5. Watershed. Rivers. Lochs.

As we have already pointed out, the watershed coincides to a large extent with the boundary line of the county. The lean of Aberdeenshire is from west to east so that all the rivers flow in an easterly direction to the North Sea. On the west and north-west of the highest mountain ridges, the slope of the land is to the north-east, and the Spey with its several tributaries carries the rainfall to the heart of the Moray Firth.

The chief river of the county is the Dee. It is the longest, the fullest-bodied, the most picturesque of all Aberdeenshire waters. Taking its rise in two small streams which drain the slopes of Brae-riach, it grows in volume and breadth, till, after an easterly course of nearly 100 miles, it reaches the sea at Aberdeen. The head-stream is the Garrachorry burn, which flows through the cleft between Brae-riach and Cairntoul. A more romantic spot for the cradle of a mighty river could hardly be found. The mountain masses rise steep, grim and imposingâ€”on one side Cairntoul conical in shape, on the other Brae-riach broad and massive, a picture of solidity and immobility. The Dee well is 4060 feet above sea-level and 1300 above the stream which drains the eastern side of the Larigâ€”the high pass to Strathspey. As it emerges from the Larig, it is a mere mountain torrent but presently it is joined at right angles by the Geldie from the south-west, and the united waters move eastward through a wild glen of rough and rugged slopes

Linn of Dee, Braemar

and ragged, gnarled Scots firs to the Linn of Dee, 6-3/4 miles above Braemar. There is no great fall at the Linn, but here the channel of the river becomes suddenly contracted by great masses of rock and the water rushes through a narrow gorge only four feet wide. The pool below is deep and black and much overhung with rocks. For 300 yards stretches this natural sluice, formed by rocks with rugged sides and jagged bottom, the water racing past in small cascades. The river is here spanned bya handsome granite bridge opened in 1857 by Queen Victoria.

Old bridge of Dee, Invercauld

As the river descends to Braemar, the glen gradually widens out, and the open, gravelly, and sinuous character of the bed, which is a feature from this point onwards, is very marked. Pool and stream, stream and pool succeed one another in shingly bends, clean, sparkling and beautiful. At Braemar the bed is 1066 feet above sea-level. Below Invercauld the river is crossed by the picturesque old bridge built by General Wade, when he made his well-known roads through the Highlands after the rebellion of 1745. Here the Garrawalt, a rough and obstructed

View from old bridge of Invercauld

Falls of Muick, Ballater

tributary, joins the main river. From Invercauld past Balmoral Castle to Ballater is sixteen miles. Here the bottom is at times rocky, at times filled with big rough stones, at other times shingly but never deep. The average depth is only four feet, and the normal pace under ordinary conditions 3-1/2 miles an hour. From Ballater, where the river is joined by the Gairn and the Muick, the Dee maintains the same character to Aboyne and Banchory, where it is joined by the Feugh from the forest of Birse. Just above Banchory is Cairnton, where the water supply for the town of Aberdeen, amounting on an average to 7 or 8 million gallons a day, is taken off. The course of the river near the mouth was divertedsome 40 years ago to the south, at great expense, by the Town Council, and in this way a considerable area of land was reclaimed for feuing purposes. The spanning of the river at this point by the Victoria bridge, which superseded a ferry-boat, has led to the rise of a moderately sized town (Torry) on the south or Kincardine side of the river.

The scenery of Deeside, all the way from the Cairngorms to the old Bridge of Dee, two miles west of the centre of the city, is varied and attractive. It is well-wooded throughout; in the upper parts the birch, which would seem to be indigenous in the district, adds to the beauty of the hill-sides, while the clean pebbly bed of the river and its swift, dashing flow delight the eyes of those who are familiar only with sluggish and mud-stained waters. It is not surprising therefore that the district has attained the vogue it now enjoys.

The Don runs parallel to the Dee for a great part of its course, but it is a much shorter river, measuring only 78 miles. It rises at the very edge of the county close to the point where the Avon emerges from Glen Avon and turns north to join the Spey. It drains a valley which is only ten or fifteen miles separated from the valley of the larger river. In its upper reaches it somewhat resembles Deeside, being quite highland in character; but lower down the river loses its rapidity, becoming sluggish and winding. Strathdon, as the upper area is called, is undoubtedly picturesque, but it lacks the bolder features of Deeside, being less wooded and graced with few hills on the grand scale. It has not, therefore, become a popular

Birch Tree at Braemar

summer resort, but its banks form the richest alluvial agricultural land in the countyâ€”

A mile oâ€™ Donâ€™s worth twa oâ€™ DeeExcept for salmon, stone and tree.

A mile oâ€™ Donâ€™s worth twa oâ€™ Dee

Except for salmon, stone and tree.

