190 THE CRUISE OF THE BETSEY; OR, 



CHAPTER XII. 



MY term of furlough was fast drawing to a close. It was 

 110 w Wednesday the 14th August, and on Monday the 19th 

 it behoved me to be seated at my desk in Edinburgh. I took 

 boat, and crossed the Moray Frith from Cromarty to Nairn, 

 and then walked on, in a very hot sun, over Shakspeare's 

 Moor to Boghole, with the intention of examining the ich- 

 thyolite beds of Clune and Lethenbarn, and afterwards strik- 

 ing across the country to Forres, through the forest of Darn- 

 away, where the forest abuts on the Findhorn, at the pictu- 

 resque village of Sluie. When I had last crossed the moor, 

 exactly ten years before, it was in a tremendous storm of 

 rain and wind ; and the dark platform of heath and bog, with 

 its old ruinous castle standing sentry over it, seemed greatly 

 more worthy of the genius of the dramatist, as cloud after 

 cloud dashed over it, like ocean waves breaking on some low 

 volcanic island, than it did on this clear, breathless afternoon, 

 in the unclouded sunshine. But the sublimity of the moor 

 on which Macbeth met the witches depends in no degree on 

 that of the " heath near Forres," whether seen in foul wea- 

 ther or fair : its topography bears relation to but the mind 

 of Shakspeare ; and neither tile-draining nor the plough will 

 ever lessen an inch of its area. 



The limestone quarry of Clune has been opened on the 



