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i

ua 4
i i}

AYS ON HIGH LANDS;

/

: ee ’ ; OR, |
Rambles and Jncidents
IN SEARCH OF
ALPINE PLANTS.
r ay Hondow : | 7
- MACMILLAN AND CO.

ee a 1869.

tay ave n = 5 R , rt

R. CLAY, SONS, AND | A
BREAD STREE

PRE TAG E..

THE following chapters may be regarded as
_ popular studies in geographical botany. Although
each is separate and distinct, they have all a
common basis and bond of unity. Their aim is to
impart a general idea of the origin, character, and
distribution of those rare and beautiful Alpine
plants which occur on the British hills, and which
are found almost everywhere in Europe, Asia,
Africa, and America, wherever there are mountain
chains sufficiently lofty to furnish them with a
suitable climate. In the first three chapters, the
peculiar vegetation of the Highland mountains
is fully described ; while in the remaining chapters
this vegetation is traced to its northern cradle in
the mountains of Norway, and to its southern
European termination in the Alps of Switzerland.
All the excursions mentioned were made during
intervals of relaxation from professional work

He
"J
? i :

vi PREPACE:

extending over several summers. Instead of con-
veying the information I have to give regarding
the plants gathered on these occasions, in technical
language, in a formal treatise, I thought it better
that it should appear in a setting of personal
adventure, and be associated with descriptions of
the natural scenery and the peculiarities of the
human life in the midst of which the plants were
found. By this method of treatment the subject
will perhaps be made more interesting to a larger
circle of readers,

plea i
GLASGOW,
Fune 1, 1869.

COON PENS:

CHMAPTERYE

PAGE
THE PLANTS ON THE SUMMITS OF THE HIGHLAND MOUN-

PEt ee we ee ee ae Me I

GHAPTER TE:

THE INTERMEDIATE OR HEATHER REGION. . .. ... 76

CTiAP BERS.

A GARDEN WALL IN A HIGHLAND GLEN OE As Se SR aan Mer Leg! Lat SP

CHAPTER -LV.

A RAMBLE THROUGH NORWAY, THE CRADLE OF THE HIGH-

LAND FLORA 144

CHAPTER V.

eterno EGGEDAL-FOSS IN NORWAY... 06 8. ee re 226

CHAPTER VI.

THE PASS AND HOSPICE OF THE GREAT ST. BERNARD . . 256

HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS.

CHAT TER fT.

THE PLANTS ON~THE SUMMITS OF THE
HIGHLAND MOUNTAINS.

A THOUGHTFUL man, standing beneath the silent
magnificence of the midnight heavens, is more

deeply impressed by what is suggested than by

what is revealed. He cannot gaze upon the soli-

tary splendour of Sirius, or the clustered glories of

Orion, without a vague unuttered wish to know

_ whether these orbs are inhabited, and what are the

nature and conditions of existence there. A similar
feeling of curiosity seizes us when we behold afar
off the summits of a lofty range of mountains,
lying along the golden west like the shores of
another and a brighter world. Elevated far above
the busy commonplace haunts of men, rearing
their mystic heads into the clouds, they seem to
claim affinity with the heavens, and, like the stars,
to dwell apart, retiring into a more awful and
sacred solitude than exists on the surface of the

earth. We long for the wings of the eagle, to

B

2 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. {cuav.

surmount in a moment all intervening obstacles,
and reach the shores of that upper world, that we
may know.what strange arrangements of matter,
what new forms of life, occur in a region so near
to and so favoured of the skies. To many indi-
viduals destitute of the strength of limb and sound-
ness of lung necessary to climb the mountain side,
or chained hopelessly to the monotonous employ-
ments by which the daily bread is earned, this
must ever be an unattainable enjoyment—in sight,
and yet unknown. Even of the thousands of
tourists who as duly as the autumn comes round
swarm over the familiar Highland routes, very
few turn aside to behold this great sight. Only a
solitary adventurous pedestrian, smitten with the
love of science, now and then cares to diverge from
the beaten paths, from the region of coaches and
extortionate hotel-keepers, to explore the primeval
solitudes of the higher hills. For these and other
reasons, a brief description of the characteristic
vegetation of the Highland mountains may prove
interesting and instructive to many. ‘The infor-
mation I have to lay before the reader has been
acquired with much toil during many summer
wanderings; but if it should be the means of
opening up to any one the way to a new field
of research and a new set of sensations, it wili
be the source of much satisfaction to me.
Mountains exercise a peculiar and powerful
fascination over the imagination. They transport
us out of the fictitious atmosphere of civilization,

Oey fi % “
* ier +

i)

1.) THE POETRY OF MOUNTAINS. 3

and the cramping air of the world of taskwork,
into the region of poetry and freedom. Among
their serene and quiet retreats, the fevered, con-

ventional life, brought face to face with the purity
and the calm of nature, reverts to its primitive

simplicity, the mind recovers its original elasticity,
and the heart glows with its native warmth. Every
individual finds in them something to admire, and

‘to suit the tendencies of his mind. ‘To the patriot,
they are the monuments of history, which have

attracted to themselves, by kindred sympathy,
some of the most remarkable events that have
diversified the life of nations—guardians of liberty,
whose high, embattled ridges form an impene-
trable rampart against the invading foe, and
nourish-within their fastnesses a hardy race, free
as their own wild winds. To the poet, they are
the altars of nature, on which the golden-robed sun
offers his morning and evening sacrifice—footstools

of God, before which his soul kneels, hushed in

awe and reverence. To the philosopher, they are
the theatres in which the mightiest forces of nature
are seen in intensest action,—the storehouses in
which are treasured up all the sources of earth’s
beauty and fertility. While to the devotional mind
they are types of the stability of the Christian
promises,—emblems of the Infinite, the Eternal,
and the Unchangeable.

The fascination which mountains exercise ex-
tends to all that is connected with them. Their
own sublimity and grandeur are reflected, as it

BZ

z val

4 HOLIDAVS ON HIGH LANDS. {cuap.

were, upon all their productions; and the low-
liest object that hides under their shadow, or is
nourished by their soil, acquires from that circum-
stance an importance which does not intrinsically
belong to it. Hence the peculiar charm which all
botanists find in the pursuit of Alpine botany.
The plants which grow upon the rugged sides, and
the bleak storm-scalped summits of the mountains,
cannot generally be compared, in point of variety
and beauty of colouring, and luxuriance of growth,
with the flowers of the plains. They are, for the
most part, tiny plants, that, among their leaves of
light, have no need of flowers—harmonizing in all
their characters with their dreary habitats, and
claiming apparently a closer affinity to the grey
lichens and the brown mosses among which they
nestle, than to their bright sisters of the valleys.
But by their comparative rarity, by the magni-
ficent and almost boundless prospects obtained
from their elevated haunts, and by the: exhi-
larating nature of the mountain breezes and
scenery, they are surrounded by a halo of inte-
rest far exceeding that connected with woodland
flowers ; and a glowing enthusiasm is felt in their
collection which cannot be experienced in the
tamer and less adventurous pursuit of lowland
botany.

The Highland mountains occupy but a very
subsidiary position among the great mountain
ranges of the earth. The highest peak in which
they culminate does not reach the line of perpetual

.-

* 1.) CHARACTER OF HIGHLAND MOUNTAINS. 5

snow; no avalanche thunders over their precipices
to bury the villages at their base in ruins; no
elacier brings eternal winter down from his elevated
throne into the midst of green corn-fields and culti-
vated valleys, or yawns in dangerous crevasses
across the traveller's path ; and no volcano reddens
the horizon with its lurid smoke and flame. Ages
innumerable have passed away since the glacier
flowed down their sides, and left its polished or
striated marks on the rocks, to be deciphered by
the skill of the geologist; and those hills which
once passed through a fiery ordeal, and poured
their volcanic floods over the surrounding districts,
now form the firmest foundations of the land, and
afford quiet, grassy pasturages for the sheep. Our
| mountains, indeed, possess few or none of those

sublime attributes which invest the lofty ranges of

other lands with gloom and terror. ‘Their very

storms are usually subdued, as if in harmony with
_ their humbler forms. Though they tower to the
_ sky, they seem nearer to the familiar earth; and
a large share of the beauty and verdure of the
_ plains do they lift up with them in their rugged
| arms for the blessing of heaven. Every part of
their domains is free and open to the active foot
of the wanderer; there are few or no inaccessible
precipices or profound abysses to form barriers in
his way; he can plant his foot on their highest
summits with little expenditure of breath and toil ;
and a few hours will bring him from the stir and
tumult of life in the heart of the populous city to

6 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [cHaP.

their loneliest and wildest recesses. Well do I
love my native hills ; for J have spent some of the
happiest days of my life in wandering amid their
solitudes, following my fancies fearlessly wherever
they led me. I have seen them in all seasons, and
in all their varied. aspects :—in the dim dawn,
when, swathed in cold dark clouds, they seemed
like “awful countenances veiled,’ yet speaking in
the tongues of a hundred unseen waterfalls; in
the still noon-day, when, illumined with sunshine,
every cliff and scar on their sides stood out dis-
tinctly and prominently against the pure clear
sky; at sunset, when, amid the masses of bur-
nished gold that lay piled up in the west—“the
slow of fire that burns without consuming ”—they
seemed like the embers of a universal conflagra-
tion; in the holy twilight, when they appeared to
melt into the purple beauty of a dream, and the
golden summer moon and the soft bright star of
eve rose solemnly over their brows, lighting them
up with a mystical radiance; and in the lone dark
waste of midnight, when from lake and river the
long trailing mists crept up their sides without
hiding their far-off summits, on which twinkled,
like earth-lighted watch-fires, a few uncertain stars.
I have gazed upon them in the beauty of summer,
when the heather was in full bloom, and for miles
they glowed in masses of the loveliest purple; in
the changing splendour of autumn, when the deep
green of the herbage gave place to the russet hues
of the fading flowers, the rich orange of the ferns,

ae

L] EARLY EXPLORATION. 7

and the dark brown of the mosses; and in the
dreary depth of winter, when storms during the

whole twilight-day howled around them, or when,

robed from foot to crown in a garment of the
purest snow, they seemed meet approaches to “the
great white Throne.” In all these aspects they
were beautiful, and in all they excited thoughts
and emotions which no human language could
adequately express.

eOffering such facilities for search, it is not
surprising that the vegetable productions of the
British mountains should have been thoroughly
investigated. Long before Botany became orga-
nized as a distinct science, our alpine flora attracted
a large share of the attention of scientific men.

In the days of Linnzus—stimulated by the en-

thusiastic impulse communicated by that remark-

able man to every department of physical research

—a band of devoted botanists undertook the
exploration of the Highland mountains ; a task by
no means so easy then as in this age of steam-
boats and railroads. The whole of the northern
districts encircled by the mighty ramparts of the
Grampian range was a ¢éerva incognita—virtually
almost as remote from the civilized regions beyond
as the wilds of Labrador. There were no roads,
no conveyances, or other means of communication
with the south. The adventurous men who first
opened up this wild territory to the researches
of science were peculiarly adapted for the task
of practical scientific pioneers. Endowed with

8 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [ CHAP.

vigorous frames and strong constitutions, they
could endure a great amount of privation and
fatigue with impunity. The names of Menzies,
Lightfoot, Dickson, Stewart, and Don are familiar
to every botanist as those of men who contended ©
with innumerable obstacles in the prosecution of
their favourite science, then in its feeblest infancy,
and popularly regarded with indifference, if not
with contempt. The memory of the last-men-
tioned botanist especially is firmly engrafted in
botanical literature, in connexion with his great
services in this department. Such was his enthu-
siastic love of Alpine plants, that he spent whole
months at a time collecting them among the
gsloomy solitudes of the Grampians; his only food
a little meal, or a bit of crust moistened in the
mountain burn, and his only couch a bed of
heather or moss in the shelter of a rock. Before
the storms of winter were over, and while the
snow still lay far down on the sides of the
mountains, he began his wanderings in search of
his favourites; and often did he linger on till the
last autumn flower withered in the red October
sunlight, and the shortening days and scowling
heavens warned him of the universal desolation
fast approaching. The whole of Western Aber-
deenshire and Northern Forfarshire and Perthshire
—where the loftiest mountains of Britain have
congregated together, storming the sky in every
direction with their gigantic peaks, and filling the
whole visible scene with themselves and their

3 ALPINE BOTANISTS. 9

shadows—was almost as familiar to him as the

circumscribed landscape around his native place.
Nothing of any interest or importance on these

great ranges escaped his eagle eye; and from his
numerous visits, and his lengthened sojourn among

_them, he was enabled to make many interesting

discoveries, and to add an unusually large number

- of species to the flora of Britain. His discoveries
were speedily followed up by others, especially

™~

by those of Dr. Greville, whose recent death has

been one of the greatest losses to botanical science.
Professors Graham and Hooker, year after year,
conducted their pupils to the summits of the High-
land hills; and, not satisfied with a mere cursory
visit, they carried tents and provisions with them,
and encamped for a week or a fortnight in spots

| favourable for their investigations. So frequently
| within the last few years—particularly under the

able leadership of Professor Balfour, whose annual
class excursions are well known throughout Scot-
land, and highly prized by all who have the

privilege of sharing in them—have the vegetable

productions of the principal mountain ranges been
investigated, that the most lynx-eyed botanist can

now scarcely hope to do more than add a new
station for some of the rarer plants; the dis-

covery of a new species being regarded as a very
improbable event.

The botanist who takes a comprehensive view
of the plants of Great Britain, will find that, ex-
cluding exotic species derived from other countries

LO. HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS tonkr

by direct human agency, they may be included
in four tolerably distinct groups, which, from their
relations to the flora of other parts of Europe,
point to a diversified origin. By far the largest
portion of our vegetation is composed of forms
which are abundant over the whole of Central and
Western Europe, and, from their common occur-
rence on both sides of the German Ocean, have
received the name of Germanie) planta ay tie
south-western and southern counties of England,
especially where rocks of the cretaceous system
prevail, we find a numerous assemblage of plants
which are seen nowhere else in the British Isles,
and which, from their close relation to the flora
of the north-west of France and the Channel
Islands, have been denominated plants of the
French type. A small but very distinct group of
hardy and prolific species is confined to the
mountainous districts in the west and south-west
of Ireland. These plants, hardly numbering a
score, are forms either peculiar to, or abundant
in, the peninsula of Spain and Portugal, and
especially in Asturias. Lastly, we have the High-
land type, which comprehends the species limited
to the mountains and their immediate vicinity.
This class embraces all the Alpine plants, and
contains about a fifteenth of the whole flora of
Britain—the number of distinct species amounting
to upwards of a hundred. To the most superficial
observer, viewed as a whole, they will appear
strikingly different from the plants which he is

5 PECULIARITIES OF HIGHLAND FLORA. 11
e ——— eee
5

\

2 accustomed to see beside his path in the low
grounds. The Laplanders and Esquimaux are

not more unlike the inhabitants of England and

Scotland, than the Alpine flora is unlike that of
the plains. The flowers which deck the woods

and fields have no representatives in this lofty
region. The traveller leaves them one after an-

other behind when he ascends beyond a certain

elevation; and though a very few hardy kinds
dogsucceed in climbing to the very summit, they
assume strange forms which puzzle the eye, and
become dwarfed and stunted by the severer climate
and the ungenial soil. All the way up, from a line
of altitude varying, according. to the character of
the mountain range, between two and three thou-
sand feet, you are in the midst of a new floral
world, genera and species as unfamiliar as though
you had been suddenly and unconsciously spirited

away to a foreign country. There are a few iso-

lated islands scattered over the ocean, whose forms
of life are unique. St. Helena and the Galapagos
Archipelago are such centres of creation, having

nothing in common with the nearest mainland. It

is the same with the mountain summits in this
country that are higher than three thousand feet.
They may be compared to islands in’ an aérial
ocean, having a climate and animal and vegetable
productions quite distinct from those of the low

grounds. Their plants grow in thick masses, co-

vering extensive surfaces with a soft carpet of

-moss-like foliage, and producing a profusion of

12 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [cuap.

blossoms, large in proportion to the size of the
léaves, and often of brilliant shades) of req
white, and blue; or they creep along the ground |
in thickly interwoven woody branches, wholly
depressed, sending out at intervals a few hard,
wrinkled leaves, and very small, faintly-coloured, |
and inconspicuous flowers. Their roots are usually
very woody, or, like those of bulbous plants,
wrapped up in membraneous coverings ; and their
stems are strongly inclined to form buds. Theyre
almost all perennial, the number of annuals being
exceedingly small. In all these typical pecu-
liarities, which, it may be remarked, are special
adaptations to the unfavourable circumstances in
which they are placed, they bear a very close
resemblance to the plants of the Polar Zone; and
this similarity in the character of the vegetation
may be traced from the Arctic regions to the
Equator, if we compare, on the mountains of the
different zones, the corresponding higher regions,
where the isothermal lines are the same, with each
other. It must be understood, however, that, ex-
cept in cases where the plants were originally
derived from one centre of distribution, through
migration over continuous or closely continuous
land, the relationship of Alpine and Arctic vege-
tation in the Southern Hemisphere, under similar
conditions with that of the Northern, is entirely
maintained by representative, and not by identical
species—the representation, too, being in great part
generic, and not spectfic.

.

Bi] | MOUNTAIN PLANTS OF FAVA. 13

Strange to say, though so near Europe, the lofty
peak of Teneriffe contains on its sides and summit
no Alpine flora of a European type. The Retamas
of the highest zone are as peculiar to the island as

the Euphorbias of the lowest. This absence of

northern forms is probably owing to the immense

-amount of the radiation and the unfavourable
_hygrometrical conditions of the locality. An equal
| destitution of Alpine vegetation has been observed
- Omthe mountains of Bourbon and Mauritius. On

the isolated volcanic peaks of Java, however,

though south of the equator, we have plants closely

allied to those of the Grampians, while a totally

| different class of plants clothes the lowlands for

_ thousands of miles around. At a height of 8,000

feet, on the Pangerango mountain, in Java, Mr.
Wallace found upwards of forty species, repre-

senting European and Alpine genera, and four

species actually identical with European species.

