72 CAM CHREAG AND BEINN DOIREANN. 



position was of surpassing value in our eyes since it brought us 

 right into the sacred places of nature, whose treasures we had 

 come to seek. Thus, with thoughts unclouded by the solitude of 

 our surroundings, we set out on our first day's adventure among 

 the Bens. 



Starting from the hotel, we followed the highway which runs 

 parallel with the course of the river Fillan for about a mile, passing 

 on our way the picturesque little church on the southern side of 

 the river, and the field of Dail Righ, where King Robert the 

 Bruce met in deadly fight, and was defeated by, his feudal 

 enemies, the Macdougalls of Lorn, on that famous occasion when, 

 to save his life, the Bruce left part of his plaid and his brooch in 

 the hands of his foes. Sir Walter Scott has preserved the incident 

 in The Lord of the Isles. At Auchtertyre Burn we left the high- 

 way, crossed the track of the new Highland railway, and followed 

 the course of the burn up towards Beinn Chaorach, skirting the 

 hilly ramparts that shelter Tyndrum on the north-west, culminat- 

 ing in the heights of Beinn Odhar. Where the burns join at the 

 base of Beinn Chaorach we crossed, keeping to the north side at 

 first, but near the burn-head made our way across to Beinn 

 Chalium, ascending one of its spurs in order to reach a mass of 

 black-looking rocks on the hill-side beyond, where we hoped to 

 reap our flowery harvest. 



A long, upward-winding way it was, with many a marsh to 

 wade and burn to cross withal: but there was no lack of interest 

 even in these, for to the lover of nature everything is new under 

 the sun. With every upward movement the aspect of the hills 

 alters, with every passing cloud their expression changes, and 

 wherever the tiniest streamlet trickles down the mountain's face, 

 or the spongiest bog makes the hill-side green— and walking, 

 wading — there is the chance of something new turning up. As 

 we wound round the lower slopes, scanning every thread of water 

 narrowly, following one occasionally for some distance in search 

 of rarer if not fairer treasure, the golden clusters of Saxifraga 

 aizoides were starring the green hill-sides, the orange spires of 

 Narthecium ossifragum lifted themselves daintily from the midst 

 of their tufts of green ribbons, and over every marsh Eriophorum 

 — the " down of Cana " of Ossianic legend — waved like an arrested 

 fall of snow. 



