22S A VISIT TO BRAEMAR. ' 



this point, that the herbage consisted chiefly of Nardus strida, Carex rigida, 

 and Scirpus ccespitosiis. Descending a round gravel-covered shoulder of this 

 hill, we crossed a stream at its base, on the banks of which we gathered 

 that beautiful lichen, Solcrina crocea. 



We were induced to clirab part of Ben-na-bourd, which rises to the 

 west of the stream we had just crossed, from the prospect which a ridge 

 of dripping rocks, covered with a patch of yet unnielted snow, afforded of 

 producing Saxifraga nivalis; in this we were disappointed, but found in 

 its stead abundance of Bryum Ludwigii in fruit, in which state it is said 

 to occur but at rare intervals. It spread over the whole surface of the 

 wet and gravel-covered declivity, and seemed to have sent up its whole 

 armies of bright green capsules, just as the superincumbent snow had 

 gradually receded, and left it free to be acted upon by the summer's sun. 

 Polytrichum septentrionale was gathered more sparingly. Our journey down 

 this glen towards Glen Candlick, frotn which we had started in the morning, 

 afforded many interesting sights — huge masses of rocks, of the size of 

 ordinary Highland huts, toppled at some distant date, from the wild hills 

 around us; a beautiful fall, with the water falling over three distinct ledges; 

 a glimpse — all the grandeur from the approach of twilight — of the dark 

 corry of Benna-bourd, and the snow-streaked walls that gird it. A few 

 Splachna, of species afterwards to be mentioned, lay on the more beaten paths. 



To pass over the numerous theories that have been started to account 

 for the deposition of wide tracts of peat, and the no less interesting question, 

 how many of our ancient pine forests have come by their end, and left 

 but their blasted skeletons behind without a younger progeny springing up 

 in their place: the theory, or rather tradition, prevailing among these 

 mountains, as to the latter fact, is of too strange a nature to be omitted: — 



Once upon a time, there reigned over this "land of the mountain and 

 the flood" a king and queen, who must be nameless, as our informant 

 honoured them with none; however his majesty seems to have prided himself, 

 perhaps justly, on the extent of his umbrageous forests, and the abundance 

 of the noble game to which they afforded shelter. Be this as it may, he 

 could not always enjoy them without interruption^ for the cares of state, 

 or the din of war, called him at one time for a lengthened period from 

 their vicinity. On his return he was ungallant enough to inquire after 

 the welfare of his forests, before he bestowed a thought on, or asked a 

 similar question, regarding the gracious but vindictive lady, his queen, who 

 instantly fired with burning jealousy at these new objects of her lord's 

 affections, ordered them to be burned without remorse: — and here assuredly 

 stand their scorched and broken stems, in many instances retaining their 

 original position, with their roots firmly set in a coarse soil, which the 

 peat now overlies. 