~The Artemisia or southernwood, and the ribwort

plantain—the commonest weeds in every British
field —occur on this peak at a height of 9,000

feet. Beside them, in the damp shade of the

thickets is found the royal cowslip (Primula
tmperialis), which has a tall, stout stem, more
than three feet high, with root-leaves eight
inches long, and having, instead of a single ter-
minal cluster of cowslip-like flowers, several tiers

or whorls, one above another like a Chinese

pagoda. This gorgeous cowslip is found nowhere

else in the world than on this solitary mountain-

a

14 HOLIDAYVS ON HIGH LANDS. {cuHap,

summit. On the higher slopes of the Himalayas,
and on the tops of the mountains of Central India
and Abyssinia, a great many European genera are
found, whose existence in such spots Mr. Darwin
believes to be owing to the depression of tem-
perature that was so general during the glacial
epoch as to allow a few north temperate plants to
cross the equator by the most elevated routes of
mountain-chains, and to reach the Antarctic regions
where they are now found. He believes that @he
plants on the equatorial summits and the Alpine
plants of Europe sprang from a common parentage,
and that the modifications which the former have
undergone are owing entirely to altered conditions.
operating during a long period of time. In New
Zealand, which is the head-quarters of the Com-
posite as well as the ferns, a very remarkable
genus of composite plants called Raoulza occurs
on the sides and summits of the loftier mountains.
It numbers twelve distinct species, all of which
range from 3,000 to 7,000 feet on Mounts Cook
and Doban, and the Nelson and Otago moun-
tains, and form dense, wide-spreading carpets or
cushions. ‘The down on the leaves is developed to
such an extent as to completely cover them, and
almost to conceal the star-like flower-heads. One
species, the “#. erzmza, forms gigantic white woolly
masses on the ground, and looks at a distance like
a flock of sheep grazing on the mountain-side.
Indeed, the shepherds are so often deceived by
them when folding their charge that the plant has

a

met CS Se
1] ANOMALIES IN DISTRIBUTION. 15

come to be known among the settlers as the
“vegetable sheep.” This curious genus represents
in New Zealand the common cat’s-paw or méun-
tain everlasting (Aztennaria dioica) whose dry
white or pink flowers and downy leaves cover our
moorlands in myriads; or rather, perhaps, the
closely-allied Guaphalium supinum, a tiny cudweed
which grows on the extreme summits of the highest
Highland mountains. There is one Alpine Gua-
phalium, peculiar to Greenland and Lapland, called
the G. leontopoides, or lion’s-paw cudweed, whose
dense heads are smothered in white silky down.
The new Zealand “vegetable sheep” is, therefore,
only an extraordinary development of this pecu-
liarity of the tribe even on our own mountains,
There are several curious anomalies in the dis-
tribution of Alpine plants, for which no perfectly
satisfactory explanation has yet been given. For
instance, the genus WDuoscorea is pre-eminently
tropical, being peculiar to the hottest regions of
the old and new worlds, the roots of several
members being esculent, and used as culinary
vegetables, like potatoes. Strange to say, one
species of the family, and only one, is found in
Europe, the D. Pyrenaica, which is an Alpine
plant recently discovered at a considerable alti-
tude on the Pyrenees. In like manner, the genus
Pelargonium is peculiarly African and Australian ;
and yet a species of it, also an Alpine plant, the
P. Endlichertanum, has been found on the chain
of the Taurus in several stations extending from

16 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [cHar.

Pamphylia to Armenia. ~The extraordinary genus
Pilostyles, resembling in miniature the gigantic
- Rafflesia of the Eastern Archipelago—without root,
stem, or leaves, and consisting only of a bell-
shaped flower sessile on the bark of the tree on
which it is a parasite—is peculiar to South America.
A species, however, has recently been found in the
Alpine regions of Asia Minor, called P. Haus-
knechtiz; and though so far out of its proper
region, it preserves the peculiar habit of the genus.
All the species grow on the bean family; and, true
to its native instinct, this Asiatic rover is confined
exclusively to a kind of spiny Astragalus. To
account for the presence of this South American
plant on the mountains of Asia Minor is one of
the knottiest points in geographical botany. We
can explain in some measure the occurrence of the
African Pelargonium on the mountains of Taurus
on the same grounds that we can account for the
remarkable similarity—the almost identity — of
the cedar of the Atlas range and the cedar of
Lebanon and of the mountains of Taurus. Great
changes of surface in very recent geological times
have taken place on the African and Asiatic con-
tinents, as is proved by many Mediterranean spe-
cies of fishes being found in the Red Sea and yet
not in the Indian Ocean ; by the fishes of the salt
lakes of Sahara being identical with those of the
Gulf of Guinea; and, more extractdimaree sts
those of the Sea of Galilee with those of the Nile,
of the lakes of South-eastern Africa, and the

be

| 1. PELARGONIUM AND PILOSTYLES. ya

Zambesi. During some one or other of the great
changes of sea and land necessary to produce this
remarkable resemblance between the inhabitants
of waters now so remote and isolated, the Pelar-
gontum may have spread from Africa to Asia
Minor. The occurrence of the genus in Australia
may be owing to the-same cause which produced

_ the resemblance between the marsupial animals, and
especially the plants, of Europe during the Eocene

epoch, and those of Australia at the present day ;
a resemblance so striking, that in order to form an
idea of the appearance of our country during this
geological period we have only to visit our great
colony at the Antipodes. But what is the con-
nexion between the sub-Alpine Pilostyles of Asia
Minor and the rest of its family in South America?
It has been ascertained that the sub-tropical flora
of Europe during the J/zocene epoch is largely
American and Japanese. Of the Swiss J/zocene

plants, for instance, no less than 232 species have |

|
|
:

'

'
'

their nearest allies living in the United States and
tropical America, while 108 occur in Asia. In all
probability, therefore, the MW/zocene flora of Europe
came from America during the Eocene epoch, across
the Atlantic, over a great island-continent then
existing, which botanists have called “ Atlantis,”
after the ancient legend; and since the Miocene
period, this American flora spread from Europe
over Asia Minor, Northern Asia, and Japan, in
comparatively high latitudes and at _ consider-
able elevations, returning to their birthplace by
C

~

cm

es HOLIDAVS ON HIGH LANDS. [cuap.

these routes, after having made the circuit of the
globe. The present flora of America has descended
from these progenitors—the plants of the Eocene
and Cretaceous periods of that continent. If we
accept this hypothetical Atlantic continent as
a scientific fact—established, as it is, by many
curious coincidences—it explains to us how there
- should still be left on the mountains of Asia Minor
—like a shell on the shore—a solitary survivor of
an ancient American flora identical with the pre-
sent. The Pilostyles of Asia Minor stands in very
much the same relation to the ancient American
flora of Europe and Northern Asia, as the one
species of myrtle and the one species of laurel now
left to us stand to the very large family of myrtles
and laurels which spread over Central Europe
during the tertiary epoch, and have retreated in
these days to the tropical and sub-tropical countries
of the two worlds, where they are as numerous as
of old. “te

But in passing from these interesting specu-
lations in general geographical botany to the
consideration of our own Alpine flora, a very
interesting question arises,—What is the origin
ef these plants on the British “hills7e9y 2 cam
hardly suppose them to be indigenous; for they
evidently maintain their existence, in the very
limited areas to which they are confined, with
extreme difficulty, and are comparatively few in
number, and poor and meagre in appearance. For
these reasons we are fairly entitled to conclude that

1] = ORIGIN OF HIGHLAND FLORA. 19

————_— ———___—.

they are members of specific centres beyond their

own area; and these centres must be sought in
places where the physical conditions are most
favourable for their growth, and where they attain
the utmost profusion and luxuriance of which they
are constitutionally capable. Now, if we examine
the flora of the Lapland and Norwegian mountains,

_we find that it is not only specifically identical with

that of the British Isles, but also that the species of
the former are more numerous, and exhibit a greater
development of individual forms, than those of the
latter, constituting in many places the common
continuous vegetation of extensive districts. ‘This
fact seems to indicate the Scandinavian mountains
as the geographical centres from which we have
derived our Alpine plants; and, as might have been
expected, allowing this supposition to be true, their
gradual migration southwards may be very dis-
tinctly traced, like the descent in after ages of the
rude Norsemen, by the species left behind on nu-

-merous intervening points. On the Faroe Islands,

for instance, we have three plants of the Scandina-
vian type which have stopped short there—viz.

1 In a collection of fifty-two plants from Baffin’s Bay, in lat. 67°
and 76° N., made by a friend some years ago, twenty were identical
with British species, only somewhat smaller and more stunted.
They were gathered during June and July, when the flowers were
fully expanded, chiefly on the sea-shore, only three being peculiar to
a more elevated locality. The prevailing colour was dark or pale
yellow ; blue or lilac flowers being comparatively rare. Of the

_ same natural orders seventy-four species occur in Great Britain at an

elevation of three thousand feet or upwards.
2 iG 42

*

20 HOLIDAVS ON HIGH LANDS ee Vou
Saxifraga tricuspidata, Kenigia tslandica, and
Ranunculus nivalis. In the Shetland Islands, the
Arenaria Norwegica,a common plant on the moun-
tain plateaux of Norway, reaches its southern limits.
On the northern shores of the mainland, the beau-
tiful Norwegian primrose appears and ceases. It
is called Primula farinosa, variety alpina, by
Norwegian botanists; but it differs in no respect
from the P. Scotzca of Sutherland and Caithness-
shire, except in the colour of the flower being paler,
the tube a little longer, and the calyx elliptical
rather than ovate. A rich assemblage of northern
forms is found on the loftiest Highland mountains,
distributed apparently from north-east to south-
west, in such a manner as to indicate the line of
migration. Several species were left behind on the
Braemar mountains; while an unusually large pro-
portion is confined to the Breadalbane range, and
does not occur further south. Upwards of a score
of plants found on the Scottish Alps do not reach
the English mountains; while several species are
to be met with on Skiddaw and other hills in the
north of England which do not extend to the
Snowdonian range—Ireland receiving only a few
sporadic species. We find the last representa-
tives of this peculiar vegetation on the Alps of
Switzerland, at various elevations from 6,000 to
10,000 feet, growing in great luxuriance among a
representative flora special in its region,—a few
stragglers reaching the Pyrenees in the west, and
the Carpathian mountains in the east. We thus

>

1.) MIGRATION OF ALPINE PLANTS. 2)

find a gradual diminution of the Scandinavian flora
as we advance southwards—a convincing proof
that it has been diffused in that direction from its
original centres of distribution on the elevated
ranges of Norway and Lapland. And, regarded
from this point of view, Alpine plants may be
divided into the doreal type, comprehending those
species which are confined to the north of Europe,
and do not reach farther south than Wales, and
the Alfino-boreal, which not only extend over the
most elevated land in the British Isles, but also
occur in abundance at high altitudes on the Swiss
Alps and the Pyrenees.

Having thus ascertained the region from which
our Alpine vegetation was derived, we have next to
account for its transmission. Norway and Britain,
at the present day, are widely separated from each
Biner. by an extensive sea; and ne modes of
transportation now in operation are sufficient to
account for the diffusion of the peculiar plants of
the one country over the mountain ranges of the
other, in such a manner as we find them distributed.
The problem was quite inexplicable on the sup-
position formerly entertained, that there has been
no striking alteration in the condition of the earth’s
surface since the present flora of the globe was
created, and that the relations of Britain and
Norway to each other have always been the same
as they are now. It need not be wondered at,
therefore, that botanists took refuge from the dif-
ficulty in the hypothesis that species have been

29 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. {[cuap.

created indifferently, wherever the conditions were
fitted for their growth. But now that we know,

from recently ascertained geological facts, that

great changes affecting the arrangement of land
and water throughout the north of Europe have
taken place during the period of the existence of
modern vegetation, the key to the mystery has
been ascertained.*

Attention was first directed to this inquiry
by the late lamented Professor E, Forbeaar tic
meeting of the British Association in 1845; and
his views on the subject—supported by the most
ample and, I think, conclusive evidence, derived
from botanical, geological, and more especially
zoological facts—are published at considerable
length in the “ Memoirs of the Geological Survey.”
It may seem a superfluous task to direct attention
to these views, considering the length of time they

have been before the scientific public; but I am -

persuaded they are not so well known as they
ought to be; and to many, a brief popular deli-
neation of them will come with all the interest of
novelty. ,

1 The fishes of the Gulf of Bothnia are identical with those of
the Arctic Ocean and White Sea; and yet these fishes occur nowhere

on the Norwegian coasts, the only route by which, under the —

present distribution of land and water, they could have reached
the one locality from the: other. This circumstance proves
that the Baltic and the Arctic Ocean were once connected. It
is probable that the plains of Lapland were once under water,
op that the Scandinavian peninsula was a group of mountainous
islands, Mi

}

1.] GLACIAL EPOCH. 23

Geological researches have furnished us with two
fixed points in time between which this migration
of Scandinavian plants to the British hills took
place. It must have occurred after the deposition
of the London Clay, or the Eocene tertiary epoch ;
for the organic remains found in that formation
belong to a flora very different from, and requiring
_afar warmer climate than, any now existing on the
European continent. And, on the other hand, our
great deposits of peat furnish us with conclusive
evidence that it must have happened before the
epoch usually designated “historical.” Between
these two periods, geological changes occurred
which greatly altered the surface of our islands,
and modified their climate and the distribution of
their organic forms. From the relics left behind,
we learn that a great part of the existing area of
Great Britain, especially the lowland plains and
valleys, was covered with the waters of a sea which
extended over the north and centre of Europe, and
was characterised by phenomena nearly identical
with those now presenting themselves on the north-
east coast of America within the line of summer
floating ice. This was the sea of the glacial
period—properly so styled—when a condition of
climate existed which will account for all the
organic phenomena observed in the boulder clays
and Pleistocene drifts. In the midst of this sea, the
various mountain ranges and isolated hills, which
now tower high above the surrounding country,
were islands, whose bases and sides were washed

24. HOLIDAYS ON FLIGH LANDS. -fomar.
by the cold waves and abraded by the passing ice-
floes, and whose summits were covered in many —
places with glaciers, which left their enduring and
unmistakeable records on the rocks, and in the
moraines at their foot. It was at this period that
our now elevated regions received the flora and
fauna observed upon them at the present day.
Owing to their favourable position in the midst of
an ice-covered sea, the means of transport existed
in abundance; and the Arctic flora thus brought |
down, and gradually disseminated over all the
islands as far as the sea extended, has ever since
been able to maintain its footing, even under the
altered climate of our times, according to the general
law of climatal influence, through the elevation of
the tracts: which: it: inhabits. “(This ’ieraiavenle
probably differ slightly in different parts of its area,
and hence part of the variations now existing
between the Alpine floras of Europe. Differences —
might further result from accidental destruction of
the localities of plants scattered sporadically, and
from the extinction of forms by various causes
during the long period which has: elapsed since
they first became mountain plants.” |

There is one remarkable fact which may be
noticed in passing, as affording something like cir-
cumstantial evidence in favour of this theory. At
an elevation of between 3,000 and 4,000 feet on the
principal mountain ranges of Scotland, the betanist —
is astonished to observe the common. sea-pink
growing among the rocks in the utmost profusion.

—————

1.] THE SEA PINK. 20

It is precisely identical with that which forms so
ornamental a feature in the scenery of our sea-
coasts ; in chemical composition, and in botanical
appearance and structure, little or no difference
can be detected between specimens gathered in
both localities. Nor is it in the Highlands of
Scotland alone that the plant is found in such-an
unusual situation. All over the continent of Europe
it occurs on the highest mountains, passing from
the coast over extensive tracts of country. It has
never been found in the intermediate plains and
valleys, except when it has been brought down by
mountain streams. This singular circumstance,
otherwise inexplicable, would seem strongly to
indicate that our mountain chains, as well as those
of Northern and Central Europe, were once, as
Professor Forbes asserts, islands in the midst of an
extensive sea. Plants of sub-Arctic and maritime
character would then flourish to the water’s edge,
some of which would afterwards disappear under
altered climatal and physical conditions, leaving the
hardiest behind. Another survivor of the ancient
maritime flora which once clothed our mountain
sides on a level with the glacial waves, is the
Cochlearta Greenlandica, or scurvy grass, so called
from its peculiar medicinal use. Abundant on all
our sea-coasts, and never growing inland, it is found
in isolated spots at a great elevation on the High-
land hills. It may easily be known by its thick
tufts, bearing the small white flowers and hot acrid
leaves peculiar to the cress tribe. It is so hardy as

er Snentie-iiennentrneaiaiesnnmne
=

to defy the severest cold of the Arctic regions,
being found by polar navigators in Melville Island,
under the snow, at the very farthest limit of vege-
tation. Farther down, on the sides of our great ©
mountain ranges, we still occasionally observe the
Plantago maritima, another plant existing nowhere
else but on the sea-shore. During the glacial
epoch it would flourish in a lower zone than the
others, nearer the water’s edge, and hence its
peculiar altitudinal position at the present day.
These three examples, for which no other plausible
explanation can be offered, go far to substantiate
the theory of the transmission of the Scandinavian
flora to our islands, in consequence of the great
changes of surface and climate which took place
during the glacial epoch.

The plants growing at the present day on the
Scottish mountains are thus not only different from
those found in the valleys at their base, but they
are also much older. They are the surviving relics
of what constituted for many ages the sole flora
of Europe, when Europe consisted only of islands
scattered at distant intervals over a wide waste of
waters bristling with icebergs and ice-floes. How
suggestive of marvellous reflection is the thought,
that these flowers, so fragile that the least rude
breath of wind might break them, and so delicate
that they fade with the first scorching heat of
August, have existed in their lonely and isolated
stations on the Highland hills from a time so
remote that, in comparison with it, the antiquity of

Be Pee AND LATIFUDE., 7

recorded time is but as yesterday; have survived
all the vast cosmical changes which elevated them,
along with the hills upon which they grew, to the
clouds—converted the bed of a mighty ocean into
a fertile continent, peopled it with new races of
plants and animals, and prepared a scene for the
habitation of man! Only a few hundred individual
_plants of each species—in some instances only a
few tufts here and there—are to be found on the
different mountains; and yet these little colonies,
prevented by barriers of climate and soil from
spreading themselves beyond their native spots,
have gone on season after season for thousands of
ages, renewing their foliage and putting forth their
blossoms, though beaten by the storms, scorched
by the sunshine, and buried by the Alpine snows,
scathless and vigorous while all else was changing
around. It is one of the most striking and con-
vincing examples within the whole range of natural
history, of the permanency of species !

