QO Burn side. 



<; Down by yon burn, where scented birks 

 WP dew are hanging clear " 



we can rest awhile in the shade, and for a time defy the 

 scorching sun. Not that the birches will be hanging with 

 the early dew of morning this lovely afternoon, but instead 

 thereof their pendent leafy boughs will be bathed in the 

 drops of spray that rise as the racing torrent dashes madly 

 over the rocky boulders in its bed. 



As we stand on this rock in the bright sunlight, we see 

 that we have long since left that narrow stratum of the 

 atmosphere near the summit, where the mist was being 

 formed, and through which it drifted so rapidly. There is 

 a mass of mist enveloping the summit now, but it soon dis- 

 appears, and there is nothing to indicate these rapidly formed 

 and as rapidly dissipated misty masses, through which we 

 have just passed, except an occasional white cap to the 

 summit, and a thick haze far around it. 



The burn which we see below runs down the bottom of 

 the valley that separates Ben Donich from The Brack and 

 Choc Coinnich, and almost opposite to us, looking southward, 

 is another valley, separating the latter from Tom nan 

 Gramhna. What a contrast the two mountains present ; 

 the former with a broken rocky summit, and its lower slopes 

 covered with grass or beds of bracken, among which large 

 masses of rock stand out gaunt and bare ; the latter gently 

 sloping to the waters of the distant loch, its rounded summit 

 one living brilliant waste of purple heather. Yet not quite 

 a waste, for does not the poet sing 



" Flower of the waste, the heath-fowl shuns 

 For thee the brake and tangled wood, 



