AMONGST THE HEATHER. 45 



helps the effect. Above tower many huge spruce firs, like 

 giants, with drooping robes of green that love to sweep the 

 earth. Some of them have lost their lead, but another soon 

 takes its place, and the disfigurement is speedily unnoticed in 

 the clouds of foliage high up, its light-green tips all drenched 

 in sunshine. Behind them the mountains break away into the 

 skies, their shoulders covered with spires of young larch, while 

 graceful birches come down the foreground intermixed with the 

 heavy-hanging sprays of beech, like mountain nymphs which 

 have left their stern seclusion to draw near to men. In the 

 valley the bracken catches the sun's rays, and amidst its glitter 

 the Garry may be discerned of the colour of strong tea, with 

 boulders shining through its stream, like masses of cairngorm, 

 when seen in the shade. Rain has fallen amongst the moun- 

 tains during the night, and now the trees shake their leaves 

 over the stream as it roars underneath, and the foxgloves near 

 it dance in the echoes, and a thousand little burns, running 

 into it, trickle everywhere through the lichen-spotted boulders ! 

 Indeed, seeing that all this country is the land of Burns, it is 

 absurd for Glasgow and the neighbourhood to claim the desig- 

 nation in honour of the great national poet. What more typical 

 view could be selected for a wild prospect of Highland heather ? 

 Only man is wanting, and at the next bend he is discovered in 

 the shape of a salmon-fisher, trying the big pool under the 

 Cradle-stone. But he is rather late, as this river does not fish 

 well in July, and the chances are that, if he does hook a salmon 

 in the pool, it will rush on the wings of this little spate over the 

 sharp rocks at the bottom, and infallibly cut the line in half. 

 And now the angler finds he has caught his " silver doctor " on 

 the beach behind, and snapped off the barb. With the patience 

 of his fraternity, however, he proceeds to put on another, only 

 too thankful meanwhile to find a cushion of heather close at 

 hand on which to sit. The roar of the water floats to the ear, 

 softened by distance, the bee hums in the wild thyme, and the 