Our globe may be compared to two enormous
snow-capped mountains set base to base at the
equator; the Northern Hemisphere representing
one, and the Southern the other. The equator is
the foot of each; the middle part of both answers
to the two temperate zones, north and south; and
the opposite summits correspond with the Arctic
and Antarctic regions. Thus in each tropical moun-
tain we have an epitome of half of the great earth
itself; and all the climates of the world, and all
the zones of vegetation, may be felt and seen in

28 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [cHAP.
passing from its foot to its top in a single day.
Altitude is analogous with latitude. To climb a
lofty Highland hill is equivalent to undertaking a
summer voyage to the Arctic regions; a vertical
ascent of 4,000 feet in three hours enabling us to
reach a north pole which we could only have
attained in as many months by a journey through
seventy degrees of latitude. The leading phe-
nomena of the Polar world are presented to us
on a small scale within the circumscribed area of
the mountain summit. The same specific rocks
along which Parry and Ross coasted in the un-
known seas of the North, here crop above the
surface, and yield by their disintegration the same
kind of vegetation. The Alpine hare is common
to both; and the ptarmigan, which penetrates in
large flocks as far as Melville Island, is often seen
flying round the grey rocks of the higher Gram-
pians, and exhibiting its singular changes of plumage
from a mottlea brown in summer to pure white in
winter, so rapidly as to be perceptible from day
to day. Although none of the Scotch mountains
reach the line of perpetual snow, yet large snowy
masses, smoothed and hardened by pressure into
the consistence of glacier-ice, not unfrequently lie
in shady hollows all the year round, and remind
one of the frozen hills of Greenland and Spitz-
bergen. Sweltering with midsummer heat in the
low confined valleys, we are here revived and
invigorated by the chill breezes of the Pole. We
have thus in our own country, and within short

29

a= ft

hits MON ES OF AL II LOVE:

and easy reach of our busiest towns, specimens and
exact counterparts of those terrible Arctic fast-
nesses, to explore which every campaign has been
made at the cost of endurance beyond belief—often
at the sacrifice of the most noble and valuable lives.
_ Our Alpine plants may be distributed in three
distinct zones of altitude, characterised by Mr.
- Watson in his admirable “ Cybele Britannica” dif-
ferently from the usual mode. We have first the
super-Arctic zone, bounded below by the limit of
the common heather at an elevation of about 3,000
feet, and defined negatively by the absence, rather
than the presence, of particular plants, only two
species being peculiar to it in this country. This
zone, characterised as that of the herbaceous
willow without the heather, occurs only in the
Highland provinces, where the highest mountains
have their summits considerably above the limits
ofthe heather. We have next, lower down, the
_mid-Arctic zone, lying between the heather line and
that of the cross-leaved heath, at about 2,000 feet,
characterised by the heather without the heath.
This comprehends the highest mountains of Eng-
land, Wales, and Ireland, and all the great ranges
of Scotland, and contains by far the largest pro-
portion of rare and beautiful Alpine’ plants, being
especially rich in Arctic forms. And, lastly, we
have the zuzfer-Arctic zone, bounded above by the
Erica and below by the bracken, and the limits of
_ cultivation at about 1,400 feet. Of course in this
zone, which may be characterised as that of the

\

eee - - ~—— erst

510) HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [CHAP.

cross-leaved heath without the brake fern, the
plants approach more closely to the Lowland type,
though containing a large number of species of the
true Alpine and Arctic form. These three zones of
altitude are distinguished generally by the affinity
of their flora to that of the most northern parts of |
Europe, Siberia, and America, and in a less degree
to that of the higher parts of the Swiss Alps,
Pyrenees, and Carpathians. We must regard this
arrangement, however, though very convenient for
general purposes, as somewhat arbitrary and arti-
- ficial ; for Nature is never precise and definite in her
lines of demarcation: on the one hand, many Alpine
plants growing indiscriminately in all the three
zones, and descending in some places even to the
sea-shore ; while, on the other hand, many common
Lowland species come up from the cultivated re-
gions, and grow on the highest summits, although
suffering a stunting of their habit from the severer
climate. Accidental or local circumstances produce ©
considerable variations in the altitude of the various”
species. The violent storms which frequently rage
in mountain regions sometimes detach fragments
of soil, in which several species are rooted, and
plant them far down among the productions of the
valley; the Alpine streams not only bring down
the seeds of Alpine plants, but also, to a certain
extent, the cold of the summits, so that their banks
will support the species of a severer climate than is
natural to the latitude and elevation. On the other
hand, deep lakes and other large sheets of water—

:] A LTITUDINAL HANGE OF RLANTS. 31

as they are less liable to sudden changes than the
atmosphere, and preserve a nearly equal tempera-
ture all the year round—sensibly mitigate the
climate of -the mountains in their immediate
vicinity, at considerable heights above their sur-
fee hence we not unfrequently find, at an
elevation of 2,000 and even 3,000 feet, the plants
peculiar to the edge of the water and the lowest
declivities blooming in great abundance and luxu-
riance. On the southern slopes of great ranges
which are sheltered from the northern blasts, and
more exposed to the light and heat of the sun, the
Same species are. found at a higher altitude than
on the northern sides. The range, as well as the
character, of the flora is also greatly influenced by
the geological construction of the mountains—the
number of shady rocks and moist precipices, or
comparatively smooth grassy slopes; the direction
and nature of the prevailing winds ; the frequency
of streams and wells; and, above all, by the geo-
graphical position of the hills—whether'they form
part of an extensive and continuous chain, carrying
the general level of the country to a considerable
height above the sea-line, and abounding in ele-
vated plateaux and corries, or whether they form
conical or isolated peaks rising abruptly from the
plains. Considerable allowances must also be
made for different latitudes; for though the area
of the British Isles is somewhat limited, there is a
considerable difference between the temperature
of the northern and southern points; so that the

32, HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [cuap.

isothermal lines of Caithness and Sutherland, at
an elevation of 1,300 feet, correspond to those of
the summit of Snowdon. The mean annual tem-
perature in the south-west of England is 52°;
whereas in the central districts of Scotland it is’
only 47°, and in the north-east counties as low as
46° or even 45°,—one degree being deducted for
inland localities under the same latitude, and one
degree for each three hundred feet of elevation
above the level of the sea. Attributing their due
influence to all these disturbing causes, it will be
found, with tolerable regularity and definiteness,
that the region occupied by the true Alpine flora
extends from an elevation of 2,000 feet to the
summits of our highest mountains. This region,
as may easily be imagined, is the dreariest and
most desolate portion of our country.
Etherealized by the changing splendour of the
heavens as the mountain summit appears when
surveyed from below, rising up from the huge
mound of rock and earth like a radiant flower
above its dark foliage, it affords another illustration
of the poetic adage, that+“’Tis distance tends
enchantment to the view.” When you actually
stand upon it, you find that the reality is very
different from the ideal. The clouds that float
over it, “those mountains of another element,”
‘which looked from the valley like gorgeous frag-
ments of the sun, now appear in their true cha-
racter as masses of cold, dull vapour; and the
mountain peak, deprived of the transforming glow

1] NATURE OF MOUNTAIN SUMMITS. Se

of light, has become one of the dreariest and
most desolate spots on which the eye can rest.
Not a tuft of grass, not a bush of heather, is to
be seen anywhere. The earth, beaten hard by
the frequent footsteps of the storm, is bare and
leafless as the world on the first morning of
creation. Huge fragments of rocks, the monu-
ments of elemental wars and convulsions, rise up
here and there, so rugged and distorted that they
seem like nightmares petrified; while the ground
is frequently covered with cairns of loose hoary
stones, which look like the bones which remained
unused after nature had built up the great skeleton
of the earth, and which she had cast aside in this
solitude to blanch and crumble away unseen.
When standing there during a misty storm, it
requires little effort of imagination to picture your-
self a shipwrecked mariner, cast ashore on one of
the sublimely barren islands of the Antarctic
Ocean. You involuntarily listen to hear the moan-
ing of the waves, and watch for the beating of the
foaming surge on the rocks around. The dense
writhing mists hurrying up from the profound
abysses on every side imprison you within “the
narrow circle of their ever-shifting walls,” and
penetrate every fold of your garments, and your
skin itself, becoming a constituent of your blood,
and chilling the very marrow of your bones.
Around you there is nothing visible save the
vague, vacant sea of mist, with the shadowy form
of some neighbouring peak looming through it
D

34 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. {cuap.

' like the genius of the storm; while your ears are
deafened by the howling of the wind among the
whirling masses of mist, by “the airy tongues that
syllable men’s names,” the roaring of the cataracts;
and the other wild sounds of the desert never
dumb. And yet, dreary and desolate although
the scene usually appears, it has its own periods
of beauty, its own days of brightness and cheer-
fulness. Often in the quiet autumn noon the eye
is arrested by the mute appeal of some lovely
Alpine flower, sparkling like a lone star in a mid-
night sky, among the tufted moss and the hoary
lichens, and seeming, as it issues from the stony
mould, an emanation of the indwelling life, a
visible token of the upholding love which pervades
the wide universe. If winter and spring in that
elevated region be one continued storm, the short
summer of a few weeks’ duration seems one en-
chanting festival of light. The life of earth is
then born in “dithyrambic joy,” blooms and bears
fruit under the glowing sunshine, the balmy breezes,
and the rich dews of a few days. Scenes of life,
interest, and beauty are crowded together with a
seeming rapidity as if there were no time to lose.
Flowers the fairest and the most fragile expand
their exquisitely pencilled blossoms even amid
dissolving wreaths of snow, and produce an im-
pression all the more delightful and exhilarating
from the consciousness of their short-lived beauty,
and the contrast they exhibit to the desolation
that immediately preceded.

I.] COMMON ALPINE PLANTS. a8

A large proportion of our Alpine plants are
universally diffused, being found in abundance on -
all the British mountains of sufficient elevation.
The Alpine Alchemilla carpets with its satiny
leaves the sides of every mountain at an elevation
of about a thousand feet; in Braemar it forms
the common verdure by the wayside, and mingles
with the daisies beside the village houses. The
Sibbaldia procumbens, somewhat resembling it, is
abundant on all the Highland hills, though it does
not penetrate farther south; by the roadside on
the ascent of the Cairnwall, near Braemar, it is
‘exceedingly common. While the mountain rue
(Thalictrum alpinum), the white Alpine cerastium,
the purple-rayed erigeron, the snowy dryas, the
blue veronica, the Alpine saussurea and potentilla,
are comparatively common on all the higher ranges
of England, Wales, and Scotland. But the most
common and abundant of the plants which grow
on the Highland mountains are the different
species of saxifrage. They are found in cold
bleak situations all over the world from the Arctic
circle to the equator, and, with the mosses and
lichens, form the last efforts of expiring nature
which fringe around the limits of eternal snow.
A. familiar example of the tribe is very frequently
cultivated in old-fashioned gardens and rockeries
under the name of London pride. Though little
prized, on account of its commonness, this plant
has a remarkable pedigree. It grows wild on the
romantic hills in the south-west of Ireland, from

D2

»

36 HOLIDAVS ON HIGH LANDS. [CHAP.

which all the plants that are cultivated in our
gardens, and that have escaped from cultivation
into woods and waste places, have been originally
derived. In that isolated region the London pride
is associated with several kinds of heather, with
one curious transparent fern, and four or five kinds
of lichens and mosses which are found nowhere
else in the British Isles, and are eminently typical
of southern latitudes. In fact, the same species
are again met with on the mountains in the north
of Spain; and the theory which botanists have
founded upon this remarkable circumstance 1s,
that the south-west of Ireland and the north
of Spain were at one period of the earth’s history
geologically connected, either by a chain of islands
or a ridge of hills. Over this continuous land—
which we have abundant evidence to prove ex-
tended without interruption from the province of
Munster beyond the Canary Islands—the gulf-
weed, which floats to the west of the Azores,-
probably indicating the western shore of the
submerged continent—flourished a rich and pecu-
liar flora of the true Atlantic type. The inter-
mediate links of the floral chain have been lost
by the destruction of the land on which it grew;
but on opposite shores of the Bay of Biscay, sepa-
rated by hundreds of miles, the ends of the chain
still exist, amid the wilds of Killarney and the
mountain valleys of Asturia. The London pride

is, therefore, the oldest plant now growing in the
British Isles. | |

1. | SAXIFRAGES. ee

The history of the saxifrages which grow on the
Highland hills is scarcely less remarkable—only
that they are of Arctic instead of Atlantic origin,
and were introduced at a subsequent period into
this country. No less than seven different species
are found on the Scottish mountains, growing in-
discriminately at various altitudes, from the base

to the highest summits, on the moist banks of

-

Alpine streams, as well as on bleak exposed rocks
where there is hardly a particle of soil to nourish
their roots, and over which the wind drives with
the force of a hurricane. The rarest of these saxi-
frages is the S. cernua, found nowhere else in
Britain than on the extreme top of Ben Lawers,
where it seldom flowers, but is kept in existence,
propagated from generation to generation by means
of viviparous bulbs, in the form of little red grains

produced in the axils of the small upper leaves.

It resembles the common meadow saxifrage in the
shape of its. leaves and flower so closely that,
though the viviparous bulbs of the one are produced

at the junction of the leaves with the stem, and

|

those of the other at the root, Bentham considers
it to be merely a starved Alpine variety. Be this
as it may, it preserves its peculiar characters un-
altered, not only within the very narrow area
to which it is confined in Britain, but throughout
the whole Arctic circle, where it has a wide range
of distribution. So frequently within the last
sixty years have specimens been gathered from

the station which, unfortunately, every botanist

38 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [cuapP.

knows well, that only a few individuals are now
to be seen at long intervals, and these exceedingly
dwarfed and deformed. On no less than twenty-
six different occasions I have examined it there,
and been grieved to mark the ravages of ruthless
collectors. I fear much that, at no distant date,
the most interesting member of the British flora
will disappear from the only locality known for it
south of Norway. After having survived all the
storms and vicissitudes of countless ages, historical
and geological, to perish at last under the spud of
the botanist, were as miserable an anti-climax in
its way as the end of the soldier who had gone
through all the dangers of the Peninsular war, and
was killed by a cab in the streets of London,

The loveliest of the whole tribe is the purple
saxifrage, which, fortunately, is as common as it is
beautiful. It grows in the barest and bleakest
spots on the mountains of England and Wales, as
well as those of the Highlands, creeping in dense
straggling tufts.of hard wiry foliage over the arid
soil, profusely covered with large purple blossoms,
presenting an appearance somewhat similar to, but
much finer than, the common thyme. It makes
itself so conspicuous by its brilliancy that it cannot
fail to be noticed by every one who ascends the
loftier hills in the appropriate season. It is the
avant-courter of the Alpine plants—the primrose,
so to speak, of the mountains—blooming in the
blustering days of early April; often opening its
rosy blooms in the midst of large masses of snow.

—————S

ees) PURPLE SAXIFRAGE. 39

And well is it entitled to lead the bright array of
Flora’s children, which, following the march of the
sun, bloom and fade, one after the other, from
April to October, and keep the desolate hills con-
tinually garlanded with beauty. It is impossible to
imagine anything fairer than a combination of the
_ soft curving lines of the pure unsullied snow, with
the purple blooms rising from its cold embrace, and
shedding over it the rosy reflected light of their
own loveliness. I remember being greatly struck
with its beauty several years ago in a lonely corrie
far up the sides of Ben Cruachan. That was a little
verdant oasis hid amid the surrounding barrenness
like a violet among its leaves—one of the sweetest
spots that ever filled the soul of a weary, careworn
man with yearning for a long repose; walled round
and sheltered from the winds by a wild chaos of
mountain ridges, animated by the gurgling of many
a white Alpine rill descending from the cliffs,
_ carpeted with the softest and mossiest turf, richly
embroidered with rare mountain flowers, with a
very blaze of purple saxifrage. I saw it on a
bright, quiet summer afternoon, when the lights
and shades of the setting sun brought out each
retiring beauty to the best advantage. It was just
such a picture as disposes one to think with wonder
of all the petty meannesses and ambitions of con-
_ ventional life. Wefeel the insignificance of wealth,
and the worthlessness of fame, when brought face

to face with the purity and beauty of nature in such
a spot. How trifling are the incidents which in

40 - HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. — {cuap.

such a scene arrest the attention and fix themselves
indelibly in the mind, to be recalled long after-
wards, perhaps in the crowded city and in the press
of business, when the graver matters of every-day
life that have intervened are utterly forgotten.
High up among the cliffs, round which a line of
braided clouds, softer and fairer than snow, clings
motionless all day long, rises at intervals the
mellow bleat of a lamb, deepening the universal
stillness by contrast, and carrying with it wherever
it moves the very centre and soul of loneliness, A
muir-cock rises suddenly from a grey hillock beside ©
you, showing for a moment his glossy brown
plumage and scarlet crest, and then off like the rush
of an ascending sky-rocket, with his startling kok-
kok-kok sounding fainter and fainter in the dis-
tance. Or perhaps a red deer wanders unexpect- |
edly near you, gazes awhile at your motionless
figure with large inquiring eyes, and ears erect,and —
antlers cutting the blue sky like the branches of
a tree, until at last, wearied by its stillness, and
almost fancying it a vision, you raise your arm and
give a shout, when away it flies in a series of swift
and graceful bounds through the shadow of a cloud
resting upon a neighbouring hill, and transforming
it for a moment into the similitude of a pine-forest,
over its rocky shoulder, away to some lonely far-off
mountain spring, that wells up perhaps where
human foot had never trodden. |

Speaking of springs, there is no feature in the
Alpine scenery more beautiful than the wells and

a

1.] AN ALPINE STREAM. Al

streamlets which make every hill-side bright with
their sunny sparkle and musical with their liquid
murmurs; and there are no spots so rich in moun-
tain plants as their banks. Trace them to their
source, high up above the common things of the
world, and they form a crown of joy to the bare
granite rocks, diffusing around them beauty and
verdure like stars brightening their own rays. A
fringe of deeply-green moss clusters round their |

edges, not creeping and leaning on the rock, but
_ growing erect in thick tufts of fragile and slender
stems; clouds of golden conferve, like the most
delicate floss-silk, float in the open centre of clear
water, the ripple of which gives motion and quick
play of light and shade to their graceful filaments.
The Alpine willow-herb bends its tiny head from
the brink, to add its rosy reflection to the exquisite
harmony of colouring in the depths; the rock
veronica forms an outer fringe of the deepest blue ;
_while the little moss campion enlivens the decom-
posing rocks in the vicinity with a continuous
velvet carpeting of the brightest rose-red and the
most brilliant green. The indescribable loveliness
of this, glowing little flower strikes every one who
sees it for the first time on the mountains speechless
with admiration. Imagine cushions of tufted moss,
with all the delicate grace of its foliage miraculously
blossoming into myriads of flowers, rosier than the
vermeil hue on beauty’s cheek, or the cloudlet that
lies nearest the setting sun, crowding upon each
other so closely that the whole seems an intense

°

42° HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [cuap.

floral blush, and you will have some faint idea of its
marvellous beauty. We have nothing to compare
with it among Lowland flowers. Following the
course of the sparkling stream from this enchanted
land, it conducts us down the slope of the hill to
beds of the mountain avens, decking the dry and
stony knolls on either side with its downy pro-
cumbent leaves and large white flowers, more
adapted, one would suppose, to the shelter of the
woods than the bleak exposure of the mountain —
side. Farther down the declivity, where the stream,
now increased in size, scooped out for itself a deep
rocky channel, which it fills from side to side in its
hours of flood and fury—hours when it is all too
terrible to be approached by mortal footsteps—we
find the mountain sorrel hanging its clusters of
kidney-shaped leaves and greenish rose-tipped
blossoms—a grateful salad—from the beetling brows
of the rocks ; while, on the drier parts, we observe
immense masses of the rose-root stonecrop’ grow-
ing where no other vegetation save the parti-
coloured nebulz of lichens could exist. This cactus-.
like plant is furnished with thick fleshy leaves, with
few or no evaporating pores; which enables it to
retain the moisture collected by its large, woody,
penetrating root, and thus to endure the long-con-
tinued droughts of summer, when the stream below
is shrunk down to the green gleet of its slippery
stones, and the little Naiad weeps her impoverished

