NOVEMBER, 1882. 249 



sanitary sins of the people with a disinfectant mantle of 

 kindly security. 



But here we are at Cregan, and we may land in the 

 gloaming at the little bay, and stroll up by the Ferry 

 House. The mountains are now as if close beside us. 

 Those of Glencoe are virgin snow-capped, with etherial 

 blue sides shading into delicate pink above in the after- 

 glow. Nearer, the white tops glide downwards into deep 

 black, thence into rusty yellow or russet brown. The 

 shadow of the shapely Craig beside us is shivering in 

 the loch, and every birch stands out clearly on its well- 

 defined ridge. But how describe the innumerable 

 shades and indefinable shading of the yellows and 

 browns upon its sides, with little gullies of deeper tints 

 that slip from the gold-tipped summit to the solemn- 

 visaged base ? We turn aside hopeless of speech, and 

 only receptive of beauty, and gaze towards the sun, now 

 far beneath the horizon. A single cormorant sits like a 

 sentinel on the little rocky islet whose top is just above 

 the waves ; and the gleam of brilliant yellow above the 

 rich blue-grey banks of cloud throws the little peninsula, 

 with its birchen knolls, into delicate relief against the 

 Appin background. 



A breeze has stolen down the hillside, and is curdling 

 the waters seaward ; with a sharp bite in it too from the 

 snows of Glencoe, that bids us hie away home. The 

 night was so bright that we lost sight of the heavens in 

 the new lights thrown by them upon our little bit of 

 earth. There is the smoke curling from Barcaldine 

 Gardens, where they recently trapped a buck in a novel 

 manner. These animals frequent the garden environs in 

 numbers in the winter, and one had made frequent inva- 

 sions of the bulb house, where it had regaled itself with 



