48 
which girths 13 feet 10 inches at 5 feet up, the narrowest part of 
the giant bole. The Grantown Golf Course was next seen along- 
side the road on the left, where keen players, both male and 
female, were busily displaying their deftness with the clubs, and 
trying their best to win the hole. At a little distance off the 
road, on the right, as Grantown was approached, Heathfield, the 
comfortable-looking residence of Mr J. Grant Thomson, wood- 
manager on the Seafield estates, was seen prettily situated in nice 
shrubberies and gardens, with the neat cottages and offices of the 
wood-manager’s department near at hand; the inhabitants 
turning out en masse to give a cheer and wave a welcome to the 
Excursionists as they drove past. A short drive farther landed 
the company again at the hospitable door of the Grant Arms 
Hotel, where an early luncheon was partaken of, before setting 
out for the afternoon’s work. 
Luncheon finished, and seats taken in the carriages, the party 
were off again by noon, this time passing out of the town to the 
west, and driving through Kylintra Wood, a well-grown planta- 
tion, chiefly Scots pine. The road runs westward along the face 
of the hill near the railway, and affords many beautiful views of 
the Strath. The pleasantly situated house of Inverallan, the 
residence of J. Smith, Esq., factor on the Seafield estates, was 
observed snugly embowered in the woodlands close to the banks 
of the Spey. After passing to the upper side of the railway, a 
little beyond Craggan Mills, Gaich Wood was seen bordering the 
road on the right for about half a mile, and near its west end 
much interest was excited by the remarkable manner in which 
large Scots pines were seen clinging by their roots to the bare 
solid rock, without apparently a particle of earth in which the 
roots could run and find nourishment. Still, the trees were 
healthy and well-grown, showing that their long gnarled and 
twisted roots, which formed a network on the hard surface of the 
rock, must have found their way through the interstices into a 
more nourishing element. The Dulnain river was crossed by a 
fine bridge at a picturesque spot, where the road branching off to 
the right leads to the great Scots pine forest of Duthil on the 
Seafield estates, lying some miles higher up the valley beyond 
Carr Bridge. As the carriages drove over Dulnain Bridge, a 
glimpse was caught, through the trees in the valley on the right, 
of the picturesque ruins of Muckrach Castle, the earliest posses- 
sion in Strathspey of the Grants of Rothiemurchus, being built 