1 A sheet of it last summer on one of the Westmoreland moun-

{ains measured five feet across, and was one solid mass of colour.
a \*

=

et PEANIS OF THE ALPIBE STREAM. 43

urn. Following the stream lower down, we come
to a more sheltered and fertile region of the moun-
tain, where pool succeeds pool, clear and deep, in
which you can see the fishes lying motionless, or
darting away like arrows when your foot shakes
the bank or your shadow falls upon the water.
There is nowa wide level margin of grass on either
_ side, as smooth as a shaven lawn; and meandering
through it, little tributary rills trickle into the
stream, their marshy channels edged with rare
Alpine rushes and carices, and filled with great
_ spongy cushions of red and green mosses, enlivened
by the white blossoms of the starry saxifrage. The
S. aizoides grows everywhere around in large beds
richly covered with yellow flowers, dotted with
spots of a deeper orange. This lovely species
descends to a lower altitude than any of its con-
geners, and may be called the golden fringe of the.
richly-embroidered floral mantle with which Nature
covers the nakedness of the higher hills. It blooms
luxuriantly among a whole host of moorland plants,
sufficient to engage the untiring interest of the
botanist throughout the'long summer day. The
curious sundew, a vegetable spider, lies in wait
among the red elevated moss tufts, to catch the
little black flies in the deadly embrace of its viscid
leaves; the bog asphodel stands near, with its
sword-shaped leaves and golden helmet, like a
sentinel guarding the spot; the grass of Parnassus
covers the moist greensward with the bright spar-
_kling of its autumn snow; while the cotton-grass

44 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANES [ CHAP.

waves on every side its downy plumes in the faintest
breeze. -Down from this flowery region the stream
flows with augmented volume, bickering over the

shingle with a gay poppling sound, and leaving

creamy wreaths of winking foam between the moss-
srown stones that protrude from its bed. It laves
the roots of the crimson heather-and the palmy
leaves of the lady-fern. The sunbeams gleam upon
its open face with ‘“‘messages from the heavens ;”
the rainbow arches its waterfalls ; the panting lamb
comes to cool its parched tongue in its limpid
waters; the lean blue heron, with head and bill
sunk on its breast, stands motionless in its shallows
watching for minnows all the long dull afternoon,

while the dusky ousel flits from stone to stone in

all the fearless play of its happy life. Hurrying
swiftly through the brown heathy wastes that clothe
the lower slopes, it lingers a while where the trem-
bling aspen and the twinkling birch and the rugged
alder weave their leafy canopy over it, freckling its
bustling waves with ever-varying scintillations of
light and shade; pauses to water the crofter’s
meadow and cornfield, and to supply the wants of
a cluster of rude moss-grown huts on its banks,
which look as if they had grown naturally out of
the soil; and then, through a beach of snow-white

pebbles, it mingles its fretting waters in the blue,

profound peace of the loch. Such is the bright and
varied course of the Alpine stream, with its floral
fringe; and from its fountain to its fall it is one

continuous many-linked chain of beauty—an epic.

eats SUMMIT OF BEN NEVIS. AB

of Nature, full of the richest images and the most
suggestive poetry. _
_ Very few of the true Alpine plants grow on the
actual summits of the Highland hills; and this
circumstance appears to be due not so much to the
cold—for the same plants are most abundant and
most luxuriant throughout the whole Polar zone,
where the mean annual temperature is far below
the freezing point, whereas that of the Highland
summits is 3° or 4° above that point—but to their
want of shelter from the prevailing storms, and the
generally unfavourable geological structure of the
spots. The highest point of Ben Nevis, for in-
stance, is so thickly macadamized with large masses
of dry red granite, that there is hardly room for
the tiniest wild flower to strike root in the soil. It
looks like the battle-ground of the Titans, or a
gigantic heap of scoriz cast out from Vulcan’s fur-
nace. It is impossible to imagine, even in the Polar
regions, any spot more barren and leafless. The
plants of the super-Arctic and mid-Arctic zones,
which should be found there owing to its height,
are therefore obliged to accommodate themselves
in the infer-Arctic zone, where the necessary con-
ditions of soil and moisture exist. One of the two
plants characteristic of the highest zone—viz. the
Saxifraga rivularis—occurs on the hill, but con-
siderably below its normal limits. It grows at an
altitude of 3,000 feet, in a spot irrigated, while the
plant is in flower, by water trickling from the melt-
‘sing snow above. The summit of Ben-y-gloe, rising

46 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. — [cuap.

to a height of 3,900 feet in the north-east corner
of Perthshire, is also covered with enormous piles

of snowy gneiss—like the foundation of a ruined

city, in some places ground into powder by the
disintegrating effects of the weather, and in others
occurring in the shape of large blocks thrown
loosely above each other, so sharp and angular

that it is one of the most difficult and fatiguing

tasks imaginable to scramble over the ridge to the

cairn which crowns the highest point. When sur- —
veyed from below, the peak has a singularly bald —
appearance, scarred and riven by numberless land- —
slips, and the dried-up beds of torrents, and scalped +
by the fury of frequent storms; and a nearer in- —

' spection proves it to be as desolate and leafless
as the sands of Sahara. On the top of Ben-Mac-
Dhui, though very broad and massive, as beseems
a mountain covering a superficial basis of nearly
forty miles in extent, the only flowering plants
which occur are, strange to say, those which are
found in profusion even at the lowest limits of
Alpine vegetation on the English hills. The last
time I visited it I observed only seven flowering
plants near the cairn on the summit, most of which
were sedges and grasses. The mossy campion,
however, amply compensated me for the absence
of the other Alpines by the abundance ae bril-
liancy of its rosy flowers.

The same remarks apply to nearly all the Hich-
land hills. There are only five plants which—
though sometimes descending to lower altitudes,

~~» ae

é

eRe: oO MOSSY. CVPHEL. Az

one or two of them even to the level of the sea-
shore on the hills fronting the coast in the north-
west of Scotland—are invariably found on the
summits of all the ranges that are more than 3,000
feet high. These plants are the mossy campion,
-the Arctic willow, the procumbent sibbaldia, the
F little dusky-brown gnaphalium, and the curious
cherleria or-mossy cyphel. This last little plant
| forms an anomaly in the distribution of our Alpine
flora. It is very abundant in the subnival region
“of the Swiss Alps, growing on the larger groups of
‘ mountains, from an altitude of 8,000 to 15,000 feet.
* It forms one of the most conspicuous of the forty
‘plants found on the far-famed “Jardin de la Mer
i de Glace” at Chamouni, described in Murray’s
Handbook as “an oasis in the desert, an island in
, the ice, a rock which is covered with a beautiful
sherbage, and enamelled in August with flowers.
_ This is the Jardin of this palace of nature; and
“nothing can exceed the beauty of such a spot,
amidst the overwhelming sublimity of the sur-
rounding objects—the Aiguille of Charmoz, Bletier,
and the Geant,” &c. This highly-coloured descrip-
tion is, however, a mere euphemism, for in reality
the so-called garden is only a rock protruding out
of the glacier, and covered principally with lichens
and plants whose dull, insignificant appearance
‘would not attract the least notice elsewhere.
Although not very rare on the highest Scottish
mountains, the cherleria does not extend farther
-north—thus offering a very striking exception to

48 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. {cuap.

the usual derivation of our mountain flora. It may
either have emigrated northwards from the Alps
during the glacial epoch, or it may be regarded as
a sporadic species, depending upon local conditions
for its maintenance. From its peculiar and hardy
appearance, we would almost hazard the opinion
that it is. older than any of the other gulpiaas
plants, that it existed on the British hills before .
the migration of the Scandinavian flora, and that —
the Breadalbane mountains form its original centre,
from which it has been distributed southwards over
the Swiss Alps. The last inference is warranted
by its extraordinary luxuriance on Ben Lawers.
It has nothing to boast of in the shape of flowers,
the sharpest eyes being hardly able to detect the
minute greenish petals and stamens among the
tufted moss-like foliage. It is impossible to convey
the impression of special adaptation which one
glance at the plant, in its bare and sterile habitat,
cannot fail to produce. Its long, tough, woody
root penetrates deeply the stony ‘soil, so that it is
with difficulty a specimen can be detached; and
so hardy is its nature that it flourishes green and
luxuriant under the chilling pressure of huge masses
of snow, and under the ig glare of the
scorching summer sun.

Of all the British mountains, Ben Lawers is the
richest in rare and interesting Alpine species. This
hill, which may be called the Mecca of the botanist,
as every neophyte who aspires to the honours of
his science must pay a visit to its rugged cliffs,

1] ES BEN LAWERS. 49

occupies very nearly the centre of Scotland. It
rises in a pyramidal form from the north shore of
Loch Tay, upwards of 4,000 feet above the level of
the sea, and commands from its summit, on a clear
day, an uninterrupted view unparalleled in the
British islands for variety, sublimity, and extent.
Though separated from the surrounding mountains
by two torrents which flow through deep depres-
sions on its eastern and western sides, it forms with
them an immense continuous range, upwards of
forty miles in length, ten in breadth, and of an
average altitude of 3,000 feet. On this lofty pla--
teau, known as the Breadalbane chain, which is the
most uniformly and extensively elevated land in
Britain, the different peaks of Maelghyrdy, Craig-
calleach, Ben Lawers, &c., repose like a conclave
of mighty giants, imparting a serrated appearance
to the range indescribably wild and savage when
wreathed with mist or cloud. The whole of this
vast region is composed almost entirely of mica-
ceous schist, interspersed here and there with veins
of quartz, and containing not unfrequently those
dark-brown crystals called garnets, which greatly
enhance the sparkling lustre of the mica. This
rock, it may be remarked, embraces within its
course the finest and most celebrated scenery in
the Highlands, and rises, besides the Breadalbane
peaks, into such distinguished summits as Ben
Voirlich, Ben Ledi, Ben Venue, Ben Lomond,
and all the bold serrated ridges of Argyleshire
and Inverness-shire. It is of a very soft and
| EK

50 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [CHAP.

friable nature, and is easily weathered, forming
on its surface a deep layer of rich soil, admirably
adapted to the wants of an Alpine or Arctic
vegetation. Being the prevailing formation in
the Norwegian and Lapland mountains, as well |
as in the Arctic regions, it is obvious that the
Scandinavian plants which emigrated southwards
would find, wherever this rock cropped out suff-
ciently high above the surrounding surface, pecu-
liarly favourable conditions for their growth. Hence
on all the micaceous rocks in this country, and even —
in the Swiss Alps, we find a greater variety and a
richer luxuriance of Scandinavian forms than on ~
any other geological formation. We are particu-
larly struck with this when we compare the rich
and varied Alpine vegetation of the Breadalbane
mica schists with the generally meagre and stunted
vegetation of the Braemar and Ben Nevis granites.
The unusual fertility of the Breadalbane range
must also be ascribed to geographical position,
highly advantageous in a meteorological point of
view. The south-west winds, which come loaded
with moisture from the Atlantic, meet with this
great ridge running along the west of Perthshire,
high above the other ranges, and, rushing up its
cooler sides, condense their vapours, disengage
their latent heat, and produce that mild climate,
with almost continual rain or drizzling mist, in
which Alpine plants delight during the period of.
growth; whereas to the Aberdeenshire mountains
the same winds come deprived of their moisture,

Pee ALPINE PLANTS.OF BEN LAWERS. 5]

and bring dry, cold weather. The common spe-
cies of plants which are found on every hill of
sufficient altitude in Britain, and which constitute
their sole Alpine flora, are not only more abundant
in individual forms on the Breadalbane mountains,
but also attain more luxuriant proportions, so that
they give a rich and beautiful appearance to the
higher ranges in the glowing summer months, while,
as previously intimated, an unusually large propor-
tion of plants is exclusively restricted to this chain.
Nor is it merely in rare phanerogamous vegetation
that these mountains are rich; they also possess a
singularly varied and peculiar cryptogamic flora,
several species of which are found nowhere else.
Most of these plants may be found collected on
the single peak of Ben Lawers; and a botanist
cannot spend a week more profitably and _plea-
santly than in exploring the huge sides and broad
double summit of this hill. Every step leads to a
botanical surprise, and almost every plant is either
altogether new, or so rare and unfamiliar as to
excite a thrill of gratification. If he has never -
before investigated Alpine vegetation, and if he be
at all an enthusiast in his pursuit, he will expe-
ficnce in the collection of these novelties and
rarities some of the happiest moments in his life, |
—moments worth years of artificial excitement,
banishing every sense of weariness and fatigue, and
rendering, by the elevation of mind they produce,
his perceptions of beauty in the scenery around
more acute and delightful. These moments soon
Fg tp

age

ie, HOLIDAVS ON HIGH LANDS. — * \cuap.

pass away, but they cease like the bubbling of a
fountain, which leaves the waters purer for the
momentary influence which had passed through
them,—not like too many worldly joys, which
ebb like an unnatural tide, and leave behind only
loathsomeness and disgust.

In the crevices of the highest rocks may be
observed a curious lichen, called Verrucaria
flookert, spreading over the blackened and har-
dened turf in white turgid scales, which is quite
different from any other lichen with which we are
acquainted, and seems to be a special creation
found nowhere else inthe world. Curiously enough,
there is associated with it a moss also peculiar
to the spot, the Gymunostomum cespititium, which
grows in dense brownish-green tufts, with nume-
rous glossy capsules nestling among the leaves.
The extreme rarity and isolation of these plants
would almost warrant the inference, either that
they are new creations which have not yet had
time to secure possession of a wider extent of
surface, or rather, perhaps, that they are aged
plants, survivors of the original cryptogamic flora
of the soil during the more recent geological
epochs, which have lived their appointed cycle of
life, and, yielding to the universal law of death, are

about to disappear for ever. On the highest ridge |

of the mountain occurs, among the débris of rocks,
the Draba rupestris, a very small, insignificant-
looking plant, but important as being one of the
most Arctic and Alpine plants in Scotland. It is

|

ca ALPINE SANDWORT. 53

only found here and in one locality in Sutherland-
shire, and is unknown on the Continent of Europe.
Passing down from the cairn that crowns the
highest point of Ben Lawers, along the north-
western shoulder of the hill, we are soon brought
to a stand by several lofty precipices. Descending
one of these, we come to a small corrie; and here,
upwards of 3,000 feet above the level of the sea, we
are fairly bewildered with the beauty, the variety,
and the luxuriance of the Alpine plants which bloom
on every side. All the ordinary species are here
congregated in lavish profusion, protected by im-
mense shaggy beds of rare Alpine mosses, and
nourished by the incessant dripping from the rocks
overhead. We observe among them a few dense
tufts of the Alpine sandwort (AJdszne rubella),
and instantly we are down on our knees in the
swamp to gather it, for one brief moment oblivious
of the whole universe besides. My prize has cer-
tainly little to recommend it; for beauty it can
scarcely be said to possess, the chickweed of our
gardens, to which it is closely allied, having fully
as pretty a flower; but it is remarkable for that
which gives value to the diamond—its exceeding
rarity—only one other station for it being known
in Britain, viz. the exposed cliffs of Ben Hope
in Sutherlandshire. It belongs eminently to the
boreal or Arctic type of vegetation, penetrating
very far north, but reaching its southern limit on
Ben Lawers. Scarcely has my enthusiasm had
time to cool, when it is raised to.a higher pitch, by

ne

D4 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. ‘[cHap.

seeing, in a cleft of the rock, the most celebrated
of all our mountain flowers—the tiny Gentiana
nivalis, or snowy gentian. With immeasurable
thankfulness, and with a reverential and delicate
touch, I pluck from the tiny clumps two specimens ©
for myself, and two for favoured friends—no more ;
for the genuine botanist has too great a regard for
these interesting remnants of an almost extinct
race—these little Aztecs of the flower world, which
cling so tenaciously to Flora’s skirts—to exter-
minate them ruthlessly by taking more than he
needs. If, humanly speaking, they are so precious
in the eyes of their Creator, that He has taken such
wonderful care to perpetuate them in these bleak
spots, they ought surely to be invested with some-
thing of a sacred character in our sight. What
appeals so powerfully to the protection of man in
the helpless form of the infant, ought to affect us
in similar, though of course lesser degree, in the
tenderness and fragility of these rare plants. The
snowy gentian is the smallest of the Alpine flowers,
usually averaging from half an inch to an inch in
height, with a very minute blossom, forming a
mere edge of deep blue, tipping the long calyx.
Another station besides the Ben Lawers one has
been found in the Caenlochan mountains, at the
head of Glen Isla, where a porphyritic granite,
rich in felspar, associated with a dark syenite,
abounding in hornblende, is the prevailing rock.
The Alps of Switzerland, however, seem to be the
chosen haunt of this and all the rest of the gentian

1 ALPINE FORGET-ME-NOT. 55

tribe.“ There it grows in profusion among a lovely
sisterhood of gentians, imparting a blue, deep as
that of the sky above, to the higher pasturages,
and often hides its head on the dizzy ledges of
tremendous precipices. In ascending the lofty
peaks of the Jungfrau and Monte Rosa, the guides
not unfrequently resort to the innocent artifice of
endeavouring to interest the traveller in its beauty,
to distract his attention from the fearful abysses
which the giddy path overhangs.

There is one flower found in Ben Lawers which
alone is worth all the fatigue of the ascent. This
is the Alpine forget-me-not (AZyosotts alpestris). It
is far lovelier than its sister of the valleys—the
well-known flower of friendship and poetry—its
flowers being larger, more numerous, and closely
set, forming a dense coronet or clustered head,
that looks like a carcanet of rich turquoises. It
does not grow beside running brooks, or in marshy
spots, like its lowland congener, but high up on the
dizzy ledges of almost inaccessible cliffs, where no
one but the prying naturalist would look for floral
beauty. Though somewhat abundant on the Swiss
Alps, in Britain it is confined to the Breadalbane
mountains, where it does not occur lower down
than 3,000 feet. On Ben Lawers it is especially
abundant and luxuriant, crowning with a garland
of large blue tufts the precipitous crags which jut
out from the western side of the hill. Fortunately
for the preservation of the plant, it is a hazardous
undertaking to gather it there, for the rocks are

56 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. (cuap.

from 300 to 400 feet in perpendicular height, and
one escapes from their ledges to a secure standing-
place with much the same feelings that a man
gets out of reach of a mortar just about to explode.
In that elevated spot the summer is far advanced
before it ventures to put forth its delicate flowers,
so that it escapes the howling winds and the tem-
pestuous mists, and blooms in a calm and serene
atmosphere. The perfume which it exhales is very
volatile, being sometimes almost imperceptible, and
at other times very strong, and suggestive of the
honey smell of the clover fields left far below.
This is almost the only British Alpine plant pos-
sessed of fragrance; whereas, on the Swiss Alps,
the majority of species are odoriferous,—a circum-
stance which adds largely to the inspiring influence -
of a ramble on those stupendous hills. The absence
of scented species on our mountains seems to be
owing to the dark cloudy atmosphere which almost
always broods over them; while their presence in
such profusion on the Alps is, on the other hand,
due to the cloudless skies and the bright sunshine
peculiar to the south, as well as to the diminished
pressure of the atmosphere; for the most fragrant
kinds seldom prosper below a certain elevation,
and when cultivated in gardens become nearly
scentless. There is no plant which recalls more
_ forcibly the beautiful though hackneyed lines of
Gray than the Alpine forget-me-not. But is it
really true that it blushes unseen, and wastes its
fragrance on the desert air? Who are we, that

—— ee ES

Peet VAL CAUSES OF ALPINE FLOWERS. 57

we should arrogate to ourselves the right to call
any existence vain and wasted that is wholly
beyond our use, and removed from our admiration?
When shall we learn the humbling truth, con-
stantly preached to'us, that nature has not yet
passed under our dominion, and that the smallest
wild flower does not bloom for man, or any other
creature, as its primary object. We have seen how
little the admiration of man is regarded by nature,
in the boundless prodigality with which she pours
out her treasures in the loneliest and most desolate
spots, remote from human habitations, and rarely,
if ever, visited by human foot. There are many
beautiful scenes left far off by themselves among
the solitudes of the mountains, where, “unseen and
unknown to all human beings, living nature fails
not, from the glad morn to the silent eve, to call
up all those sublime pageants of daily recurrence
which show forth the Creator’s unchangeable glory,
in her ever-changing loveliness; where the sunrise,
unnoticed, clothes the mountains with regal robes
of crimson and gold, and the red twilight, unad-
mired, paints them in hues soft as those which
pass over the cheek of the dying; where grateful
flowers, ungathered, breathe forth their odours like
the incense of a silent prayer, while answering dews
descend, untainted, from the skies; where storms
unfeared come down in all their terror, and the
unheard winds make a ceaseless wailing music
over the lonely heights.” And are we to think that
all these beauties and wonders of creation are lost,

58 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS, [cuap.
because no mortal is at hand to look on them with
his cold eye and thankless heart? No! better to
suppose that purer and holier eyes than ours are.
for ever keeping watch in grateful admiration over
the minutest flower, as over the remotest star, than
to believe that the works of the Creator are ever
without some one of His created beings to adore
His majesty in their perfection.

