quite unique in
their way. They have taken possession of a number of old
trees growing on the Darnaway side of the river, and here, year
after year, they repair their old nests and bring up their young,
not frightened away by the frequenters of a walk which passes
immediately under their nests. Numbers of the old birds may
be seen sitting motionless on the dead branches, or perched on
the very topmost twig of a larch or birch-tree.
Sometimes the peregrine, on his way to Sluie, passes quickly
through the midst of the community, while a constant chattering
is kept up by the numberless jackdaws who breed in holes of the
rock on the Altyre side, and keep flying in and out from far
below the spot where you are standing. Far as you can see,
and indeed still farther, are stretched the forests of Darnaway
and Altyre. Following the river, or rather keeping the top of
the bank above it, a new and most striking view meets your eye.
Looking down the course of the water, you suddenly see beyond
the woodland a wide extent of corn-land, interspersed with
groves of timber and houses ; beyond this 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 Nevis : to the west, on a clear day, you can
see far into the peaked and sugar-loaf shaped mountains of
Strath Glass and Glen Strathfaerer, cutting the horizon with
their curious outlines. The inland mountains of Sutherland 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 beaut4ful
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 sandbanks 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
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 Copthall, the river flows through a fertile country and under a beautiful 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 netiishing is in active operation from this point down to the sea,
and the number of salmon and grilse sometimes caught is astonishing. 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 waterworn in their appearance as the shingle on the seashore.
But first, if you want to come back to Scotland's History and Legends again, just add www.historyandlegends.com to your bookmarks or favorites now! Then you'll find it easy!
Also, please consider sharing our Scottish History and Legends website with your online friends.
Our Privacy Policy can be found at www.cholesterolcholestrol.com/privacypolicy.htm
Copyright © 2000-present Donald Urquhart. All Rights Reserved. Designated trademarks and brands are the property of their respective owners. Use of this Web site constitutes acceptance of our legal disclaimer.
|
