178 FORAYS AMONG SALMON AND DEER. 



opportunity, and start for the hills at once. Provisions 

 had been in readiness for some days, and in less than 

 an hour after breakfast Walter and I were off with the 

 trap and ponies for the fox-hunter's cottage. 



Finding him at home, we apportioned out the 

 baggage into three lots, as nearly equal as possible ; 

 and each bracing on his burden, we set off across the 

 moors for the shooting-cottage, in the forest. Our 

 burdens proving by no means light, we rather shrank 

 from facing the precipitous side of Ben-Fuoghlin, and 

 kept along the bottom of the strath, a route less 

 fatiguing though rather longer. After we had walked 

 about three miles, and had come to the foot of the 

 lofty Creag-an-Islair (the Craig of the Eagle), the sky 

 clouded over, and a heavy bank of snow came floating 

 over the top of the hill to our right, leaving a thin 

 fleecy veil on the hillside, reaching down to a certain 

 level, below which none of it descended. 



It is a curious fact, which I have been told more 

 than once by the Highlanders, that those, whose life is 

 spent year after year among the mountains, have little 

 need of a thermometer, the hills around answering 

 the same purpose ; for, as a general rule, the snow 

 descends and lingers on the hills, down to a certain 

 level, in a certain temperature ; the colder the air, the 

 lower the line of snow ; and this is often observable 

 for an extent of many miles. So that an experienced 

 eye can tell, even with some degree of accuracy, the 

 degree of cold from the depth of the skirts of the 

 snowy mantle that robes the mountain-side. 



But to return. As we passed beneath the Creag-an- 

 Islair, we observed an eagle soaring through the snow- 

 cloud, his course being towards the sea. Presently a 

 second was visible, wheeling majestically above the 

 summits of the craig ; and as we now mounted the hill 



