XIV 
INTRODUCTION. 
From out tlieir odorous beauty, 
Like a wreatli 
Of sunshine on life’s hours.” 
And on awakening in the morning, he might, in the spirit of 
Nicoll, have said, — 
“ I saw the hills living in sunshine, 
And the things that there, free and unfetter’d. 
Had made their mountain-homes of beauty rare, 
Where Peace seem’d laid to sleep ’mid mountain-flowers, 
While Joy reclined beside the blooming couch H 
And perhaps added in the same spirit, though the words of 
the gifted poet were then unknown, — 
“ The nameless flowers that budded up — 
Each beauteous desert child — 
The heather’s crimson blossom spread 
O’er many a lonely wild : 
The lambkins sporting in the glens — 
The mountains old and bare — 
Seem’d worshipping ; and there with them 
I breathed my morning prayer.” 
IIow Mr Don managed to dry his specimens during these 
excursions, and keep them in a good condition under such 
circumstances, is matter of surprise; especially as he must 
frequently have been overloaded with his collections of living 
plants. On these points we have no specific information, and 
must content ourselves with the fact that such collections of 
living and dried plants were made, and contributed much to 
extend the knowledge of our native vegetation. 
Several plants have been named in compliment to him, as 
Salix Doniana, Jungermannia Doniana , Grimmia Doniana, 
Gymnostomum Donianum, &c., and these will serve to per- 
petuate his memory better than the finest sculptured marble. 
As these mountains are annually visited by many from a 
distance, on account of their botanical riches, and the gran- 
deur of the scenery, a few remarks on the different localities 
most frequented may not be deemed out of place in a hook 
like this. Tourists from the south arriving either at Dun- 
dee or Arbroath, may proceed bv Forfar to Kirriemuir, five 
