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wood, soon screened us from the blast, and the beautiful panorama 

 with which we were now encircled soon banished all thoughts of the 

 cold and the snow, and made us regret that days instead of hours were 

 not at our disposal for its investigation. We might willingly forbear 

 all general details in this short notice were it not in the hope of in- 

 ducing some more able botanist, with more time at his disposal, to 

 spend a few days on the banks of this romantic stream. 



The Findhorn, for the greater part of its course, flows over a wild and 

 rocky channel, and its banks are mostly composed of steep and rugged 

 rocks, clothed in all the richness of nature's garniture, and would no 

 doubt well repay the most careful researches of the exploring botanist. 

 The space to which our ramble was on this occasion restricted, was 

 in the vicinity of the small village of Sluie, at the point where the 

 primary or igneous rocks first make their appearance, and did not ex- 

 tend beyond a quarter of a mile in length. The banks of the river are 

 here mostly high and precipitous, often projecting over the stream to 

 a considerable extent, rendering all access to its margin impossible. 

 Here and there the feet of the fisherman have worn a path, narrow, 

 difficult, and often dangerous, down to the margin of the stream, 

 along which you can proceed for a short distance, when you must 

 often retrace your steps to the summit, and then, by a similar path- 

 way, make another descent to the richly moss and lichen-clad rocks 

 that skirt the river. The upper part of the bank is densely clothed 

 with oak, birch, larch, spruce, and Scotch fir, here and there relieved 

 by the white polished bark of the poplar, or the yellow drooping cat- 

 kins of the willow. 



From the bottom as well as from the summit of the projecting cliffs, 

 some beautiful and highly interesting views are obtained of the dark 

 winding stream ; at one time rushing over its rough craggy bed, foam- 

 ing with all the wild sublimity of mountain grandeur; at another, it 

 coils silently over some projecting ledge into a dark and almost 

 fathomless pool, in whose eddying recesses the salmon play their 

 gambols in security. Here you may see the patient angler, seated on 

 a crag, almost motionless as the rock beneath him, eagerly watching 

 his nibbling prey. There you may observe an old man, seated on a 

 shelf scarcely larger than his body, at the bottom of a fall, up which 

 the poor fish are ever and anon vainly endeavouring to make their 

 way, and as they fall backwards drop quietly into the net which the 

 fisherman holds in his hand ready to receive them. At one spot you 

 perceive the eyry of the hawk or the eagle, with the watchful bird 

 seated on a crag above, of which he seems but to form a part; while 



