258 A GRACIOUS SCENE 



sitting, a rocky headland juts out into the Irish Channel, 

 and enables me to assign a respectable age to a colony 

 of lichen thereon. It bears the name of Benbuie — that 

 is, the Gaelic beinn buidhe, yellow head — obviously 

 derived from the golden lichen (Farmelia) which still 

 covers the verticle face of the cliff. Now, Gaelic has not 

 been spoken in this part of Galloway for three centuries 



at least, therefore 



Let me counsel any one who would derive from lichens 

 the delight they are capable of affording, to carry with 

 him in the woods or on the hills a good pocket lens. 



Xlilll 



Perhaps of all the privileges of civilisation there is 

 A gracious none that adds more to the zest of life than the 

 scene rapid contrast in scenery secured by modern 



means of locomotion. ' botheration ! he 's at it again,' 

 I hear some reader ejaculate, wearied unto death's door 

 by the incessant chortlings from press and platform 

 about the marvellous progress of the nineteenth century. 

 Nevertheless, I must out with it. The change accomphshed 

 in the space of a single night from the dismal, choking 

 atmosphere we have lately been called upon to breathe 

 in London, to the limpid, though fitful, climate of the 

 Scottish west coast, is too like enchantment to be 

 brooked in silence. Of all the moods of this too versatile 

 temperate zone, there is none that suggests fairyland 

 more surely than a shining mid-winter day by the 

 shore. Alexandre Dumas — gentlest of satirists — girded 

 with unaccustomed bitterness against the winter sun of 

 England — ' une de ces rares journ^es d'hiver oil I'Angle- 

 terre se souvient qu'il y a un soleil.' 



