190 FORAYS AMONG SALMON AND DEER. 



the deer had wound their way, was a steep slope, about 

 half a mile in extent from bottom to top, and covered 

 with a thick sprinkling of loose stones and craigs, which 

 the frosts and thaws of successive ages had detached 

 from the cliffs above. In some parts huge dykes, as it 

 were, of ragged rock belted the passage, in such a 

 manner that in the distance further advance seemed 

 impossible ; but a nearer approach invariably disclosed 

 some projecting shelf, or narrow fissure by which, care- 

 fully avoiding the dizzying effect of a downward glance, 

 we could still continue a perilous ascent. In one case 

 this had proved too difficult even for a deer, as we 

 gathered from the carcase of a young stag, which lay 

 rotting a little below one of these bars of rock. He had 

 evidently lost his footing in the attempt to cross, and 

 being precipitated downwards, and tossed from rock to 

 rock, had eventually broken his neck. He lay on the 

 heather, his head buried under his ribs, and a large 

 vent in his side ; originally no doubt the flesh cut by 

 some sharp stone in his descent, but subsequently .en- 

 larged by the fox or the raven. Rather more than half- 

 way up the ascent we were driven by a pelting shower 

 of rain and sleet to seek shelter under cover of one of 

 these rocky battlements ; and half an hour was here 

 agreeably spent in admiring some curious petrifactions 

 formed by the water oozing through the section of the 

 limestone, and in gathering varieties of the fern tribe 

 which had fastened their tiny roots in the almost in- 

 visible interstices on the very face of the rock. The 

 storm having passed off, we resumed our way, and at 

 length found ourselves at the very spot where we had 

 last seen the deer. In front lay an elongated table 

 land, the almost flat top of a ridge of hills running be- 

 tween two deep glens, narrowing in one direction to 

 the width of about half a mile, while in the opposite 



