PHYSICAL FEATURES. 



73 



abundant as the Guillemots. We could not distinguish any 

 Bridled birds, nor did we see or hear of any lUack Guillemots. 

 Troup Head can be seen best from a boat. 



Inland a little, Troup Head bears on its scalp a growth of 

 stunted heather, mixed with furze, which is regularly kept down 

 by burning, and we were somewhat surprised when we flushed a 

 brace of Grouse. Upon this w^e were assured by Mr. Davidson of 

 Troup Farm that there is a nest or two every year. This lies 

 away and is isolated from the main ridges of the Troup water- 

 shed. 



After leaving Troup and Northfield Farm we rejoined the 

 main road, auci by a succession of perilously steep zigzags we 

 reached Gamrie or Gardenstown, another but larger Cornish- 

 looking village, with a concrete harbour and works — also a pet 

 place for artists.^ 



We ascended again to the higher level, and by a cross road joined 

 the main road between Fraserburgh and Banff, returning by an 

 inland and less precipitous road, though one somewhat dreary 

 and uninteresting. The interior of this north-eastern part of the 

 Moray Basin area is cultivated to a height of at least 500 feet, and 

 the whole is studded wuth farm-lands and steadings, yet it has a 

 cheerless and rather desolate aspect, owing, no doubt, to monotony 

 of colouring and regularity of distances between the houses, with 

 their wind-beaten little clumps of garden-shelter trees. Wood 

 only appears in masses at long intervals, and none are of much 

 account for timber. At Byth is a considerable wood, and at one 

 or two other places, but country gentlemen's houses are few and 

 far apart. We were tolerably tired of the monotony when we 

 reached at last our inn at Fraserbur^di. 



The coast from Banff westwards presents rather featureless low 

 cliffs, with stony flats and fields above, growing scanty heather 

 and gorse next to the cliff-edges. At Blackpool there is a low 

 fringe of flat rock on the shore, and shelving slopes of stones as far 

 as Port Gordon, largely occupied by fishermen's nets laid out to 



^ Mr. George Sim wrote to us as follows : — ' At Gamrie Head, and among the 

 rocks east and west of that, goats have run \\ ild for very many years, and are 

 owned by no one. I saw some of them last time I visited the place, 1890.' 