This old couplet is so far correct. The Dee is a great salmon river, providing more first-class salmon angling than any other river of Scotland, while the Don, though owing to its muddy bottom a stream excellent beyond measure and unsurpassed for brown trout, is not now, partly owing to obstruction and pollution, a great salmon river. But the agricultural land on Donside, which for the most part is rich deep loam, about Kintore, Inverurie and the vale of Alford is much more kindly to the farmer than the light gravelly soil of Deeside, which is so apt to be burnt up in a droughty summer. In the matter of stone, things have changed since the couplet took shape. The granite quarries of Donside are now superior to any on the Dee; but the trees of Deeside still hold their own, the Scots firs of Ballochbuie forest, west of Balmoral, being the finest specimens of their kind in the north.

The nether-Don has been utilised for more than a century as a driving power for paper and wool mills. Of these there is a regular succession for several miles of the riverâ€™s course, from Bucksburn to within a mile of Old Aberdeen. After heavy rains or a spring thaw the lower reaches of the river, especially from Kintore downwards, are apt to be flooded, and in spite of embankments which have been erected along the riverâ€™s course, few years pass without serious damage being done to the

Fir Trees at Braemar

crops in low-lying fields. Some parts of Donside scenery, notably at Monymusk (called Paradise), and at Seaton House just below the Cathedral of Old Aberdeen, and before the river passes through the single Gothic arch of the ancient and historical bridge of Balgownie, are very fineâ€”wooded and picturesque, and beloved of more than one famous artist.

The next river is the Ythan, which, rising in the low hills of the Culsalmond district and flowing through the parish of Auchterless and past the charming hamlet of Fyvie, creeps somewhat sluggishly through Methlick and Lord Aberdeenâ€™s estates to Ellon. A few miles below Ellon it forms a large tidal estuary four miles in lengthâ€”a notable haunt of sea-trout, the most notable on the east coast. The river is only 37 miles long. It is slow and winding with deep pools and few rushing streams; moreover its waters have never the clear, sparkling quality of the silvery Dee. Yet at Fyvie and at Gight it has picturesque reaches that redeem it from a uniformity of tameness.

The Ugie, a small stream of 20 miles in length, is the only other river worthy of mention. It joins the sea north of the town of Peterhead. In character it closely resembles the Ythan, having the same kind of deep pools and the same sedge-grown banks.

The Deveron is more particularly a Banffshire river, yet in the Huntly district, it and its important tributary the Bogie (which gives its name to the well-known historic region called Strathbogie) are wholly in Aberdeenshire.

The Don, looking towards St Machar Cathedral

The Deveron partakes of the character of the Dee and the character of the Don. It is neither so sparkling and rapid as the one nor so slow and muddy as the other. Around Huntly and in the locality of Turriff and Eden, where it is the boundary between the counties, it has some charmingly beautiful reaches. Along its banks is a succession of stately manor-houses, embosomed in trees, and these highly embellished demesnes enhance its natural charms.

Brig oâ€™ Balgownie, Aberdeen

Lakes are few in Aberdeenshire, and such as exist are not specially remarkable. The most interesting historically are the Deeside Lochs Kinnord and Davan which areheld by antiquarians to be the seat of an ancient city Devanaâ€”the town of the two lakes. In pre-historic times there dwelt on the shores of these lakes as also in the valleys that converge upon them a tribe of people who built forts, and lake retreats, made oak canoes, and by means of palisades of the same material created artificial islands. The canoes which have been recovered from the bed of the loch are hollowed logs thirty feet in length. Other relicsâ€”a bronze vessel and a bronze spearhead, together with many beams of oakâ€”have been fished up, all proving the existence of an early Pictish settlement.

Loch Muick, near Ballater

Besides these, there is in the same districtâ€”but south-east of Loch-na-gar, another and larger lake called Loch Muick. From it flows the small river Muickâ€”a tributary of the Dee, which it joins above Ballater. South-west of Loch-na-gar is Loch Callater, which drains into the Clunie, another Dee tributary, which joins the main river at Castleton of Braemar. On the lower reaches of the Dee are the Loch of Park or Drum, and the Loch of Skene, both of which drain into the Dee. Both are much frequented by water-fowl of various kinds.

The Loch of Strathbeg, which lies on the east coast not far from Rattray Head, is a brackish loch of some interest. Two hundred years ago, we are told, it was in direct communication with the sea and small vessels were able to enter it. In a single night a furious easterly gale blew away a sand-hill between the Castle-hill of Rattray and the sea, with the result that the wind-driven sand formed a sand-bar where formerly there was a clear

Loch Callater, Braemar

water-way. Since that day the loch has been land-locked and though still slightly brackish may be regarded as an inland loch.

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