A HIGHLAND GLEN. 



Since I first found it, I have every year gone a- walking 

 to it, just to visii it, again and again. Tliis year, I have 

 been there and back. The fern is very small : I enclose 

 a specimen. It is the Rue-leaved, or Wall Spleenwort. 

 The rocky spot in which it grows contains many other 

 ferns, some of them not at all common. 



" Besides the wild rocky scenery of the place, there 

 is the only approach to a Highland glen which we have 

 in Caitliness. You set out from Thurso, and for the 

 first three or four miles there is nothing but corn and 

 bere on each side of the road ; and in dry leas, showers 

 of yellow Crowfoots and Ragworts ; with here and there 

 the blue heads of Scabious, or yellow Dandelions, or 

 yellow Hawkbits. All is yellow, yellow, dashed here 

 and there with masses of purple heath, redder by far 

 than you can possibly imagine. 



" On you go? .diverting the time as you best can, foi 

 all is wonderful. Then, at the distance of ten miles 

 from Thurso, you are on a hill-top, and you stand and 

 look around you. It is sweet to stand on a hill-top, and 

 gaze far up the country. Southwards you see farther 

 than you will ever wander. Of course you cannot tell 

 in words all that you see. You gaze eastward, north- 

 ward, and westward ; and then, after satiating yourself 

 with the prospect, you move down the farther side of 

 the hill, and get onward. Twelve miles, thirteen miles, 

 and many wonders are to be seen. And in due time 

 you get among the heather heather everywhere and 

 water black to drink. After going a mile through a 

 moor, you find yourself all at once on the brink of a 



