144 COUNTRY ESSAYS. 



have never heard that the enterprising Mr. Cook ever " person- 

 ally conducted " his myrmidons here, though he marshals them 

 at the North Cape, to see the midnight sun. But to the artist, 

 the lover of nature in her sterner and grander moods, and above 

 all, to the naturalist and angler, Assynt is a delightful reality at 

 the time of visiting it, while afterwards it fades into a dream- 

 land of stately mountains and lochs studded with water-lilies. 

 Thither we mentally retire when the facts of common life 

 obtrude themselves too much, when troubles and business, and 

 the hurry of daily existence, weigh down the spirits. It is 

 astonishing what fine stags can often at such times be stalked 

 on the lonely corries which the golden eagle sweeps across from 

 Quinaig, where he yet lives and thrives how we can watch him 

 swoop down upon the alpine hare, which, aware of the shadow 

 dimming the sunlight overhead, darts rapidly into his cave in 

 the crags, and escapes the royal bird ; and how we can battle 

 successfully with monster salmon on the Inver, or catch trout of 

 grand weight on Loch Awe. Thus it is that fancy compensates 

 for the monotony of work, and in every beautiful spot that we 

 visit grows the " bright golden flower " of blissful content, 



" More med'cinal than that moly 

 That Hermes once to wise Ulysses gave, 



Of sovran use 



'Gainst all enchantments, mildew blast, or clamp. 

 Or ghastly furies' apparition." 



For this flower of simple happiness transmutes the dullest scene 

 into an enchanted land. Certainly it grows abundantly, if a man 

 can only find it, on the bare crags of Assynt. If any prosaic 

 reader desires the names of some rare plants at which he may 

 "peep and botanise " in Assynt, he will find them in the note.* 



* Cornus suecica, cherleria sedoides, saxifraga stellaris, luzula spicata, 

 arctostaphylos alpina, azalea procumbens, epipactis media, galium boreale, 

 dry as octopetala. Ferns dstopleris fragilis, asplenium viride, pol. lonchitis, 

 oreopteris, lunaria, &c. 