The Aberdeenshire mountains, from their great
elevation and geographical position, lying in one of
the directions taken by the Scandinavian flora in
its descent to southern latitudes, exhibit a large -
proportion of Alpine forms, which might have been
still larger were it not for unfavourable geological
and climatal conditions. They possess, in great
luxuriance, on the sides and summits of their high-
est peaks, no less than three species of shrubby
lemon-coloured lichens highly peculiar to Iceland
and Lapland, and found nowhere else in this
country. The restriction of these cryptogams to
so narrow a corner of our island—considering the
facility with which their light, invisible spores may
be disseminated by winds and waves, and their
capacity of enduring the utmost extremes of tem-
perature—can only be explained by the supposi-
tion that the Cairngorm mountains first intercepted
and retained them. Of phanerogamous plants, two
at least are confined to this district. Of these, the
Mulgedinm alpinum—a large, coarse plant of the
thistle tribe, with erect stems from two to three feet
high, producing deep blue florets late in summer-—

eee

sd) ae BRAEMAR MOUNTAINS. a9

srows in moist, rocky situations in Northern and
Arctic Europe and Asia; but in this country is
restricted to the Loch-na-gar and Clova mountains,
where it is rapidly disappearing. I gathered it
several years ago in a locality where I believe it is
now extinct,—the ledge of a sloping and rugged
precipice on the north side of Ben-Muich-Dhu,
down which a stream, rising in the upper ranges of
the hill, falls in a succession of cascades for nearly
3,000 feet into the waters of Loch Avon. The
other is the Sonuchus alpinus, or Alpine sow-thistle,
an equally coarse plant. It is found on the same
cliffs of Loch-na-gar on which the J/ulgedium
grows. On the rocks overhanging a deep ravine,
by which there is an ascent—though very laborious
—to the summit, may be found Saxifraga rivularis
and Phleum alpinum, while the rare Lycopodium
annotinum, Cornus suecica,and Drosera anglica may
be gathered at their base in moist soil.

On the Braemar mountains another Alpine plant
of deeply interesting character is found. The
Astragalus alpinus—a species of vetch—crowns the
summit of Craigindal, a hill about 3,000 feet high,
in the vicinity of Ben Avon and Ben-na-bourd. It
is confined almost exclusively to this neighbour-
hood, and is found there in two or three localities
at considerable distances from each other, but
characterised by the same geological formation,
Viz. a very pure, compact felspar. These moun-
tains form the most southern limit of this plant.
Tracing the Grampian chain for twenty or thirty

ne ee

6.0 0° "> HOLIDAYS ON ‘HIGH DAs [ CHAP.

miles south-east, until it forms the Clova group of
hills, we find collected in that narrow space two
other plants, each of which is restricted in its range
to rocks of the same specific character, and there-
fore comprised within a very limited area. One of
these, the Oxytropis campestris—also a species of
vetch, with pale yellow flower tinged with purple—
is known by reputation, if not by sight, as one of
the rarest of British plants, and therefore one of
the most desirable acquisitions to the herbarium.
Common on the mountain pastures and Alpine
rocks in the Arctic regions of Europe, America, and
Siberia, it is confined in Britain to one cliff in Clova,
severed from the surrounding precipices by two
deep fissures, apparently the result of extensive
atmospheric disintegration. This cliff is composed
of micaceous schist, peculiarly rich in mica, though
of a dark smoky colour; and being of a soft and
friable nature, easily decomposed by the weather,
forms a loose, deep, and very fertile soil. The other
plant alluded to, viz. the Lychnzs alpina, is also
confined to a few isolated localities in the same
range. It grows sparingly on the rocky table-land -
—about half an acre in extent—which crowns the
summit of a hill called Little Gilrannoch, equi-—
distant between Glen Isla and Glen Dole. It is
intimately connected with the lithological character
of its habitat, for in several places on this plateau
it springs from little crevices where there is hardly
a particle of soil to nourish its roots ; and its range
of distribution extends only as far as the rock pre-

1] CAENLOCHAN. 61

serves its mineral character unchanged. This rock,
which differs from the prevailing strata of the dis-
trict,and from those in its immediate neighbourhood,
is composed of compound felspar, very hard, and
capable of resisting disintegration. In some places
it is smooth and bare, like a pavement, and in
others extremely corrugated and vitrified, as if it
had undergone the action of fire. Though not
found elsewhere in this country, the Alpine Lychuzs
has an extensive geographical range, being an
Alpino-boreal plant, occurring both in Scandinavia
and the Swiss Alps and Pyrenees.

Caenlochan stands next, perhaps, to Ben Lawers
in the number and interest of its Alpine rarities.
On the summit of this range, close beside the
bridle-path which winds over the heights from
Glen Isla to Braemar, an immense quantity of the
Highland azalea (Azalea procumbens) grows among
the shrubby tufts of the crowberry ; and when in
the full beauty of its crimson bloom, about the
beginning of August, it is a sight which many
besides the botanist would go far to see. It is the
only plant on the Highland mountains that reminds
us of the rhododendrons which form the floral glory
of the Swiss Alps, and especially of the Sikkim
Himalayas. The stupendous cliffs at the sources of
the Isla, formed of friable micaceous schist, and irri-
gated by innumerable rills, trickling from the melt-
ing snow above, are fringed with exceedingly rich
tufts of Saussurea, Erigeron, Sibbaldia, Saxifraga
nivalis, and whitened everywhere by myriads of

3, cc eet epee pn

G2 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. (>") CHAP,
Dryas octopetala and Alpine Cerasttum. The scenery
of this spot is truly magnificent. Huge mural
precipices, between two and three thousand feet —
high, extend several miles on either side of a glen
so oppressively narrow that it is quite possible to
throw a stone from one side to the other. Dark
clouds, like the shadows of old mountains passed
away, continually float hither and thither in the
vacant air, or become entangled in the rocks, in-
creasing the gloom and mysterious awfulness of
the gulf, from which the mingled sounds of many
torrents, coursing far below, rise up at intervals
like the groans of tortured spirits. A forest of
dwarfed and stunted larches, planted as a cover
for the deer, scrambles up the sides of the preci-
pices for a short distance, their ranks sadly thinned
by the numerous landslips and avalanches from
the heights above. This region is seldom frequented
by tourists, or even by botanists, as it lies far away
from the ordinary routes, and requires a special
visit. The late Professor Graham and the present
accomplished Professor of Botany in the Edin-
burgh University once spent, I believe, a fortnight
in the shieling of Caenlochan, a lonely shepherd’s
hut at the foot of the range, built in the most primi-
tive manner and with the rudest materials. ‘They
gathered rich spoils of Alpine plants in their daily
wanderings among the hills, and so thoroughly in-
doctrinated the shepherds and gamekeepers about
the place in the nature of their pursuits, that they
have all a knowledge of, and a sympathy with, the

a] MENZIESIA STATION. 63

vasculum and herbarium, rare even in less secluded
districts, though the schoolmaster is everywhere
abroad. Every one of them knows the “ Gimtion”
(Gentiana nivalis) and the “ Lechnis aména” (Lych-
nis alpina), as they call them, as well as they know a
grouse or sheep, and is proud at any time, without
fee or reward, to conduct “ botanisses” to the spots
where these rarities are found. |

In the northern extremity of Perthshire, between
Boch Rannoch and Loch. Erricht, on the. north-
eastern brow of the mountain called the Sow of
Atholl, is the well-known station for the very rare
Menstesia cerulea, a species of heath distinguished
by its large blue bells. This treeless waste of
elevated moorland, characterised by Maculloch as
one of the most desolate regions in Europe, for-
gotten by nature, without a trace or a recollection
of human life, once formed the site of the great
- Caledonian forest, which, in all probability, shel-
tered in its moist and shady recesses plants found
nowhere else in Britain, and peculiar to the
swampy forests of Norway and Lapland. Of this
hyperborean vegetation, the beautiful Jenzzesia
and the Rubus arcticus are now the sole surviving
relics. They strikingly illustrate the influence of
man in extirpating or limiting the distribution of
plants, by levelling forests, draining marshes, and
thus rendering a particular region unsuitable to
the vegetation of an excessive climate, by intro-
ducing a more equable temperature, greater
warmth in winter and greater cold in summer,

64 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [cuap.

than formerly prevailed. To the general naturalist
this is one of the most interesting districts in
Britain. About nine miles from Kinloch Rannoch,
on the south side of the loch, there is a thick,
dark pine-forest known as the Black Wood, which
is also a relic of the great Caledonian forest ;
many of its trees being of great age, and so large
as to require the outstretched arms of two men
to span them. In the damp air of this forest,
where there is an abundant supply of vegetable
food in all stages of decay—-favoured by the in-
tense heat of summer and the long period of
winter torpor—an astonishingly large number of
subalpine insects occur, which are unknown else-
where. It is, in fact, the paradise of the ento-
mologist, for though the species are rare, the
number of individuals is unusually large. Many
of them are of considerable size, and possess very
attractive colouring; while others exhibit curious
habits and modes of development. The Formica
congerens builds its huge anthills of pine-needles
here as in Norway. One of the most abundant
insects in the place is the Longicorn beetle (A stzo-
mus edilis), which is known in Sweden, and, strange
to say, in Rannoch also, as “the timberman,” on
account of its frequenting the timber-cutting yards,
and even the doorposts of the houses. Its horns
are prodigiously long, about four times the length
of its body, and remind one more of tropical
insects than any similar development that occurs
in this country. TZvichius fasciatus, known to the

#4 ARCTIC WILLOW. 65
villagers as the “bee-beetle,” from the resemblance
of the velvety black bands on its yellow downy
body to those of the common humble-bee, is also
frequent in the neighbourhood. In short, upwards
of a score of insects peculiar to the neighbourhood
are essentially boreal forms. ‘The parallelism be-
tween them and the insects of Norway and Sweden
is of the closest character, and is thus a singular
confirmation of the evidence afforded by some of
the plants of the district that, in this corner of
Britain, we have, in the relics of the Caledonian
forest, the remains of a Scandinavian flora and
fauna that once spread over the whole country.

Although neither tree nor shrub is cupable of
existing on the mountain summits, we find several
representatives there of the lowland forests. The
Arctic willow (Salix herbacea) occurs on all the
ridges, creeping along the mossy ground for a
few inches, and covering it with its rigid shoots
and small round leaves. It is a curious circum-
stance, that a regular sequence of diminishing
forms of the willow tribe may be traced in an
ascending line, from the stately “siller saugh wi’
downie buds,’ that so appropriately fringes the
banks of the lowland river, up to the diminutive
species that scarcely rises above the ground on
the tops of the Highland hills. The dwarf birch,
also, not unfrequently occurs in sheltered situations
on the Grampians, among fragments of rocks
thickly carpeted with the snowy tufts of the rein-
deer moss. It is a beautiful miniature of its
F

66. .HOLIDAVS ON HIGH LANDS. [emap.

graceful sister, the queen of Scottish woods, the
whole tree—roots, trunk, branches, leaves, flowers,
and fruit—being easily gummed on a sheet of
common note-paper; and yet it stands for all
that the Esquimaux and Laplanders know of
srowing timber. In the Arctic plains the mem-
bers of the highest botanical families are entirely
superseded by the lowest and least organized
plants. Lichens and mosses are there not only
more important economically, but have greater
influence in affecting the appearance of the scenery,
than even willows and birches.

Of ferns there are several very interesting spe-
cies on the’Highland mountains. A peculiar form
occurs’ in sheltered places on most of the higher
summits, which for a long time was supposed to
‘pe a variety of the common lady-fern. It is now
ascertained to be a distinct species, and is called
Polypodium alpestre; its cluster of spores being
naked and destitute of a covering in all the stages
of growth. It is especially abundant on Loch-na-
gar and the Cairngorm range, where it was dis-
covered several years ago by Mr. Backhouse of
York. On rocky slopes, at a height of about 2,000
feet, occurs the Alpine holly fern (Polystichum Lon-
chitis), which is peculiarly adapted to its rigorous
climate by its slow rigid habit of growth, and the
persistency of its old fronds. On Ben Lawers it is
very abundant. The Woodsia hyperborea grows in
small compact tufts on the ledges of almost in-
accessible precipices. It is confined almost exclu-

1] ALPINE FERNS. | 67

sively to the Breadalbane mountains, where it is
found very sparingly indeed. But the rarest and
most interesting of all the Alpine ferns is the
Cystopterts montana, a large, handsome, much-
divided species, bearing a considerable resemblance
to the Polypodium calcareum. It appears at the
beginning of June, and fades early in August. It
does not grow in crevices of rocks, like its con-
geners, but on the Alpine turf at a height of about
3,000 feet. On Ben Lawers I once observed an
extensive patch of it, containing thousands of spe-
cimens; but when I next visited the spot, the turf
had been stripped off and the plant extirpated—
not a vestige of it to be seen. It is fortunately,
- however, abundant on the wild, almost unknown,
mountain plateaux which stretch from the head of
Loch Tay to Loch Lomond—such as Benteskerny,
Mael-nan-tarmonach, Maelghyrdy, Corry Dhu-
clair, &c. I gathered some fine specimens of it
in a ravine while crossing the Wengern Alp, in
Switzerland, some years ago; and subsequently in
the tremendous defile of the Naerodal, at the head
of the Sogne Fjord in Norway. Its original centre
of distribution seems to be the Rocky Mountains
of America, for there it occurs in the utmost
luxuriance and profusion.

It would be improper not to notice very
briefly the rich and varied cryptogamic vege-
tation which clothes the highest summits, and
spreads, more like an exudation of the rocks than
the produce of the soil, over spots where no
3 BAZ

68 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS tacky se

flowering plant. could possibly exist. This vege-
tation is permanent, and is not affected by the
changes of the seasons: it may, therefore, be
collected at any time, from January to December.
It is almost unnecessary to say, that the Alpine
mosses and lichens are as peculiar and distinct in
their character from those of the valleys as the
Alpine flowers themselves. They are all eminently
Arctic; and, though they occur very sparingly in
scattered patches on the extreme summits of the
Highland hills, they are the common familiar
vegetation of the Lapland and Iceland plains, and
cover Greenland and Melville Island with the only
verdure they possess. Some of them are very
lovely: as, for instance, the saffron Solorima, which
spreads over the bare earth, on the highest and
most exposed ridges, its rich rosettes of vivid
green above and brilliant orange below; the daisy-
flowered cup lichen, with its filigreed yellow stems,
and large scarlet knobs; and the geographical
lichen, which enamels all the stones and rocks with
its bright black and primrose-coloured mosaic.
Some are useful in the arts, as the Iceland moss,
which occurs on all the hills, from an elevation of
2,000 feet, and becomes more luxuriant the higher.
we ascend. On some mountains it is so abundant
that a supply sufficiently large to diet, medicinally,
all the consumptive patients in Scotland could
be gathered in a few hours.’ A few lichens and
mosses, such as Hooker's Verrucaria, and Haller’s
FIypnum, are interesting to the botanist, on account

.] mErINE MOSSES AND [ICHENS. 69

of their extreme rarity and isolation. Some are
interesting on account of their associations, as the
Parmelia Fahlunensis, which was first observed on
the dreary rocks and heaps of ore and débris near
the copper mines of Fahlun, in Sweden—a district
so excessively barren that even lichens in general
refuse to vegetate there, yet inexpressibly dear to
the great Linnzeus, because there he wooed and
won the beautiful daughter of the learned phy-
sician Morzus. And the curious tribe of the
Gyrophoras or Tripe de Roche \ichens, looking like
pieces of charred parchment, so exceedingly abun-
dant on all the rocks, will painfully recall the fearful
hardships and sufferings of Sir John Franklin and
his party in the Arctic regions. It is a strange cir-
cumstance, by the way, that most of the lichens
and mosses of the Highland summits are dark-
coloured, as if scorched by the fierce unmitigated
glare of the sunlight. This gloomy Plutonian
vegetation gives a very singular appearance to
the scenery, especially to the top of Ben Nevis,
where almost every stone and rock is blackened —
by large masses of Azdveas, Gyrophoras, and
Parmelias.

