BR/EMAU. INVERCAULD. PASS OF CAIRNGORM. 151 



" Here first beneath the hawthorn bush, 



The spring-flower scents the gale : 

 Here first the song of vernal thrush 



Awakes the smiling vale. 

 Here, oft by wild and wimpling stream, 



From alpine summits bald, 

 The bard lias sung his Doric theme 



' The Bowers of Invercauld.'" &c. 



In the district of Braemar is a mountain, called the " Lesser Cairngorm," 

 which it is important the tourist should know how to distinguish from the real 

 Cairngorm ;* for, although the latter is accessible on this side, the enterprise is 

 one that will occupy many hours, and require an effort of no mean consideration 

 even to the robust pedestrian. This mountain we briefly mentioned in our 

 sketch of Inverness-shire, to which it belongs, and shall here confine our obser- 

 vations to the scene so ably represented in the engraving. 



The Highland deer-stalker, like the chamois hunter of the Alps, requires no 

 small share of fortitude in the pursuit of his game ; and to be successful, he must, 

 like the former, have a constitution tempered by long and frequent exposure 

 to the keen blasts of the desert. The stately red deer, like the chamois, keeps 

 far aloof from the haunts of men. As in the plate before us, the adventurous 

 native must track the noble herd through the snow, and from his ambush pick 

 out the stragglers. Accidents have often occurred during severe winters in the 

 exercise of this dangerous calling ; and not a pass in the Grampians but has 

 its catalogue of hair-breadth 'scapes, or sudden catastrophes. On New Year's 

 Day, in the year 1799, a party of huntsmen in the forest of Gaich, headed by 

 a gentleman of the name of M'Pherson, proceeded the previous night to a hut 

 on the hill, that they might be out early in the morning in quest of the deer. 

 During the night, a tremendous storm of thunder and lightning came on, and 

 before morning the hut was entirely destroyed; the walls were scattered in 

 fragments, and every individual perished, leaving an impenetrable mystery as to 

 the real circumstances of the case. By some, the catastrophe was attributed to the 

 fall of an avalanche from the adjoining height, where the snow, having accumulated 

 to a great depth, had suddenly slipt its perch, and overwhelmed the hut and 

 its inmates. Others assign electricity as the cause ; while the natives invest 

 the whole with many dark, superstitious surmises, which, in a country like this, 



* The surface of Cairngorm is, in some places, sprinkled over with those crystals which have obtained 

 the name of Cairngorms, and are generally washed down by streams from cavities in the rocks. Scotch 

 topaz and beryl are likewise found here, but more plentifully on the south side, in the alluvia of the Dec 

 and the Don. 



