190 SCANNING THE GROUND. 



waters. Here, at the skirts of the wood, we paused to 

 scan with our telescopes the face of the hills rising to 

 oar right. There were roe-deer near us among the 

 birches, but to-day we were in quest of larger game. 

 The curtain of mist was now gradually rolling away 

 from the hill, and revealing more and more of the 

 ground to our view ; and presently I saw that Gilles- 

 pie's eye was resting upon some object of interest, and 

 turning my own glass in the direction indicated by his, 

 I soon, with Alister's assistance, made out a deer, a 

 little below the brow of the hill. It proved to be a 

 yeld hind feeding alone, in a green grassy spot, evi- 

 dently in good condition, and not to be despised for 

 culinary purposes. Gillespie however expected to find 

 some good heads in the higher ground about the loch 

 above mentioned; accordingly we agreed for the 

 present at least to leave the animal before us undis- 

 turbed in her security, and resume our march in quest 

 of the former. It required more than an hour's hard 

 walking and climbing over ground rough and unpleas- 

 ant in the extreme, to bring us to the borders of Loch- 

 an-Fioghnard ; when we paused behind a huge boulder 

 stone, which, judging by the nature of its substance, 

 had once formed part of a hill at a considerable 

 distance ; whence it could only have been transported 

 to its present position, over the intervening hollows and 

 elevations, by the agency of some floating iceberg, in 

 an age long since passed away. Here we again com- 

 menced a reconnoitre with our glasses ; and a few mo- 

 ments' examination revealed to us deer both to the right 

 and to the left, both herds gradually feeding their way 

 out of the valley for the higher ground behind the over- 

 hanging cliffs. Those to our right were already so high, 

 that two or three of the leading animals were standing 