The most marked and characteristic of all the
cryptogamic plants which affect the mountain
summits is the woolly-fringe moss. This plant
erows in the utmost profusion, frequently acres in
extent, rounding the angular shoulders of the hills
with a padding of the softest upholstery work of
nature ; for which considerate service the botanist,

\

70 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. {cuap.

who has previously toiled up painfully amid endless
heaps of loose stones, is exceedingly grateful.
' Growing in such abundance, far above the line
where the higher social plants disappear, it seems
a wise provision for the protection of the exposed.
sides and summits of the hills from the abrading
effects of the storm. Snow-wreaths lie cushioned
upon these mossy plateaux in midsummer, and
soak them through with their everlasting drip,
leaving on the surface from which they have retired
the moss flattened and blackened as if burnt by
fire. With this moss I have rather a curious asso-
ciation, with a description of which it may be worth
while to wind up my desultory remarks, as a spe-
cimen of what the botanist may have sometimes to
- ‘experience in his pursuit of Alpine plants. Some
years ago, while botanizing with a friend over the
Breadalbane mountains, we found ourselves, a little
before sunset, on the summit of Ben Lawers, so
exhausted with our day’s work that we were utterly
unable to descend the south side to the inn at the
foot, and resolved to bivouac on the hill for the
night. The sappers and miners of the Ordnance
Survey, having to reside there for several months,
had constructed square open enclosures, like sheep-
folds, in the crater-like hollow at the top, to shelter
them from the northern blasts. In one of these
roofless caravansaries we selected a spot on which
to spread our couch. Fortunately, there was fuel
conveniently at hand in the shape of bleached
fragments of tent-pins and lumps of good English

L] BIVOUAC ON TOP OF BEN LAWERS. 7]

coal, proving that our military predecessors had
supplied themselves in that ungenial spot with a
reasonable share of the comforts of Sandhurst and
Addiscombe; and my companion volunteered to
kindle a fire, while I went in search of materials
for an extemporaneous bed. As heather, which
forms the usual spring-mattress of the belated
traveller, does not occur on the summits of the
higher hills, we were obliged to do without it—
much to our regret; for a heather-bed (I speak
from experience) in the full beauty of its purple
flowers, newly gathered, and skilfully packed close
together, in its growing position, is as fragrant and
luxurious a couch as any sybarite could desire.
I sought a substitute in the woolly-fringe moss,
which I found covering the north-west shoulder
of the hill in the utmost profusion. It had this
disadvantage, however, that, though its upper
surface was very dry and soft, it was beneath,
Owing to its viviparous mode of growth, a mass of
wet decomposing peat. My object, therefore, was
so to arrange the bed that the dry upper layer
would be laid uniformly uppermost; but it was.
frustrated by the enthusiasm excited by one of the |
most magnificent sunsets I had ever witnessed. It
caused me completely to forget my errand. The
western gleams had entered into my soul, and
etherealized me above all creature wants. Never
shall I forget that sublime spectacle; it brims with
beauty even now my soul. Between me and the
west, that glowed with unutterable radiance, rose a

79 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. . {cuap.

perfect chaos of wild, dark mountains, touched here
and there into reluctant splendour by the slanting
sunbeams. The gloomy defiles were filled witha
golden haze, revealing in flashing gleams of light
the lonely lakes and streams hidden in their bosom;
while, far over to the north, a fierce cataract that
rushed down a rocky hili-side into a sequestered
glen, frozen by the distance into the gentlest of all
gentle things, reflected from its snowy waters a
perfect tumult of glory. I watched in awe-struck
silence the going down of the sun, amid all this
pomp, behind the most distant peaks—saw the
few fiery clouds that floated over the spot where
he disappeared fade into the cold dead colour of
autumn leaves, and finally vanish in the mist of
even—saw the purple mountains darkening into
the Alpine twilight, and twilight glens and streams
tremulously glimmering far below, clothed with the
strangest lights and shadows by the newly risen
summer. moon. Then, and not fill thea anes
recover from my trance of enthusiasm to begin in
earnest my preparations for the miphts ea. |
gathered a sufficient quantity of the moss to pre-
vent our ribs suffering from too close contact with
the hard ground; but, unfortunately, it was now
too dark to distinguish the wet peaty side from the
dry, so that the whole was laid down indiscrimi-
nately. Over this heap of moss we spread a plaid,
and lying down with our feet to the blazing fire,
Indian fashion, we covered ourselves with another
plaid, and began earnestly to court the approaches

ee ———

ine COLD AND SLEEPLESSNESS. 10

of the balmy god. Alas! all our elaborate pre-
parations proved futile ; sleep would not be wooed.
The heavy dews began to descend, and soon pene-
trated our upper covering, while the moisture of
the peaty moss, squeezed out by the pressure of
our bodies, exuded from below; so that between
the two we might as well have been in “the pack”
at Ben Rhydding. To add to our discomfort, the
fire smouldered and soon went out with an angry
hiss, incapable of contending with the universal
moisture. It was a night in the middle of July,
but there were refrigerators in the form of two
huge masses of hardened snow on either side of us;
so the temperature of our bedchamber, when our
warming-pan grew cold, may be easily conceived.
For a long while we tried to amuse ourselves with

the romance and novelty of our position, sleeping,

aS we were, in the highest attic of her Majesty’s

dominions, on the very top of the dome of Scotland.
We gazed at the large liquid stars, which seemed
unusually near and bright; not glimmering on the
roof of the sky, but suspended far down in the blue
concave, like silver lamps. There were the grand
old constellations, Cassiopeia, Auriga, Cepheus,
each evoking a world of thought, and “ painting, as
it were, in everlasting colours on the heavens the
religion and intellectual life of Greece.” Our astro-
nomical musings and the monotonous murmurings
of the mountain streams at last lulled our senses
into a kind of doze, for sleep it could not be called.
How long we lay in this unconscious state we

74. HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. ~ {cuap.

knew not, but we were suddenly startled out of it
by the loud whirr and clucking cry of a ptarmigan
close at hand, aroused perhaps by,a nightmare
caused by its last meal of crude whortleberries.
All further thoughts of sleep were now out of the
question; so, painfully raising curselves from our
recumbent posture, with a cold grueing shiver,
rheumatism racking in every joint, we set about
rekindling the fire, and preparing our breakfast.
In attempting to converse, we found, to our dismay,
that our voices were gone. We managed, however,
by the help of signs, and a few hoarse croaks, to
do all the talking required in our culinary con-
jurings; and, after thawing ourselves at the fire,
and imbibing a quantity of hot coffee, boiled, it
may be remarked, in a tin vasculum, we felt our-
selves in a condition to descend the hill. A dense
fog blotted out the whole of creation from our view,
except the narrow spot on which we stood; and,
just as we were about to set out, we were astonished
to hear, far off through the mist, human voices
shouting. While we were trying to account for
this startling mystery in such an unlikely spot and
hour, we were still more bewildered by suddenly
' seeing, on the brink of the steep rocks above us, a
vague, dark shape, magnified by the fog into por-
tentous dimensions. Here, at last, we thought, is
the far-famed spectre of the Brocken, come on a
visit to the Scottish mountains. Another, and yet
another appeared, with, if possible, more savage
mien and gigantic proportions, We knew not what

1] SPECTRES OF THE BROCKEN. 75

to make of it. Fortunately, our courage was saved
at the critical moment by the phantoms vanishing
round the rocks to appear before us in a few
minutes real botanical flesh and blood, clothed, as
usual, with an utter disregard of the zsthetics of
dress. .The enthusiasm of our new friends for
Alpine plants had caused them to anticipate the
sun, for it was yet only three o'clock in the
morning.

CHAPTER i
THE INTERMEDIATE OR HEATHER REGION.

THE botanist regards the rapid progress of agricul-
ture in these days with feelings somewhat akin to
those which once convulsed the placid bosoms of
the Lake poets at the prospect of that “insane
substruction,” a railway amid the beautiful solitudes
of Windermere. He sees, with a sinking of the
heart, which no hope of increased gain to the
neighbouring gastric region can allay, the wave
of cultivation stealthily creeping up the hill-side
higher and higher with each yearly tide. The
beautiful green knolls around which superstitious
eyes used to see the fairies dancing in the mid-
summer moonlight have been levelled and taken
in as part of the surrounding cornfield. The grey
Druidical stones which our ancestors reverently
spared, and around which the most grasping farmer
used to leave a broad margin of natural sward,
have been blasted to macadamize a road or build
a dyke, in defiance of the curse pronounced against
those who should desecrate these old bones of an
extinct faith; and the ground on which they stood
has been planted with potatoes or turnips. From

bor |
=

CHAP. 11.] VASTNESS OF WASTE LANDS.

this universal utilization of the soil the poet and
painter have suffered, but not to the same extent
as the botanist ; for, besides the loss of the beautiful
and the picturesque, he has to deplore the gradual
‘diminution of the number of his favourite wild
flowers in this country. Meres and lochs in which
local aquatic plants luxuriated have been drained,
woods have been cut down, and railways and high-
roads carried through nooks that sheltered the last
survivors of an ancient flora. For the extermina-
tion of these interesting rarities no quantity of
weeds introduced among seed from other countries
can compensate. |

With these conservative instincts I deeply sym-
pathise ; but I rejoice that, while some injury has
been done in certain places to special studies, far
more land has been left untouched than has been
“improved.” As ocular demonstration is more
convincing than any amount of logical argument,
let me ask the botanist who is groaning amid the
wheat and turnip fields of the midland counties to
accompany me to the top of a hill, say in the high-
lands of Perthshire. From this superior standing-
point let him look around, and he will be at once
convinced of the utter groundlessness of his bota-
nical fears. How vast the dominion of Nature!
how insignificant the portion that has been re-
claimed! For all the evidence of man’s occupancy
that appears within the boundless horizon, he
might imagine himself the solitary tenant of an
alien world, monarch*of all he surveys. A few

78 ° HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. {cnap.

spots of pale green hardly seen among the heather;
a narrow strip of cultivated valley obscured by
the shadow of overhanging mountains; the silver
thread of a stream running through a thin fringe of
verdure ; and, all around, the brown interminable
wastes lengthening as he gazes, until their wild
billows subside on the blue shore of the distant
horizon!. This is what he sees, and a more hum-
bling spectacle I cannot imagine. The powerless-
ness of man’s efforts amid the stern forces of Nature
could not be more strikingly exhibited. The most
rabid opponent of utilitarianism will own that a
few scratches, more or less, of the plough, however
important to man, are of very little consequence
amid these immeasurable deserts.

Nature takes ample care of her own rights. In
the rigour of her climate and the ruggedness of her
soil she imposes barriers upon the onward march
of improvement which cannot be overleaped. It
will not pay to cultivate the largest portion of our
country. The most powerful artificial manures,
and the most skilful “high farming,” will not suf-
fice to extract a remunerative produce from our
more elevated hills and moorlands. Whatever the
pressure of population may be, we must leave
these solitudes to their primitive wildness, and give
them over in fee-simple to the grouse and Alpine
hare. They are the last strongholds into which
beleaguered Nature, everywhere else subdued, has
withdrawn behind her glacis and battlements of

mountain ridges in grim defiance of the advancing

a USES OF THE MOORLANDS. 79

conqueror. Nor is it difficult to find reasons for
putting up this trespass-notice and restricting man’s
occupancy of the earth. The lofty mountain ranges
have been piled up, and the rugged desolation of
the moorlands spread out, because the soul requires
some great outlets of this kind to escape from the
_ petty cares and conventionalities of civilized life,
and to expand in sublime imaginings towards the
infinity of God. While to those who do not feel
this craving for something higher and purer than
they find in the every-day pursuits of life, and
who, like good Bishop Burnet, consider hills and
moors unsightly excrescences and deformities upon
the face of nature—evidences of the ruinous effects
of the Fall—it may be sufficient to say, in
justification of this reckless waste of land, that
there is a physical as well as an esthetic necessity
for it. There is vicarious sacrifice in the arrange-
ments of inanimate nature, as well as in the laws
oe human life. There is a beautiful balance by
which barrenness is set over against fertility, and
life against death. Some spots must be bleak and
desolate in order that other spots may be clothed
with verdure and beauty. These hills and moors
are intended to be not only ornamental, but useful;
not only picture-galleries for the poet and painter,
but also storehouses of fertility and wealth for the
farmer and merchant. Their towering crests and
spongy heaths arrest the vapours which float in
the higher regions of the atmosphere, collect and
filter them in reservoirs in their bosoms, and send

80 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. tcnap.|

them down in copious streams to water the low
grounds, and spread over the barren plains the
rich alluvium which they bear away in solution
from their sides; while the fresh cool breezes, that
play around the summits, sweep down with health-
ful influences into the hot and stagnant air of the
confined valleys. In many ways they perform a
most important part in the economy of nature,
and by their means is preserved the fertility of
extensive regions which would otherwise become
hopelessly sterile.

To those who are accustomed to the rich beauty
of lowland scenery the treeless, desolate aspect of
the moorlands may appear harsh and uninviting.
They miss there the objects which they are accus-
tomed to see, and around which have gathered the
associations of years. There is apparently nothing
within the) circle of vision to. arrest the veye ar
interest the mind. All seems one dead dull mono-
tony, an interminable dark level, an eye-wearying
waste, marked only but not relieved by grey rocks
and shallow bogs reflecting an ashen sky. This
first unfavourable impression, however, is sure to
be dispelled by a more intimate acquaintance.
Apart from the charm of contrast which most
persons find in circumstances differing widely from
those in which their life is usually spent, and the
interest which contemplative minds find in all
bare, solitary places, there are countless objects of
attraction and beauties of hue and form which fill
up the seeming void, and make these apparently

1] CHANGES OF THE SEASONS. 81

blank pages of nature most suggestive even to the,
dullest intellect. The seasons, marching with their
slow solemn steps over the moorlands, may leave
behind them none of those striking changes which
mark their progress in the haunts of man. The
elements of the scenery are too simple to be very
susceptible to the vicissitudes of the year. But, still,
there are some tokens of their presence ; and these
are all the more interesting that they do not reveal
themselves at once to a cold casual gaze, but re-
quire reverently to be sought out. Nowhere is the
grass so vividly green in early spring-time as along

the banks of the moorland stream, or on the shady

hill-side, on which the cloud reposes its snowy
cheek all day long and weeps away its soul in silent
tears. How gorgeous is that miracle of blossoming
when Summer with her blazing torch has kindled
the dull brown heather, and every twig and spray
burst into blushing beauty, and spread wave after
wave of rosy bloom over the moors, until the very
heavens themselves catch the reflection, and bend
enamoured over it with double loveliness! How
rich, under the mild blue skies of Autumn, are the
russet hues of the withered ferns and mosses that
cluster on the braes or creep over the marshes,
imparting a mimic sunshine to the scene in the
dullest day! How exquisitely pure is the un-
trodden snow in the hollows which the winds heap
into gracefully swelling wreaths and mark with
endless curves of beauty! Wander over one of
the Perthshire moors from break of morn to close
G

82 (HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS CHA,

of day, and you will no longer stigmatize it as a
monotonous uninteresting waste. From sunrise to
sunset the appearance of the landscape is never
precisely the same for two successive hours. Like
a human face, changing its expression with every
thought and feeling, it alters its mood as cloud or
sunshine passes over it. Now it is bathed in light,
under which every cliff and heather-bush shine out
with the utmost distinctness; anon it lies cold and
desolate, unutterably forlorn and forsaken when the
sky is overcast. At one time it is invested with a
transparent atmosphere. in which the commonest
and meanest objects are idealized as in a picture;
at another, great masses of sharply-defined shadows
from the stooping clouds lie like pine-forests on the
bright hill-sides; or a flood of molten gold, welling
over the brim of a thunder-cloud, streams down
and irradiates with concentrated glory a single
spot, which gleams out from the surrounding gloom
like a lovely isle in a stormy ocean. And the sun-
rises and sunsets—those grand rehearsals of the
conflagration of the last day—who can describe
them in an amphitheatre so magnificent, a region
so peculiarly their own! How inexpressibly sweet
is the lingering tremulousness of the gloaming,
that quiet ethereal Sabbath-like pause of nature in
which the smallest and most distant sounds are
heard, not loud and harsh, but with a fairy dis- —
tinctness exquisitely harmonized with the holiness
of the hour! There are no such twilights in
England; they belong only to northern latitudes,

I1.] So BEAU TIPU SCENES. ~~ 83

where the light, if it be colder and feebler, com-
pensates by its longer stay, and its heavenly purity
and beauty at the close. And how full of weird,
wild mystery is the scene as the evening grows
darker; how vast and vague and awful in the
uncertain light are the forms of the hills; how
ghostly are the shadows! There Night is a

_ visible form, and her solitude is like the presence

of a god. ;

Nor is the moorland altogether dependent for its
beauty upon atmospheric effects. It hides within
its jealous embrace many a lovely spot on which
one comes unexpectedly with all the interest of dis-

covery. There are little dells where a streamlet

has lured up from the valley, by the magic of its
charms, a cluster of rowan-trees, whose red berries

- dance like fire in the broken foam of the waterfalls,

or a group of tiny, white-armed birches that always
seem to be combing their fragrant tresses in the
clear mirror of its linns. There are moorland
tarns, sullen and motionless as lakes of the dead,
lying deep in sunless rifts, where the very ravens
build no nests, and where no ‘trace of .life or
vegetation is seen—associated with many a wild
tradition, accidents of straying feet, the suicide
of love, guilt, despair. And there are lochs beau-
tiful in themselves, and gathering around them a
world of beauty; their shores fringed with the
tasselled larch, their shallows tesselated with the

_ broad green leaves and alabaster chalices of the

water-lily ; and their placid depths mirroring the
Giz

84 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. . [cHap.

crimson gleam of the heather hills and the golden
clouds overhead.

I have often been struck, when wandering over
the moors, with the wonderful harmonies of the
various objects. The birds and beasts that inhabit
the scene are clothed with fur or plumage of a
brown russet hue, to harmonize them with the colour
of the heathy wastes, and thus to facilitate their
escape from their enemies. Nor is this harmony —
confined to the form and hue of the living creatures ©
—it is also strikingly displayed in their peculiar
cries. All the voices of the moorlandwarc in.
describably plaintive—suggestive of melancholy
musings and memories. No one can hear them,
even on the sunniest day, without a nameless thrill
of sadness; and, when multiplied by the echoes
through the mist or the storm, they seem like
cries of distress or wailings of woe from another
world. In them the very spirit of the solitude seems
to find expression. Noneof our familiar songbirds
ever wander to the’ moorland. Tt tempenanted
by a different tribe, and the line of demarcanon
between them is sharply defined. In the valley
and the plain the thrush and the chaffinch fill the
air with their music; but, as you climb the moun-
tain-barrier of the horizon, you are greeted on
the frontier by the wild cries of the plovers which
hover around you in ceaseless gyrations, following
your steps far beyond their marshy domains.
These are the outposts—the sentinels of the wild
—and jealously do they perform their office. No

II. | «CLI PLOVER: 85

stranger appears in sight, or sets a foot within
their territories, without eliciting the warning cry.
Well might the Covenanters curse them, for many
‘a grey head, laid low in blood by the persecuting
dragoons, would have escaped, securely hidden
among the green rushes and peat-bogs, but for
their importunate revelation of the secret. Beyond
the haunts of this bird stretches a wide illimitable
circle of silence, in which only a shrill solitary cry
now and then is heard, rippling the stillness like a
stone cast into the bosom of a stream, and leaving
it, when the wave of sound has subsided, deeper
than before. And how absolute is that silence!
It seems to breathe—to become tangible. The
solitude is like that of mid-ocean—not a human
being in sight, not a trace or a recollection of man
visible in all the horizon; from break of day to
eventide no sound in the air but the sigh of the
breeze round the lonely heights, the muffled mur-
mur of some stream flashing through the heather,
or the long, lazy lapse of a ripple on the beach of
some nameless tarn.

