IN FAR ARGYLL 
M 7 
ticularly seeking plants during this ride and so merely noticed 
that Watsonia, Gladiolus , Lobelia , various Senccios , and a strongly 
scented Habenaria, were plentiful among the grass ; but there 
were two very interesting parasitical forms found in the bush 
which merit the account of them to be given in my second 
letter. 
East London, Cape Colony. Veldman. 
February, 1898. 
IN FAR ARGYLL. 
HE old-fashioned house, rooted in short sea turf, stands at 
the open mouth of the glen, severe and bare in its ab- 
sence of shrubs. Like the horns of a crescent, on either 
side of the small bay, spurs of the lower hills slide into 
the sea. They are clothed with wind-blown woods of birch, alder, 
and hazel. Higher up pine, larch, and hardwood flourish. In 
front the ocean breaks on sand, gravel, and rocks, whose brown 
weeds spread and play in the clean tides. Sometimes the bay is 
whitened with crested rollers, and sometimes in the sunshine light 
land breezes shiver in silver along the blue. Always there is con- 
stant motion, the perpetual charm of water views. The switch- 
back road behind crawls along the coast with innumerable 
undulations, like a brown caterpillar in motion. The steamers 
pass in front, splashing mimic tidal waves on the coast, and 
evening brings out the fleet of brown-sailed herring-boats. 
Close to the modern house, salted by the spray of many a 
gale, stands the grey old Castle. A little burn, sucking its life 
from the mosses and moors, passes beneath, shallow and shingly, 
its ripple hushed or clearer according to the tides. Hedges of 
Veronica, Fuchsia, Cotoneaster, and Escallonia edge the avenue 
and bowling-green. The old place, recently restored both in and 
out, may stand as it has stood for many another century. There 
are scarcely crevices for the hardy sea-spleenwort and pendent 
toadflax. No seedling elder or ash, or sycamore or rowan has 
yet sent down disintegrating roots irreverent of antiquity. Long 
ago from these towers the frightened villagers may have watched 
Captain Kidd’s ill-omened vessels, “ built in the eclipse and rigged 
with curses dark.” Certainly at one time he was about this 
coast. It was here in the good old days that the Lady Mac- 
donald, abducted and held a prisoner, saw the body of her 
husband carried out, and leapt from the crenellated battlements 
and died. Not far away crumble the last remains of the 
Monastery, where rest the Macdonalds, Gregorys, and Somer- 
lids, the priests and warriors of the past — “ the knights are dust, 
their swords are rust, their souls are with the saints, we trust.” 
On the roads and avenues, dappled with light and shade, the 
