PHYSICAL FEATURES. 



75 



was observed. At several points quarries of the freestone have 

 been worked, but none apparently of recent years. 



The Covesea (pronounced Cowsie — short) skerries are indeed 

 veritable skerries, mere fringes of rock, wave-swept and barren 

 stretching about a mile in length, and the beacon rock occupying 

 a central position, just opposite the lighthouse, which latter 

 stands on a promontory covered with gorse and bents about half- 

 way between Covesea and Cullen. One of the caves near Hope- 

 man was occupied by a family of tinkers ; this cave is known as 

 'The Gipsies' Cave.' Sandhills extend along the whole coast- 

 line until the Covesea cliffs are reached ; and under the cliff-face at 

 the highest part, where they recede in a wide semicircle, and at 

 the place where * Sir Eobert Gordon's Stables ' — an old smuggling 

 haunt and cave — is still to be seen in its partially artificially con- 

 cealed state, the sand has piled itself up against the rock-face, 

 away from the influence of the waves, and become covered with 

 nettles and long bents. 



Inland from the sandhills and wave-formed stony ridges, 

 which are most remarkable in their regularity of succession, — 

 especially between Burghead and Findhorn — the great plains of 

 Moray stretch for many miles, breaking here and there into 

 ridges of sand and gravel, some of which are clad in whins, and 

 some in broom, and some in pine-woods, sweeping in often most 

 graceful curves and successions of hill and hollow. Far out at 

 sea, in the middle channel of the firth, may be seen the occasional 

 gleaming white sails of a yacht, or the dark brown lugs of the 

 fishing-smacks returning from the haddock banks ; and beyond 

 the sea, the Paps of Caithness, and the hills of the Dunrobin deer 

 forest, the latter within the boundaries of this Moray Basin. 

 Farther inland again, and rising from the plains, are great ridges of 

 higher elevation, either clad with heather, or deeply clothed in pine 

 about the sources of the smaller burns and streams, such as Lossie 

 and The Black Burn, which rise amongst these Braes o' Moray. 

 Pines grow luxuriantly upon the light gravelly soil of Moray, and 

 the Braes of Moray extend back to the valley of Spey, between 

 Grantown on Spey and Craigellachie, Rothes, and the Pass of 

 Sourdan. 