Here, if anywhere, you can be iulled on the lap
of a placid antiquity. These grey northern moors
are immeasurably old. The gneissic rock that
underlies them is one of the oldest in the records
of geology—the lowest floor of the most ancient
sea, in whose water its particles were first pre-
cipitated, to be afterwards indurated by chemical
action, or mechanical pressure, into their present
compact mass, Here was, probably, the first dry

86 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [cuar..

land that appeared above the surface of the ocean. -
Long before the Alps upreared their snowy peaks
from the deep, and while an unbroken sea tossed
its billows over the spots where the Andes and
Himalayas now tower to heaven, these moors lay
stretched out beneath the disconsolate skies, as
islands reposing on a shoreless ocean, not clothed,
as at present, with brown heather and spongy
moss, but presenting an aspect of still drearier
desolation.. They were all that in- tie meacsesn
geologic epochs represented the beauty and power
of Great Britain—the first instalment of that
mighty empire which Britannia gained from the
deep. Here, where Nature is all in all and man
is nothing, you expect to find permanence. Time
seems to have sailed over these moors with folded —
wing, leaving no more trace of his flight than the
passage of the shadow over the dial-stone; and
yet, calm and stedfast as the scene may appear,
it has passed through many a stormy cataclysm, it
has witnessed many a startling transition. On rock
and mound the careful observer will find those
strange hieroglyphics in which Nature’s own hand
has chronicled the eventful history of her youth.
Here, where the sheep are quietly nibbling the
green sward, the sea once broke in foam on the
shore; there, on that elevated knoll—if the surface
were fully exposed—veins of granite thrust up by
some violent internal convulsion might be seen
reticulating the gneiss as with a gigantic network,
pores the mupaty. levers Baers ie Nature in

II.] RELICS OF ANCIENT GLACIERS. S7
piling up her Cyclopean masonry. Yonder the
rocks are smoothed and polished, or else marked
with grooves and scratches, telling of glaciers that
passed over them, and suggesting to the imagina-
tion the picture of that strange era in the past
history of our country, when from Snowdon and
the Yorkshire moors to Ronaldsay and Cape Wrath
eternal winter reigned with sternest rigour, and the
“Arctic bear hunted the narwhal amid the icebergs
and icefloes that drifted past the coasts of Sussex
and Hampshire. Yonder granite boulders that
strew the hill-side, differing in mineral character
from the prevailing formation of the region, and
which, according to the Ossian mythology, fell from
the leaky creel of a giant Finn striding over the
heights one day to take vengeance with this rude
but effective ammunition against an offending
neighbour, the geologist tells us were transported
to this place from a granitic district twenty miles
distant on the back of a slow-moving glacier. And
the elevated conical mounds, or moraines, which
you meet with here and there,.are accumulations
of mud and gravel, marking in enduring characters
the terminations of those vanished ice-streams.
Turning from the distant silent ages of the geo-
logist to the early lisping ages of our own race, we
find numerous traces of these also chronicled on
the moors. The labour of the peasant often dis-
closes, deeply embedded in the moss, large trunks
of birch, alder, and fir, masses of foliage, cones and
nuts in a perfect state of preservation, the fossils of ~

J

88 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [cuap.
the peat-bog. These, like the kindred relics of
the coal-fields, tell us a tale of luxuriant forests
clothing, like dark thunder-clouds, desolate tracts ©
awhere ‘not a single tree is now to “(beeen ane
scarcely a juniper-bush can grow. Through the
underwood of these primzval forests the wild
boar roamed, and the shaggy bison bellowed,
and the long dismal howl of the wolf made the
silence of midnight hideous, ages before the fan-
fare of the Roman trumpets startled the echoes
of the hills. Nor are the traces of man’s own
presence in those remote times absent from the
scene. The sides of some of the hills, which
time out of mind have been abandoned irre-
trievably to the dusky heather, bear evident marks
of tillage; but the comparative fertility of these
stony spots only proves the wretched state of the
agriculture of the Aborigines. Here and there
you stumble upon a grey moss-grown obelisk, a
cairn, or a cromlech—dim and undated relics, lying,
like the fragments of an old world, on the twilight
shores of the sea of time. Beside or under these
we find the hatchet of stone, the arrow-head of
flint, or the quern, over which no history or tra-
dition sheds light. Who owned these rude imple-
ments? We cannot tell. Every recollection of the
people who used them is swept away. Under the
cromlech or the cairn they lay down and took their
long, last sleep, without a thought of posterity, or a
care as to the conclusions future ages might arrive
at regarding the scanty memorials they left behind.

Bit] COMMON HEATHER. 89

The vegetation of the moorlands is exceedingly
varied and interesting. Its character is interme-
diate between the Arctic and Germanic type,
reminding one, in the prevalence of evergreen,
thick, glossy-leaved plants, of the flora of Italy,
which seems, from the evidence of ancient records,
to have undergone a remarkable change in modern
times, and now approximates in its general physi-
ognomy to the flora of dry mountain regions. The
plant which above all others is characteristic of the

-moor is, of course, the common heather or ling.

It is one of the most social of all plants, covering
immense tracts with a uniform dusky robe, and
claiming, like an absolute autocrat, exclusive pos-
session of the soil. And yet, though capable of
srowing in the bleakest spots, and enduring the
utmost extremes of temperature, its distribution
in altitude and latitude is singularly limited. It
ascends only to a certain height on the mountains
on which it grows; for, although it covers the
summits of most of the hills in England, many of
the loftiest Highland hills rise high above it, green

with grass, or grey with moss and lichens. Its

upper line runs from two to three thousand feet in
the counties of Perth, Aberdeen, and Inverness,
varying according as it grows on an elevated moun-
tain range or on isolated peaks. On the west coast
of Scotland it is very often found on a level with
the sea-shore, almost mingling with the dulse and
the bladder-wrack. In Norway, strange to say,
although the general surface of the country is

90 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [cuav.

composed of high and barren plateaux, it is so
scarce and local that one may travel hundreds of
miles without finding a single specimen. It is
replaced in such localities by the bearberry and
crowberry, which form immense continuous patches,
and look at a distance, especially when withered,
in spring or autumn, somewhat like heather.
Although abundant on the European side of the’
Ural mountains, it disappears very suddenly and
decidedly on the eastern declivity of the range;
and it is entirely absent from the whole of Northern
Asia to the shores of the Pacific. Its northern
limits seem to be in Iceland, and its southern in the
Azores. In Europe it covers large tracts of ground
in France, Germany, and Denmark, particularly in
the landes of Bordeaux and the moors of Bretagne,
Anjou, and Maine; while in Great Britain it exists
in every county, with the exception of Berks,
Bucks, Northampton, Radnor, Montgomery, Fiint,
Lincoln, Ayr, Haddington, Linlithgow. The range
of the heath tribe is eminently Atlantic, or
Western. It is found along a line drawn from
the north of Norway along the west coast of
Europe and Africa, down to the Cape of Good
Hope, in the vicinity of which the family culmi-
minates in point of luxuriance of growth, beauty of
flowers and foliage, and variety of species, some.
even attaining the arborescent form. Along this
line, which is comparatively narrow, seldom run-
ning far from the coast, about four hundred distinct
kinds, excluding varieties, are scattered, of which

re ERICAS. : 91

England and Scotland possess only four, and
Ireland no less than six.

On the barren moors of Cornwall a very interest-
ing kind of heather, called the Cornish heath
(Erica vagans), grows abundantly, distinguished by
its crowded bell-shaped flowers. On the north
coast of the same county another species occurs,
called Erica ciliaris, with very large and gaily-
coloured flowers, and leaves elegantly fringed with
hairs. It is frequent near Truro and Penrhyn, and
in one or two places in Dorset. These two Cornish
heaths are also found in Ireland; the one ona
little island off the coast of Waterford, and the
other near Clifton in Galway. In the Emerald
Isle, Mackay’s heather, which has large glabrous
foliage, with an unusual proportion of white under-
surface, grows in one or two spots in Connemara.
It was discovered the same year on the Sierra del
Peral, in Spain. In mountain-bogs in the west of
Mayo and Galway the Mediterranean heather is
sparingly distributed, sometimes attaining a height
of five feet, with numerous upright rigid branches,
and flowers in leafy racemes. The Scottish Men-
ziesia (J7. cerulea), the most abundant kind of heath
in Norway, is, as I have already said, almost extinct
on Dalnaspidal moor in Perthshire, its only locality
in this country. Every visitor in Ireland must be
familiar with St. Dabeoc’s heath (Menziesia polli-
folia), which the guides and peasants frequently sell
to tourists at exorbitant rates, as a memorial plant.
This lovely heather occurs in great profusion on

92 | HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [cuar.

the low granitic hills to the westward of Galway, all
the way from the lower end of Lough Corrib. It
grows on the heathy moors by the roadsides, and
though it is found a considerable way up the
mountains, it is there much less abundant, smaller
in size, and rarely flowers. The common Bell
heather of our Highland moorlands (Z77ca cinerea)
produces the finest effect of all our native heaths,
growing as it does in great masses in bare places,
especially where the burning of the common ling
has enriched the soil with its ashes, and removed a
formidable competitor in the struggle of existence.
It frequently purples a whole hill-side ; and nothing
finer, as regards effect of colour, can be seen even
in the tropics. Mr. Wallace, in his recent work on
“The: Malay Archipelago,’ says: “The result of
my examinations has convinced me that the bright
colours of flowers have a much greater influence
on the general aspect of nature in temperate than
in tropical climates. During twelve years spent
amid the grandest tropical vegetation, I have seen
nothing comparable to the effect produced on our
landscapes by gorse, broom, heather, wild hyacinths,
hawthorn, purple orchises, and buttercups.” The
cross-leaved heath (Erica tetralix) is much less
abundant, growing in boggy places among the
yellow spikes of the asphodel and the snowy plumes
of the cotton-grass. It is more like a hot-house
heath, with its rich clustered head of pale rosy
blossoms. But growing sparingly, and its colour
being more delicate, its effect in the mass, and ata

i x

mJ AMERICAN PLANTS. oe

distance, is not equal to its individual beauty close
at hand. These two heaths are badges of High-
land clans. 3
That Australia and America have no true heaths
is a botanical aphorism. In Australia the tribe is
replaced by the “pacridg, which are often as
beautiful as any of the Cape heaths. In North
America the Scottish Menziesia is more abundant
than it is in Scotland, or even in Norway. That
continent possesses many plants that are closely
allied to the heath tribe. Hudsonza ertcotdes, which
covers the white sandy wastes in many parts of
New Jersey, is so like the common heath that it is
not unfrequently mistaken for it when out of flower.
And in the immense forests which clothe every
hill and dale of the Laurel, Greenboy, and Alleghany
range, rhododendrons, kalmias, azaleas, andro-
medas, and other plants of the heath alliance, form
the chief underwood, and are remarkable for their
size and age. It is recorded of the first Highland
emigrants to Canada, that they wept because the.
heather, a few plants of which they had brought
with them from their native moors, would not grow
in their newly-adopted soil. It is understood, how-
ever, that an English surveyor, nearly thirty years
ago, found the common ling in the interior of New-
foundland ; while in one spot in Massachusetts it
occurs very sparingly over about half an acre of
boggy ground, in the strange company of andro-
medas, kalmias, and azaleas peculiar to the country.
_ It was first observed ten years ago, by a Scottish

94 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [cuap.

farmer residing in the vicinity, who was no less sur-
prised by its unexpected appearance than delighted
to set his foot once more on his native heath.
None of the plants seemed to be older than six
years, and may, therefore, have been introduced by
some one who found relief from home sickness in
forming this simple floral link between the new and
the old country. | |
There are many beautiful little shrubs growing
on the moorland along with the heather which are
found nowhere else. The crowberry spreads over
rocky places in large tufted masses, producing early
in summer a liberal supply of black juicy berries,
which form the principal food of the grouse and
other moorland birds. The dry barren knolls,
where the wind blows keenest and the scent of
water is never felt, are profusely covered with the
trailing stems and glossy leaves of the bearberry.
The flower is even more beautiful than that of
either the cross or fine-leaved heather—a little
waxen bell, with the faintest blush on its snowy
cheeks; and the fruit is no less lovely, clusters of
mealy beads of the richest crimson gleaming out
in beautiful contrast from the dark green leaves.
A. species called the black bearberry is found: on
dry barren grounds on many of the Highland moun-
tains. The flowers are of a pale rose colour, and
the berries of a rich lustrous black. On Ben Nevis,
near the lake, on Hoy Hill, Orkney, and especially
on the mountains of Sutherland and Caithness, this
rare species occurs, and forms an attractive feature

I1.] - ARBUTUS AND ANDROMEDA. ae Os

in the Alpine landscape towards the end of autumn,
when its leaves assume a brilliant flame colour.
The famous strawberry-tree, or Arbutus, so con-
spicuous in the beautiful scenery of Killarney,
and supposed by some to have been introduced
from Spain by the monks of Mucross Abbey,
is an arborescent form, an aristocratic relative of
this lowly Highland family. On the moist hill-
sides the mountain rasp or cloudberry, the badge
of the clan Macfarlane, grows in great abundance ;
and its rich orange fruit, under the name of ezracaz
or zoops, furnishes a grateful refreshment to the
shepherd on a hot autumn day. One of the
most beautiful plants of the moorland is the
Marsh Andromeda. It is found but sparingly in
a few places in the North of England and in the
Lowlands of Scotland, and in Queen’s County and
Kerry, Ireland ; but where it is found, it is a prize.
worth going for to get. It is a small evergreen
shrub, with oval ruby-coloured flowers concealed
among the terminal leaves. In Norway it is very
abundant on the moors in company with the Men-
ziesia. I gathered it in great profusion by the
roadsides when passing through Romsdal, between
Nystven and Ormen; its rose-coloured flowers
fringing the ditches and peeping out from among
the boulders. The beauty of its flowers when
contrasted with the dreariness of its habitats, sup-
_ posed to be haunted by supernatural beings, led to

its receiving the classical name of the beautiful
_ virgin who was chained to the rock and exposed to

. j Tia >

96 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [cuap.

the attack of the sea-monster. Another beautiful
plant common on the Highland moorlands is the
Pyrola or winter-green, which loves to grow in
upland pine-woods, or under the lee of some dense
heather bush, perfuming the air when it occurs
in any quantity with its delicate scent, strongly
suggestive of the lily of the valley. In similar
‘situations the bilberry also luxuriates. Abundant
everywhere on the exposed sides of the hills, it
flowers and fruits only in the shelter of the woods
or on the shady banks of subalpine streams. Its
berries are exceedingly agreeable to the taste, and
are largely used in the form of preserves in the
Highlands. Blaeberry hunting in July is a favourite
pastime among the children; and for days after-
wards the persistent stains of the spoil crimson
cheeks, lips, and dress. The bog whortleberry |
is more sparingly distributed, though it is frequent
enough on most of the Highland mountains, ascend-
ing almost to their summits. The corolla is of
a pale rosy colour, and the berry black and juicy,
but inferior in flavour to the bilberry. The cow-
berry (Vaccinium Vitis Idea) ornaments some parts
of the Highland mountains, woods, and heaths
with its straggling shrubby growth and box-like
leaves. It seldom flowers or fruits in this country ;
but in Norway it bursts into blossom everywhere,
and is loaded with pale flesh-coloured flowers,
lighting up the dark pine-woods with its beauty.
Next to the bilberry, the cranberry is the most
interesting and useful of the Vacciniums, It loves

11] ¥UNIPER AND SWEET GALE. 97

moist situations, and therefore occurs in peat-bogs,
with its root immersed in the great spongy cushions
of the bog-moss, and its evergreen wiry leaves
trailing over them. The flowers are of a lovely
rose colour, with a deeply divided corolla and
segments bent back in a very singular manner.
In this country it is very local and scarce; but
in Norway it grows in great profusion on almost
every hill; and nothing can equal the luxurious-
ness of its growth and fruiting in the marshes and
steppes in the north of Russia, from which the vast
quantities used by our confectioners for tarts
are annually imported. The juniper forms minia-
ture pine-groves in sheltered places, and yields
its berries liberally to give a piquant gin flavour
to the old wife’s surreptitious bottle of whisky;
while the sweet gale or Dutch myrtle perfumes
with its strong resinous fragrance the foot that
brushes through its beds in the marshes, and
gives a similar spice of the hills to the Sunday
clothes of the Highland belle, as they are carefully
folded with a sprig between each in the “muckle
_kist.” Beneath the shelter of these tiny fruit-trees
of the heath there is a dense underwood of minute |
existences, curious antique forms of vegetable life,
performing silently, and all unknown and un-
noticed, their allotted tasks in the great. household
of Nature. The little cup-lichen reddens by thou-
sands every dry hillock ; the reindeer-moss whitens
the marshes with its coral-like tufts; the long
wreaths of the club-moss creep in and out among
. H

98 HOLIDAVS ON HIGH LANDS. [cuap.
the -heather roots, like lithe green serpents, sewed

to the ground by delicate threads, yet sending up
| here and there from their hiding-places white
two-pronged spikes to catch the sunbeams; the
sphagnum-moss lines the bogs with its great pads
of brilliant crimson or green; and the white
fork-moss covers the wet tussocks with its pale
cushions, into which the foot sinks up to the ankle ;
and thus you wander on, observing and gathering
each new and strange production, until you are
lost in admiration of the wealth of beauty and
interest scattered in the waste without any human
eye to behold it.

Nor is the moorland altogether dese use: of
human interest. Far up in some lonely corrie
may be seen the ruins of rude sheilings surrounded
by soft patches of verdure, on which the heather
has. not intruded for centuries. To these High-
land chalets the wives and daughters of the crofters
used to come up from the valley every summer
with their cattle and dairy utensils, and spend
three or four months in making cheese and butter
for the market, or for home consumption during
the winter, as is the custom still in some secluded
districts of Norway and the Swiss Alps. The
Gaelic songs are full of beautiful allusions to the
incidents of this primitive pastoral life; and many
fresh and interesting materials for poetry or fiction
might be gleaned from this source by those who
have exhausted every other field. Farther down ©
the hill, though still among the moorlands, there

a

11.] HIGHLAND RUINS. oo

are other ruins of cottages and farmsteads, the
effects of those extensive “clearings” which took
place forty or fifty years ago in the great Highland
properties. Scores of such “larichken,” as they are
called, with the rank nettle growing round the
hearthstone, and surrounded by traces of cultiva-
tion, may be seen in places where sheep and deer
now feed undisturbed by the presence of man.
The wisdom and justice of depopulating these
upland valleys have been often questioned. It was,
at the least, a terrible remedy for a terrible disease ;
and we ought, perhaps, as a nation, to be thankful
that upon the whole it has been productive of un-
looked-for beneficial results. The situation of these
ruins is often exceedingly picturesque; perched
under the lee of a grey crag, with a little streamlet
murmuring past through the greensward, like the
voice of memory informing the solitude, and a
single fir-tree bending its gnarled branches over
the roofless walls, its scaly trunk gleaming red
against the sunset, enhancing, instead of relieving,
the desolation of the scene. I have spent many
happy days in these simple homes, the abodes of
honest worth and rough but genuine hospitality,
on which I look back through the haze of years
with a pleasing regret. Well do I remember your
humble hut, Donald Macrae, afar amid the wild
moors of Bohespick, with its thatched roof and un-
mortared walls, green and golden with Nature’s
Javish adorning of moss and lichen. Your little
patch of garden was overgrown with weeds which
Ti 2

100 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. {[cuap.

congregated there from all quarters, as if glad of a
shelter from the inhospitable wild, and so rudely
‘fenced in from the heather that the rabbits found
easy admission to your peas, and the red deer
often came down hunger-driven from the snow-clad
heights, and devoured in a few seconds your scanty
stock of winter kail; but in no garden of lord or
commoner were the red hairy gooseberries so
sweet, and Mount Hybla itself could not boast of
more luscious honey than the liquid amber gathered
from the heather-bells by the three beehives in the
sunny corner. I can testify to the noisy welcome
of your collies when I used to appear in sight, and
to the shyness of your four chubby pledges of
affection, as they cautiously peered out at me
from behind the safe shelter of the maternal wing,
mute and irresponsive to the kindest familiarities,
and to the most tempting offers of “sweeties.”
The vision of your hospitable board rises up
before my mental eye, loaded with a pile of crisp
oat-cakes ;_ a jug of foaming cream, with that rich
nutty flavour peculiar to the produce of cows fed
on old pastures uncontaminated by villanous arti-
ficial manures ; cameos of golden butter, with the
national symbol in beautiful relief; a great hard
cheese of ewe’s-milk; and last, not least, a bottle
of native mountain-dew undesecrated by water or _
gauger’s grace. I see dimly, through the peat-reek
of your ingle, your own manly face and buirdly
figure clad in tartan coat and kilt spun by your
aged mother from the fleece of your own sheep,

II.] A SHEPHERD'S SHETLING. 101

with a collie at your feet, and your youngest
hope dandling on your knee, and your comely
wife, with mealy cheeks and arms bare to the
shoulders, baking the household cakes, as perfect
a picture of a Dutch Venus as ever emanated from
the pencil of Rubens or Houdekoetter! May the
blessing of Him that dwelt in the bush rest upon
you and yours in that distant Australian valley,
which, true to the instinct of home, you have
pathetically named after your native spot!

