248 A VISIT TO r.RARMAU. 



no road, as that which we have hitherto used goes onwards through Glen 

 Tilt. We have now entered Glen Dee^ which is one of the routes usually 

 taken to our destination, and pick up little that is new except Molinia 

 ecerulea, Drosera Anglica, and the more generally- diffused JD. rotundifolia, 

 of which a lady-botanist has furnished the beautiful description as she 

 saw it growing far from her fatherland in the plains of Tasmania: — "The 

 sundew, with its rosette of round leaves, sitting close to the soil, and 

 sparkling like a cluster of little rubies, as the light glistens on its dew- 

 tipped crimson fringe." 



Every step now apprises us that we are approaching the vicinity of 



"The grisly cliffs which guard 



The infant rills of Highland Dee, 

 Where hunter's horn was never heard, 

 Nor bugle of the forest bee." ' 



The first of them we encounter is Ben Votrin, a bare and conical mass, 

 rising proudly from the Strath, and having, when we saw it, its summit 

 enveloped in a dense cloud of mist. Next in order on the western side 

 of the stream, is Cairntoul, remarkable for its height and numerous corries, 

 from one of which dashed to its base a continuous stream, or rather fall, 

 of at least a thousand feet in length. On one side of the stream, we had 

 Cairn Vim and several others, before reaching Ben Macdhui. At the base 

 of one of these, we gathered Arabia petrcea in profusion. A little further 

 on we commenced the most arduous part of the ascent, by following the 

 course of a mountain stream, which in summer seemed to be fed by a 

 field of snow at its summit, but whose torrent must, in winter, be irre- 

 sistible, as vast dykes of stones piled on either side of its course testify. 



As we ascended, we gathered Sihhaldia procumbus, Gerastium trigonum, 

 Poh/podium alpestre, Jungermannia cochleariformis, Bryum Ludwigii, Poly- 

 trichum septentrionale, and Andrma Mothii* Skirting the edge of the 

 patch of snow, or rather ice, at this season to which we have already 

 referred, our course to the summit lay over and among huge slabs of 

 granite, often upwards of twelve feet in length, of an oblong form, and 

 presenting great regularity in their grouping. This is the usual effect of 

 atmospheric and other agencies on granite, though nowhere have we seen 

 the process of decomposition exemplified on a more gigantic scale than on 

 Ben Macdhui, where, to recur to the ancient fable, if Cyclopean walls 

 ever did exist, they are here, the result of causes apparently insignificant 

 and slow in their operations, but nevertheless wielding a power inconceivably 

 mightier than any which the mythological dreams of the ancients ever dared 

 to attribute to the Cyclopes and Titans. On the summit are a hut (now 

 roofless) and cairn, both I suppose raised by the government surveyors. 



* In the same place Mr. Croall has, this season, (1856,) collected A. nivalis. 



