THE SCOTCH FIR, OR PINE. 367 



hills, and even in many cases approach the very roots of 

 the giant mountains which tower over them ; yet with 

 all this, the reader is mistaken if he supposes that any 

 tiresome uniformity exists among these wilds. Every 

 movement we make exposes to our view fresh objects 

 of excitement, and discloses new scenes produced by the 

 infinite variety of the surface. At one time we find 

 ourselves wandering along some natural level under the 

 deep and sublime shade of the heavy Pine foliage, upheld 

 high over head by the tall and massive columnar stems, 

 Avhich appear to form an endless colonnade ; the ground 

 dry as a floor beneath our footsteps, the very sound of 

 which is muffled by the thick deposition of decayed Pines 

 with which the seasons of more than one century have 

 strewed it ; hardly conscious that the sun is up, save from 

 the fragrant resinous odour which its influence is exhaling, 

 and the continued hum of the clouds of insects that are 

 dancing in its beams over the tops of the trees. Anon 

 the ground begins to swell into hillocks, and here and 

 there the continuity of shade is broken by a broad rush of 

 light streaming down through some vacant space, and 

 brightly illuminating a single tree of huge dimensions and 

 of grand form, which, rising from a little knoll, stands out 

 in bold relief from the darker masses behind it, where the 

 shadows again sink deep and fathomless among the red 

 and gray stems ; whilst Nature, luxuriating in the light that 

 gladdens the little glade, pours forth her richest Highland 

 treasures of purple heathbells, and bright green bilberries, 

 and trailing whortleberries, with tufts of ferns and tall 

 junipers irregularly intermingled. And then, amidst the 

 silence that prevails, the red deer stag comes carelessly 

 across the view, leading his whole herd behind him ; and, 

 as his full eye catches a glimpse of man, he halts, throws 

 up his royal head, snufi's up the gale, indignantly beats 

 the ground with his hoof, and then proudly moves ofi" 

 with his troop amid the glistening boles. Again the 

 repose of the forest is interrupted by the music of distant 



