DUNKELD TO BLAIR ATHOLE. 283 



fir. The larch was found riot to splinter so easily, and 

 to fire more sluggishly when it was tested by a broad- 

 side and a brazier; and when "The Larch" was 

 finally wrecked at Ladra on the shores of the Black 

 Sea, it fought with the breakers to the last. Such 

 were the hopes of the Duke when iron-clads were 

 a vision only worthy of " a horse marine," and the 

 larch had not learnt to die downwards. 



Disease may have done its work among them, and 

 thousands fell one February night when the storm 

 swept down Strath Braan; but there they stand, 

 thickly crowning the summit of Craig Vinean and 

 Craig-y-Barns. These rocky outposts of the Athole 

 woodlands are seen in all their grandeur from the 

 Abbey grounds. The silver fir and the bonnet fir, 

 with its finer bark and smaller thread, flourish in 

 these smooth over-arching glades by the side of the 

 Tay ; and there, too, are the very Gog and Magog 

 of the larch clan, a hundred feet each in stature, and 

 four hundred and eighteen feet cubic in bulk. Tea 

 leaves are said to have been cooked cabbage-fashion 

 when they first arrived in England ; and tradition 

 has it that these larches were nursed in a hot-house 

 till they pined, and then took root by chance, and 

 nourished when they had been expelled from it as 

 worthless. Birnam Hill, with its purple heather 

 circlet, stands proudly in the distance; but its 

 " wood" is reduced at last to an oak tree and a plane. 

 The sun lights up the speared otter on the kennel 

 vane; but Cruel and Conqueror have been gone 



