128 LOCH CRERAN. 



the unseasonable flowers. Everything seemed out of 

 place and time, so we stopped in our path across the still 

 growing sward, and watched the movements of a young 

 horse, half-hoping half-fearing to see it strangle itself on 

 the wire of the fence. Will it put its foot through the 

 lower wires and complete its entanglement, will a stray 

 dog scare it and disorganise its movements, or does it at 

 all appreciate its danger? With its head between the 

 highest and second wire it cooly scratches itself, first on 

 the one wire, then on the other, regardless of our presence, 

 and with unhurried assurance. When satisfied, the head 

 is straightened and withdrawn with ease and celerity, 

 when he at once turns and proceeds to the application 

 of an a posteriori argument against the utility of wooden 

 stobs and ordinary iron wire ! If a young horse had a 

 very little more intelligence it would never become an 

 old drudge ; and the result of severe labour on horse as 

 upon man is to divert power from the brain into the 

 muscles, and stimulate the little intellect that is left more 

 to avoid imposed labour than to perform it skilfully. 



" I'm so glad you left the stone circles," said the 

 enthusiastic archaeologist, to the improving farmer on 

 whose land we are now, regardless of the fact that the 

 trouble of removing so many great stones was the only 

 safeguard they possessed. We pass close by them, now 

 little raised above the moss, and seek the summit of the 

 serpentine mound near at hand, from whence we look 

 towards Loch Creran on the one hand and Ardmucknish 

 Bay on the other. A serpent mound, most unmistakably 

 some would say, for it winds along from the moss near 

 the foot ot the hills, and with a few simple gaps continues 

 along under our feet, and around behind the old castle 

 until its diminishing and still more twisted tail ends in 



