182 Tarlair. [CHAP. x. 
went to see the place, and was afraid to look down into 
the chasm among the rocks into which the naturalist had 
fallen. 
The little valley of Tarlair is about three miles east of 
Banff: it,is not far from Macduff. The road to Tarlair is 
along the bare bluff coast; and when you reach the top of 
a lofty point, you see beneath you a green grassy valley in- 
denting the rocks. At the inner end of the valley is a lit- 
tle well- house, where inland people come during summer- 
time, to drink the mineral waters.** Eastward of Tarlair 
the rocky cliffs ascend higher and higher—rising to their 
loftiest height in the almost perpendicular cliff of Gamrie 
Mohr. 
The place at which Edward met with his accident is at 
the projecting point of the valley above mentioned, where 
the rocks begin to ascend. Not far from the mouth of the 
valley there is, in the face of the rock, a very large, high, 
and wide-mouthed cave or chasm, fronting the sea. The 
back wall of the cave, as well as the sides, contain a num- 
ber of strange-like openings, and fantastical projections, one 
of which is called “the pulpit.” Edward often sat in the 
cave, and also slept in it; but he never preached in it, though 
he several times brought down sea-gulls and hoodie-crows 
with his gun. The bottom of the cave is thickly covered 
with stones and bowlders thrown in by the sea, which, in 
storms, dashes with great fury into its innermost recesses. 
In the roof, and neat the front of the cave, a few mar- 
tins build their nests every season. As Edward was com- 
ing home one morning from his night’s work, and while he 
was walking under the cliff, intending to come out at Tar- 
* This is the place so well described in “ Johnny Gibb of Gushetneuk.” 
“There was a little house, too, at the foot of the north bank, where a 
drop of whisky could be got somehow in cases of emergency, as when 
the patient got ‘hoven’ with the liberal libations of salt-water pre- 
viously swallowed, or when the taste lay strongly in that direction; but 
this was no part of the recognized regimen,” 
