CHAPTER TWENTY SANDHILLS 



BETWEEN the fertile plains of Moray and the 

 shores of the Moray Firth there lies one of the 

 most peculiarly barren and strange districts of 

 country in Scotland, consisting of a stretch of 

 sandhills, in most parts formed of pure and very fine yel- 

 lowish sand, without a blade of vegetation of any descrip- 

 tion, and constantly shifting and changing their shape and 

 appearance on the recurrence of continued dry winds. 

 Looking from the hills more inland, this range of sand, in 

 the evening sun, has the appearance of a golden boundary 

 line to the beautiful picture of the firth. With the magnifi- 

 cent rocks of Cromarty, and the snow-capped mountains 

 of Ross-shire and Sutherland in the distance, I know no 

 more striking picture than the coup ^(S"?/ of this landscape, 

 with the smiling plains and groves of Morayshire as a fore- 

 ground. 



In other parts of these sandhills are tracts covered with 

 a dry and rough kind of bent; the long roots of which, 

 stretching along the surface of the sand, and throwing out 

 innumerable fibres and holders, serve in some measure to 

 prevent the drifting of the sand. It is a matter of surprise 

 how this bent can find enough sustenance and moisture in 

 the sand, which is always moving and always dry. At the 

 extremity, opposite Findhorn, is a peninsula, with a soli- 

 tary farm-house, and a tolerably-sized arable farm, with 

 tracts of broom and furze around it. The furze-bushes are 

 all eaten by the rabbits into peculiar shapes, as the old yew 

 and box trees in a Dutch garden are cut into figures to hu- 

 mour the quaint fancies of their heavy-sterned proprietors. 

 The rabbits ought, by the by, to be well clothed, as they 

 263 



