OCTOBER, 1882. 233 



We have got up among the birches, and the dancing 

 streams with their courses filled to overflowing, 

 the steep banks heavily clothed with lichens, the 

 ferns decked in yellow and gold, and the bracken 

 lying in rusty masses. Here a solitary digitalis lurks 

 in a quiet corner, a few gowans meet us on the green 

 slope above; and no sooner do we emerge from the 

 darkness of the gorge than the eye sweeps outward 

 over placid lochs and isles of beauty, with the 

 dreamy clouds drifting across the sun, and turning the 

 whole wondrous scene into a giant kaleidoscope, as the 

 play of light and shade alters the diversified landscape, 

 and plays bo-peep with a thousand nooks and crannies, 

 slopes and gullies, from Morven to the peaks of 

 Ballachulish. The ground is soppy, indeed, or we would 

 willingly have reclined under the rosy-leaved birches in 

 the blinking sun, and seen whether the " beauty born of 

 the murmuring sounds " about us would " pass into our 

 face," even for the passing hour. But visions of 

 rheumatism dispel any such illusion, and the " old fool " 

 of our more youthful companion, anxious about temporal 

 requirements, warns us that, like " every dog," we have 

 had our day ; and the " murmuring sounds " of those 

 waiting for dinner are not conducive to human beauty 

 or felicity. 



Wednesday night was exceptionally dark, and we chose 

 it, perversely, in which to traverse the wood for a couple 

 of miles or more. As we stumble along, starting the 

 fallow deer and the roebuck, to send them plunging 

 madly through the night, and occasionally startled our- 

 selves by the shriek of a belated heron on its way home 

 over the tree tops, we were again interested in noting a 

 very brilliant light in the moss under the trees, so bright 



