27 
•^onl Here, but for the mist which hems us iu like 
a wall, we might have gazed over a wide expanse of 
mountain and glen—the needle-like points of the 
‘Cuchullin Hills in Skye—the great mountain masses 
of Assynt, or even Ben Hevis itself, the ‘‘hill of 
heaven but it was not to be ; so we turn our at¬ 
tention to things more close at hand. Lovely little 
Alpine plants are struggling for existence in the 
thick carpet of that grey moss fBacomitrium 
lanuginosum) that covers all high hill tops—the little 
moss Campion [SUene acaulis) being specially con¬ 
spicuous, with its bright pink flowers, which con¬ 
trast so beautifully with the snow-white orange- 
spotted petals of the starry saxipage [Saxifraga 
^iellaris,) But stay : what is this that looks like a 
bunch of white maggots ? and this lichen with such 
a brilliant orange underside ? These are indeed two 
prizes, both being rare plants, and scarcely ever seen 
growing in Britain except on Ben Lawers in Perth¬ 
shire, amd a few other mountains. The first is Cla- 
donia vermicularis, and the second Solorina crocea. 
But now for Loch-an-Ouan ; so to the edge of the 
precipice we go, and looking through the drifting 
mist, see, several hundred feet below us, a little loch 
of a strange green colour. There was the loch of 
eternal ice, but how were we to reach it ? On three 
sides it was surrounded by high precipices—the fourth 
v/as a long narrow corrie. At length we find a 
place where the precipice was less steep, and here we 
managed to make a cautious descent. Half-way 
down the rocks seem nice, and damp enough to 
nourish some good Alpine plants. Accordingly they 
are examined, but save for a few mosses, seem 
strangely unproductive. What is that plant like a 
rush ? Don’t knov/ it. Ergo, it must be something 
good : so into the vasculum it goes, to be examined 
at a more convenient place. Be quick and get on, 
for if that mist that is joining down the rifts and 
gullies of the rocks reaches us here, we may have to 
stay I don’t know how long. How the ground gets 
very wet; but we slide dovm the rocks seme way or 
other; cross some large beds of very wet and beautifully 
green moss, reach the side of the icy lake, and find— 
