238 RAMBLES OF A GEOLOGIST. 



There was a smart frost next morning ; and, for the first 

 few hours, my seat on the top of the Banff coach, by which 

 I travelled across the country to where the Gamrie and Banff 

 roads part company, was considerably more cool than agree- 

 able. But the keen morning improved into a brilliant day, 

 with an atmosphere transparent as if there had been no at- 

 mosphere at all, through which the distant objects looked out 

 as sharp of outline, and in as well-defined light and shadow, 

 as if they had occupied the background, not of a Scotch, but 

 of an Italian landscape. A few speck-like sails, far away on 

 the intensely blue sea, which opened upon us in a stretch of 

 many leagues, as we surmounted the moory ridge over Mac- 

 duff, gleamed to the sun with a radiance bright as that of 

 the sparks of a furnace blown to a white heat. The land, 

 uneven of surface, and open, and abutting in bold promon- 

 tories on the frith, still bore the sunny hue of harvest, and 

 seemed as if stippled over with shocks from the ridgy hill 

 summits, to where ranges of giddy cliffs flung their shadows 

 across the beach. I struck off for Gamrie by a path that 

 runs eastward, nearly parallel to the shore, which at one 

 or two points it overlooks from dark-coloured cliffs of grau- 

 wacke slate, to the fishing village of Gardenstone. My 

 dress was the usual fatigue suit of russet, in which I find I 

 can work amid the soil of ravines and quarries with not only 

 the best effect, but with even the least possible sacrifice of 

 appearance : the shabbiest of all suits is a good suit spoiled. 

 My hammer-shaft projected from my pocket ; a knapsack, 

 with a few changes of linen, slung suspended from my shoul- 

 ders ; a strong cotton umbrella occupied my better hand ; 

 and a gray maud, buckled shepherd-fashion aslant the chest, 

 completed my equipment. There were few travellers on the 

 road, which forked off on the hill-side a short mile away, into 

 two branches, like a huge letter Y, leaving me uncertain 

 which branch to choose ; and I made up my mind to have 



