PHYSICAL FEATURES. 



107 



seclusion accompanied by delightfully bracing air, yet in a fine 

 agricultural and pastoral district, is almost the first impression 

 made upon the senses, on arrival at the Grouse Inn if approaching 

 it from lower down the valley. From the Inn door looking away 

 down the widening valley — for it as suddenly opens out again 

 below the junction of the Blackwater (900 ft.) as it closed below 

 the exit of the upper valley — one can see some two and a half miles 

 more of the river winding in alternate salmon pools, trouting 

 reaches, and gravelly flats, between a lovely succession of wooded 

 slopes and haugh-lands, birch clumps, farm-steadings, and in the 

 distance the meal-mill and deep broad dam, and closer at hand 

 are the U.P. church, manse, and schoolhouse; whilst a game- 

 keeper's house on the right bank of the Deveron is picturesquely 

 situated at the base of the grouse moors in the midst of a clump of 

 elm and alder trees. 



Just above the Inn along the road we have already traversed, 

 the glen as already stated becomes narrow only for a short 

 distance. Birch-patches suggestive of Black Game are studded 

 about the slopes, and above, are succeeded by whin-covered ground 

 brilliant in bloom, and higher still the purple heather. A * sough ' 

 of the soft wind; as it is slightly altered in direction, by the 

 ^vinding of the glen, strikes now and then upon the ear, lifting 

 up with it the sleepy rippling murmurs of the liU, 100 feet below, 

 which is seen glinting and sparkling through the interlacings 

 of the fairy-like birches, that fringe the banks below the road. 



Between the Inn of the Lower Cabrach and the village in the 

 Upper Valley, a distance of three and three-quarter miles, there 

 is not a single human habitation in this ' sleepy hollow.' 



Middle Deveron. 



The reaches of Deveron below the Cabrach and down to 

 Beldorney still continue to present enticing 'streams of pure 

 delight' to the angler, though narrowing again rapidly as Beldorney 

 is approached. The road winds along the hill sides of the left 

 bank and is seldom out of view of the river. The right bank is 



