when I read it to old natives of the village at
the Bridge of Don, none of them would
receive it as the original. I have given the
verses as preserved by tradition in my native
parish.

M. Gudin, a distinguished French painter,
exhibited a picture of the Brig o' Balgounie,
in the Paris Palace of the Fine Arts, in
eighteen hundred and fifty-five. He tried by
the effects of colour to produce the supernatural
and superstitious features of the scene
without having had enough of geological
insight to feel that the wildness and grandeur
of the spot came from a terrestial convulsion,
He has not "dipped his pencil in the gloom
of earthquakes." The grey bridge, the brown
rocks, the black river, the fir and beech-
trees, and the furze-bushes in the faces of the
cliffs, with a tinge of lightning in the varied
sky, form undoubtedly a picturesque assemblage
of colours, and an extraordinary picture,
But the painter has missed the grandeur
which dates from the earthquake which rent
the rocks, the truth of terror which thrilled
the boy-poet, and consequently his canvas is
not one on which the spectator can gaze
until he feels the fears of superstition curdling
his veins.

The Don is distinguished as a salmon
stream. The earthquake made the fortune of
the river. Deep and dark with rocky ledges
full of sediment, the chasm is just such an
aqueous, shady bower as the salmon love. It
is about a mile from the sea. Just as there
are families of hereditary salmon in the Don,
there are families of hereditary fishers upon its
banks to catch them. Surely it is a curious
destiny which thus establishes relations
between generations of men and generations
of salmon. The salmon-fishers of the Don are
probably of Norwegian, as the haddock-fishers
of the Dee seem to be of Dutch origin.

Large salmon are still called "lax" in
Scotland as in Norway. The Norwegians
appear to have been the great salmon-fishers
of the west and north of Europe. The salmon
anglers of our day—a dandy race as different
as possible from salmon-fishers—find in
Norway gigantic thirty or forty pounders, of
whose capture they boast in print, as if as
large or larger had not been found in the
Scottish rivers. When Mr. Hill of Edinburgh
calotyped the fisher folk of the Frith of Forth
he produced pictures which reminded connoisseurs
of the paintings of Ostade or Teniers.
When a Swedish war-ship was anchored in
the Bay of Cromarty, the Swedish sailors, it
was observed differed in nothing except
language from the natives of Cromarty. The
probabilities are indeed, that the folks of the
eastern and northern coasts of Scotland are
just Dutch and Scandinavian colonies.

The salmon, which was unknown to
Aristotle, and only heard of by Pliny, as it is
not a Mediterranean fish, is closely connected
with the destinies of the Northern races. It
formed an important item of their food.

Salmon fishing is an admirable application
of science to utility. The man who first
combined a knowledge of the salmon with the
contrivances of the fisher has been forgotten
by the world he benefited. He was, perhaps,
as well worthy of remembrance, however, as
if he had won battles or spun rhymes. He sat
upon the banks of his northern river, while
the water-insects played above the stream, and
his kettle and his stomach were empty. The
salmon leapt to catch the flies—here one and
there another—as the evening shadows
darkened upon the stream. I hear him ask
himself: "How am I to put one of these
splendid fish into my empty kettle? The
girl who plighted with me the troth of
Odin looks sunk-eyed while she suckles my
boy. I promised to nourish them when
beside the pillar, and I cannot do it unless I
can wile the salmon into the kettle." He did
it. Is there not a vast amount of observation
and ingenuity combined in the practice of
spearing salmon by torchlight? Was it
not an application to the tenants of the
water of the warfare of the sea-kings?
Was not the first idea of a hook with a
dragon-fly upon it a thought of genius? What
honours could have been deemed too great
for the man who first combined a boat, a net
and a "keener?" What observer among
naturalists of renown has merited as well of the
northern races, as the man who first recorded
the periodical migrations of the salmon and
their annual return to their native rivers?

There is a confirmation of the Scandinavian
origin of the salmon-fishers in this mode of
fishing which is the same in Scotland as in
Norway. During the season when the salmon
enter the rivers "keeners," kenners, or
knowers, are placed upon sheltered seats
high up on the southern bank of the Don,
between the sea and the chasm. The boats
with the nets are stationed on the river, and
the boatmen watch the slightest movements
of the hands of the keener, and oar their
boats and spread out their nets as his signs
direct them. The affair is a contest between
human and animal sagacity. The salmon
know that if they can only pass along the
shallow part of the stream into the deep
fresh-water they are safe. During the night
or on cloudy days they steal along one or two
at a time, fearful lest the slightest gleam of
sunshine or the movements of their fins
should reveal their whereabouts. When salmon
are passing up the river there is a ripple
upon the surface which only the eyes of a
keener can see. This clearness of eyesight is
a gift, a natural advantage improved by study
and experience. The ripple is unlike every
other which appears upon the surface of the
river. It shows there is a displacement going
on beneath, in the globules of the water. It is
a sign of a struggle between the ascending
fish and the descending current. In Norway
and in Scotland the nets were formerly
floated with small barils, but they are now