THE FALLS OF TUMMEL.
IT° THY EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
Sra,—The lovers of natural beauty seem destined to wage an incessant warfare against the utilitarian spirit of our age. At one time they are called on to fight against the wanton destruc- tion of time-honoured monuments of the past, at another against the intrusion of a railway into one of the few solitudes which remain nndesecrated in the Lake Country. In the present instance, the attack proceeds from another direction, and is aimed at one of the most lovely and picturesque objects in Scot- land. This time the threatened profanation comes from an official quarter.
We learn that a Bill is to be introduced into Parliament without delay for the purpose of giving power to the Scottish Fishery Board to "force a passage" for salmon up the well. known Falls of the Tummel, in the Highlands of Perthshire. 'This might appear, and no doubt does appear, a very slight matter to those who are unacquainted with the district. But to the tourist, and the lover of the picturesque, anything which would tend to impair the beauty and the sublimity of the Falls will be a serious loss. The vision of these Falls haunts the denizen of the City for months after he has visited them, and is a constant source of enjoyment, as he pictures it anew before his mind's eye. The unloveliness of life in our great cities is, in some aspects of it, so terrible, that we must guard our natural scenes of beauty with the utmost jealousy.
There are few finer or more picturesque scenes than those referred to in the Jacobite song :-
"Cam' ye by Athol, lad wi' the pbilibeg,
Doon by the Tummel, or banks of the Garry P"
Or in the scarcely less spirited ballad left us, as his only legacy of verse, by the gentle Dr. John Brown. Why are these Falls to be interfered with ? In order to construct a ladder for salmon to ascend, so as to reach the upper waters. Now, if it were possible to do this without in- juring the beauty of the place, no one could complain. But to the nation, as such, we make bold to say the Falls, as they now are, are worth more than a hundred thousand salmon. Poets have sung of them, painters have painted them, Mr. Ruskin has sketched them, Macaulay has described the romantic pass at the month of which they lie. The Sovereign herself has testified to their charms in her " Journal," and the vote of all visitors of taste would, we believe, emphatically be,—" Leave them as they are."
The fear is that the Bill will be rushed through the Houses of Parliament without any criticism, and I therefore write, in order that Members of both Houses may watch, and secure that nothing be done to mar the beauty of the spot. If the salmon ladder can be constructed without injury to the amenity of the-surroundings, by all means let the lairds of the upper waters have their ladder. But let there first be full inquiry.
I do not wish to occupy your space unduly. At present I sound a note of alarm. . Perhaps, if necessary, you may allow me to return to the subject. —I am, Sir, &c.,
A SCOTCIIMAN.
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