172 TO THE FOREST AGAIN. 



the first flock. The loch being now cleared, with the 

 exception of a few gulls and coots, not worth their 

 salt, we turned our steps homewards, and arrived there 

 just as night closed in upon us. 



I now extract from my Diary. 



Tuesday. There was again a slight fall of snow in the 

 night, but by our breakfast-hour all traces of it had 

 disappeared, except on the highest hills ; and though 

 a few ominous clouds were still hovering about, the 

 day, on the whole, seemed fair and bright. As our 

 departure for the South could not be delayed beyond 

 the end of the week, we resolved to seize the present 

 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 



