498 NOTES OF A BOTANICAL TOUR IN BANFFSHIRE. [April, 



rain had dulled our spirits somewhat. Mile after mile was left 

 behind. The ground was granite, covered with a thin sprinkling 

 of heather, mixed chiefly with Reindeer Moss, and variegated by 

 the Club Mosses (Tods' Tails). The one most common in these 

 parts is one very rare in England — Lycopodium Selago. This spe- 

 cies grows also on the Knock and on Belrinnes. The other spe- 

 cies are L. clavatum, L. alpinum, and L. selaginoides, the smallest 

 of them, and found growing from the sea-level to the tops of the 

 hills. We also met with a few Fir-trees about three feet high. 

 They were struggling for life. The soil was barren ; the climate 

 was uncongenial; everything was against them. Yet they were 

 struggling bravely against every disadvantage. They were poor 

 stunted, twisted things — miserable pigmies when compared to 

 their more fortunate brothers, that rise up in their dark-green 

 symmetry and splendour. Yet there was a beauty in them, — the 

 beauty of fighting against adversity, and prevailing. There is an 

 indescribable feeling when we look on beauty in the human form 

 that has been nursed in all the refinements of high-bred life. 

 There is a music in such beauty, and every one who has a 

 heart at all feels that music, and delights in it, and is refined and 

 cheered by it. But there is also a music, grand and terrible, in 

 the beauty of that man who has gone down to the pit of hard toil 

 for an honest living, or of adversity, or of sorrow, and come out, 

 his frame bent and his face seamed. It is the music of the storm, 

 and one feels the strength rush to the arm, and the heart beats 

 faster, and life looks bright. 



By-and-by the river Avon was gained, and we toiled along 

 its banks through broken peat-bogs — the most fatiguing part of 

 our journey. At last the loch, with Cairngorm on one hand, 

 Ben-Main on the other, and Ben-Macdhui in front, burst upon 

 us. It was a wild and wondrous sight. Evening was gathering 

 fast ; heavy clouds were rolling along the hills, and the sky was 

 one mass of black. Heaven and earth seemed to meet. The 

 streams were tumbling in white foam over the precipices, as if 

 they were poured out of the hands of the storm-spirit. The loch 

 lay calm below, fringed with yellowish-red sand, in some parts 

 of a light blue, in the shallow parts of dark blue, almost black in 

 the deeper parts. All was dark except the foaming torrents and 

 the patches of snow on the hillsides. The wind was howling at 

 times down the gullies, at other times there was not a breath ; 