It is well that there are still many homes of this
kind, inhabited by an equally hospitable race, to be
found by the stranger when weary and belated in
his wanderings amid the Highland moorlands. I
know nothing more enjoyable than a week’s sojourn
in one of these places. The infatuation which
drives so many people every season to dissipate
their time amid the frivolities of some pert fashion-
able village or watering-place, on pretence of going
to the country, is utterly incomprehensible to me.
I would advise every sensible person who wishes
a fresh supply of good temper as well as of good
health, to avoid carefully, as he would the plague,
every one of those spas and villages “within easy
reach by coach or railway,” and boldly take up
his abode in some lonely farmhouse or shepherd’s
sheiling on the Highland moors. Here, with an
utter change of scene, you breathe an air pure
and fresh from Nature’s own goblet. Ozone, that
purifying principle in the atmosphere which is
antagonistic to all fevers and miasma, increases

102 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [cuap.

with the height; and here it abounds, filling all the
atmosphere with its healthful influences. There
is a tonic in every draught of it for every species:
of dyspepsia, for every form of enervation and
lassitude that results from a pampered stomach
or an overwrought brain. There is balm in every
breeze, expanding the spirit and lifting it buoyantly
up from under the burden of care and anxiety,
until it embraces like a rainbow all nature within
its radiant arch, and old cares and sorrows become
dim as dreams. You feel as if, besides all the gases
needful for respiration, there were present “some
ethereal nectarine element baffling the analysis
of the chemist,” yet revealing its presence in the
thrill of conscious exuberant life which it excites
in your frame. Here, not far from the centres of
civilization, within reach, and yet remote, you may
realize the benighted state of our ancestors ; feel
what it is to exist without letters, newspapers,
visitors, calls of ceremony, or any of the thousand
and one appliances of modern life, and yet at any
time be able to survey from some elevated point a
region within whose magic ring all these things are
‘enjoyed. Here is the highest soul of monastic
retirement—all its romance, with none of its re-
straint. You stand apart from the world in an eddy
of life, a quiet sheltered bay cut off from the ocean,
whose rough stormy waves rave and foam without,
with no society save that of the taciturn farmer
and his family, the black-faced sheep and the dumb
mountains. You will have to put up with some

iW.) ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES. 1083

inconveniences, no doubt. You may feel, when
forcing your body into the wall-press which stands
for your bed in the Jden-room, as if you were re-
hearsing, like Charles V.i—with the disadvantage of
being alive, and no mourners—the ceremony of
your own coffining. The friction of the native
sheets and blankets against your delicate skin may
remind you forcibly of the shampooing which
nearly flayed you in a Turkish bath. You will,
perhaps, have to wash yourself in the neighbour-
ing burn, in absence of all toilette apparatus.
Your diet will be largely a milk one, reducing
you to the condition of a Cretan; and your
teeth, lately under the care of Messrs. Molar
and Co., may have hard work with the granitic
cakes and fibrous mutton. But all these disad-
vantages will enhance, by way of contrast, your
enjoyment of the place. They will be incidents to
think of pleasantly afterwards amid the luxuries
of your club, or during that pleasant half-hour
of retrospection before you fall asleep amid the
downy billows of civilization’s four-poster. And,
depend upon it, there will be a great deal of in-
sensible education going on in your converse with
your own soul in the solitude of the hills, and a
stock of softening influences accumulating, which
will make the toilsome dreary days of winter
brighter, and prepare you the better for that
“bourne from whence no traveller returns.”

One of the most frequent incidents of the moor-
land, about the beginning of June, is peat-making,

104. HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [cuap.

the most picturesque of Highland outdoor occu-
pations. In those basin-shaped hollows which give —
the scenery an undulating aspect there are large
deposits of peat, formed by the decay of numberless
generations of those plants which delight in cool
climates and moist soils. The history of this
accumulation of carbonaceous matter is exceed-
ingly interesting to the geologist. It furnishes a
plausible solution of the difficulties involved in
the question of the formation of coal; it provides
data by which recent geological changes may be
determined with some degree of accuracy; and
frequently, owing to its antiseptic qualities, it
becomes an archzological cabinet, preserving the
relics of former generations. In none of these
aspects, however, are the peat-bogs of the High-
‘land moors so interesting as in their connexion
with the habits and customs of the peasantry. It
is no easy task to thread one’s way among the
bogs and marshes where the peat is found, the
danger being somewhat imminent of falling plump
over the yielding edge into some open pool of inky
water, or sinking up to the waist in some treach-
erous spot veiled over with a deceitful covering of
the greenest moss. In the outskirts of this wilder-
ness of bogs the peat-makers are hard at work.
One man, with a peculiarly shaped spade, cuts the
peats from the wall of turf before him and throws
them up to the edge of the bog, where a woman
dexterously receives and places them on a wheel-
barrow, another woman rolling away the load and

u1.] _ PEAT-MAKING. | 105

spreading it out carefully on some elevated hillock,
exposed to the sunshine, in order to dry and
harden. And thus the process goes on from sun-
rise to sunset, with an hour's rest for each meal.
Though looked forward to, especially by the
younger labourers, with much pleasure, as a
- delightful contrast to the monotony of their ordi-
nary work about the farm, and as affording peculiar
facilities for carrying on the mysteries of rustic
courtship, peat-making is most fatiguing work ;
and when, as is often the case, they have to walk
a distance of five or six miles to and from the
spot, and to carry on their labours under the
scorching glare of the sun, exposed without shelter
to torrents of rain or piercing winds, it must be
confessed that they pay dearly for the materials
which in the long cheerless winter of the North
afford them both fire and light. In remote inac-
cessible districts, where wood is scarce and coal
almost unknown on account of its enormous price,
averaging from 30s. to 4/. a ton, peat is the sole
fuel used by the inhabitants. The whole of a
peat-bog, covering in many places an area of
several acres, and occupying what was once evi-
dently the bed of a lake, is parcelled out into
several portions, which are generally annexed by
the proprieter to the holdings of the tenants on.
his estate who are nearest to the spot. These
parcels of peat-bog are usually given free of rent ;
and the whole expense connected with peats is
thus only the labour involved in their manufacture

106 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS, [CHAP.

and carriage. So rough are the roads, however, *
and so long the distances to which they have in
most cases to be carried, that peat is not so cheap
and economical a fuel as might be supposed. The
selling price is usually three shillings a cart, and
six carts are understood to last as long as a ton of
coal. Peat-making is not nearly so common in
the Highlands as it used to be. The facilities of
carriage to almost every part of the country by
sea and land are now numerous, and coal in con-.
sequence is so reduced in price, as to be more
within reach of the poorer classes; while the use
of that fuel saves time and labour which can be
more profitably employed.

Another spectacle peculiar to the moors is the
burning of the heather. This practice is not con-
fined to any particular locality, but is followed
-all over the Highlands. It commences in- spring,
when the snows have completely disappeared, and
the weather is dry and fine, and is carried on at
irregular intervals throughout the whole summer.
Its object is, by clearing the ground of the heather,
under whose shade no other vegetation can grow,
to produce pasturage for the sheep. In spots that
have been thus cleared the grass grows luxuriantly,
and forms a thick close carpet of green verdure, of
which the mountain sheep are particularly fond.
The stumps of the heather are usually left in the
ground, for the fire consumes only the foliage and
the smaller twigs; and these skeletons, closely
matted together, bleached and sharpened by the

2? ae BURNING THE HEATHER. 107

elements, frequently crossing one’s path, are very
disagreeable to walk on, unless the feet are
protected by very thick boots. The contrasts of
shape and colour formed by these clearings in the
aboriginal heather are very curious, and strikingly
diversify the monotony of the landscape—here a
uniform brown sea of heather; there long stripes
of grey colouring running in and out and crossing
in all directions, like promontories and capes; and
yonder bright green isles of verdure smiling amid
the surrounding desolation. The shepherds, unless
under the immediate surveillance of a gamekeeper,
are often reckless in setting fire to a hill-side, not
caring how far the flames may extend, allowing
them to burn for days and even weeks, until a
friendly deluge of rain extinguishes them. Valu-
able tracts of grouse moor are thus often ruined
beyond repair, and the destructive effects not
unfrequently extend to upland woods and corn-
fields, presenting, on almost an equal scale, a picture
of the famous prairie fires of America. Hares and
deer are seen careering before the flames; grouse
are whirring past blinded and scorched, and lizards
and snakes are running hither and thither in an
agony of terror ; volumes of dense smoke darken
the air, and the dull red embers light up the dark-
ness of the night and reflect a volcanic glare upon
the surrounding hills. It is one of the grandest
sights of the kind to be seen in the Highlands,
These rough, hasty sketches among the heather
would be manifestly incomplete without a notice,

108 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. | aicuar:

however brief, of grouse-shooting. Being no sports-
man, I despair of giving an adequate conception
of the sport to the uninitiated. It is only those
who have taken part in it who can understand the
importance which it has attained in the world of
fashion, and the enthusiasm with which the most
phlegmatic English millionaires and members of
Parliament enter into it. We have all, from the
highest to the lowest, a strong spice of the savage
in our nature; and a longing at times comes over
us to break loose from the restraints of civilization
and revel in the wild freedom of our barbarian
ancestors. The grouse-shooting fever may be one
of the periodical ebullitions of the original tem-
perament. But, after all, there is really very much
to enjoy connected with the sport. The very
change from the Babel of noises in the metropolis
to the deep hush of Nature’s great solitudes has a
soothing charm; while the return to simple hardy
life is a gratification which is felt all the’ more
keenly, the more that ordinary life is artificial and
refined. Then the associations of the sport—the
fresh exhilarating air of the hills, laden with the
all-pervading perfume of the heather bells; the
magnificent prospect of hill and valley stretching
around; the blue serenity of the autumnal sky;
the carpet of flowering heather glowing for miles on
every side, and so elastic to the tread; the vast-
ness and profundity of the solitude; as well as the
strange and unfamiliar sights and sounds of the
scene—all these appeal.to that poetical spiritual

11] GROUSE-SHOOTING. 109

faculty which is latent even in the most prosaic
statistician of St. Stephen’s. Add to these the
exciting nature of the sport itself—the feelings of
emulation it excites among rival sportsmen; the
vigilance and wildness of the birds, requiring the
utmost caution and skill in approaching them ;
the thrill of expectation as the well-trained dogs
suddenly stop and point with uplifted paw and
anxious look to the spot where a covey is nestled ;
the sudden startling whirr of the birds ascending
at your approach; the satisfaction of bringing
down, with well-aimed double fire, the plumpest
of them; the rustic luncheon beside the spring;
and the return, amid the splendour of the setting
sun, with well-filled bag, to be greeted half-way
from the snug shooting-lodge, with the warm
praises of rosy lips and the fond looks of loving
eyes. Nay, even the disappointments to be met
with—the long wearisome walks over bog and
heather, searching in vain for game; the false
pointing of dogs, deceived by the scent left behind
in places where game were a while before, but are
not now; and the most vexatious thing of all, the
defying insolence in the kok-kok-kok of the
male bird as he flies off unhurt from your fire at
the head of his family—all these are so many
elements of the romantic, which throw a halo of
the deepest interest around the sport, and make
the twelfth of August to be more eagerly anti-
cipated by the weary Londoner than any other
day in the calendar. Gropse-shooting has been of
incalculable benefit to the Highlands. Thousands

110 HOLIDAVS ON HIGH LANDS. [cuap.

of pounds are thus annually spent in the poorest
districts ; communication is opened up with the
most isolated spots; employment is furnished to
carriers and gillies, who might otherwise have either
to starve or emigrate ; and proprietors receive some-
thing like a second rent from parts of their estates
which were formerly valueless. The preservation
of the game is thus of the utmost importance, not
unworthy of being considered a national question.
Even apart from such: selfish considerations, it
would be a great pity if this interesting bird
should become extinct in the only quarter of the
globe where it is found. As it is, every one will
be sorry to learn that it is becoming scarcer and
wilder every year, disappearing rapidly from loca-
lities where it used to be abundant, and now
principally confined to the Perthshire and Inver-
ness-shire moors. The only ground of complaint
any one can have against the sport is, that it has
a tendency to foster that spirit of exclusiveness
which characterises many of the great landed pro-
prietors, and induces them to shut up some of the
wildest scenery in Scotland from the foot of tourist
and savant. The depopulation of many Highland
districts through this game mania might be over-
looked, owing to the many ulterior advantages that
have resulted therefrom, both to those who remain
and those who have emigrated. But there is
neither advantage nor courtesy in such a strict
and extensive application of the law of trespass.
The reason commonly alleged for it is a mere
pretence. Not one of the true lovers of nature—

a.

mu.) TRESPASSING ON THE MOORS. 111

and it is only such who would care to penetrate
out of the beaten tracks into these spots—but
would be as careful of the rights and possessions
of the proprietor as though they were his own;
and it is difficult to see how the presence at long
and rare intervals of a solitary pedestrian in such
immeasurable solitudes can have the effect of
scaring game. The very worst thing he could do
would be merely to send them scudding away
from one heather hillock to another; and in all
likelihood the human biped would be the more
scared of the two by this movement. It requires
pretty stout nerves, and somewhat unusual pre-
sence of mind, to hear with unruffled composure
the sudden and unexpected whirr of a heathcock ;
while the vision of a herd of wild deer with
lowered antlers, in autumn, is sufficient to make
the boldest turn tail. Let proprietors enjoy their
' game rights to the full, but it is unworthy of the
liberality of the age to debar the “tunlanded”
from the enjoyment of universal nature, which to
many is as much a necessity as their daily bread, »
and more than counterbalances the want of property.
Full liberty, without any hampering restraint what-
ever, to wander among the heather, and gather the
materials of their study where Nature scatters
them with so lavish a hand, should be accorded to
the artist and the man of science, whose pursuits
do not interfere with the gains or enjoyments of
others, and to whom we are indebted for some of
the most refined and elevated pleasures of life.

CHAPTER WE
A GARDEN WALL IN A HIGHLAND GLEN.

ALPHONSE KARR, in his charming little work
entitled “A Tour round my Garden,” shows how
much pleasure and instruction may be found by
careful eyes and thoughtful minds within the very
narrow limits of an ordinary garden, to compensate
the sedentary for being deprived of the enjoyments
of travel. I have often thought that, if the garden
wall, which he has strangely overlooked, were pro-
perly described, with all the objects and associa-
tions connected with it, the Frenchman’s tour
would have been made still more interesting.
Though one of the most familiar and common-
place objects upon which the eye can rest, it has
often suggested to myself many a pleasing and
profitable train of thought in dull moods of mind,
when least disposed for inquiry or reflection. To
those who cannot climb the mountain summit, or
wander over the moorland, a few words describing
the points of attraction which it possesses may not
be out of place at a time when the worker becomes
the observer, and serious pursuits are laid aside for
a while to enjoy the dolce far niente of the country.

—t.] - A GARDEN WALL. 113

Still small voices that were drowned by the bustle
of life have now a chance of being heard amid the
universal silence; and humble sights of nature—
overlooked amid engrossing scenes of human
interest—are now appreciated with all the zest of
a holiday.

Where is a structure before my eye at this
moment which is my deau idéal of a garden wall.
It stands on the brink of a little stream that clothes
every mossy stone in its bed with sparkling folds
of liquid drapery, and makes its refreshing murmur
heard all day long in the garden, animating it as if
with the voice of a friend. The space of grassy
sward outside between it and the water—green as
an emerald—is jewelled with constellations of
primroses, anemones, and globe-flowers, as fair in
their own order and season as the cultivated flowers
which make the borders within gay as the robe of
an Indian prince. Three fairy birch-trees bend
over it with their white stems glistening like marble
columns in the sunlight, and their small scented
_ leaves whispering some sinless secret to the breeze,
or, when the wind is hushed, stealing coy glances at
the wavering reflection of their beauty in the stream.
It is built of rough stones loosely laid above each
other without mortar or cement, and coped on the
top with pieces of verdant turf taken from the
neighbouring common; and would perhaps be
_ considered very unsightly in the suburbs of a city
_when contrasted with the trim elegant walls sur-
_ rounding villa gardens. In this situation, however,
I

114 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [cuap.
it is exceedingly appropriate, and harmonizes with
the character of the scenery much bettessenaam:
its stones were chiselled with nicest care, and laid
together with all the skill of the architect. The
eye of a painter would delight in its picturesque-
ness, and the accessories by which it is surrounded ;
for while offering an insuperable obstacle outside
to little eager hands, covetous of forbidden fruit,
ripe and especially unripe, it is yet sufficiently low
inside to permit an unobstructed view of the scenery
in front, allowing the eye to wander dreamily over
the landscape as it billows away in light and shade
—from the green cornfields up to the pine-woods
that hang like thunder-clouds on the lower heights
—and thence to the brown heather moorlands, and
on to the blue hills that melt away in sympathy
and peace on the distant horizon. The garden
which it surrounds—“the decorated border-land
between man’s home and Nature’s measureless
domains’”—is very pleasant. Bright with simple
old-fashioned flowers, and nestled amid verdure of
blossoming tree and evergreen shrub, it looks like
a little Eden of peace, sacred to meditation and
love, which the noises of the great world reach
only in soft and subdued echoes. Alas! the beau-
tifully embroidered robe of nature too frequently
reveals the suggestive outlines of some dead joy,
though at the same time it mercifully softens over
and conceals its ghastly details. ‘There is a se-
_pulchre in this garden too; and, though the wall
has been high enough to bound the desires and —

rt.) HUMAN ASSOCIATIONS. 115

fancies of simple contented hearts that never sought
to mingle in gayer scenes, it has not been suff-
ciently high to exclude that dark mist of sorrow in
which the light of life goes out, and the warmth
of the heart gets chill. ‘That wall is dear to me on
account of its strangely sweet memories of mingled
joy and sadness. Eyes have gazed upon it as a
part of their daily vision, that are now closed to
all earthly beauty; voices beside it have sounded
merrily at the sweetest surprise of the year, when
the snowdrop first peered above the sod like the
shost of the perished flowers—voices that suddenly
dropped off into silence when our life-song was
loudest and sweetest ; tender and true hearts under
the caresses of its overshadowing birch-trees have
known “of earthly bliss the all—the joy of loving
_and being beloved.” Little fingers have often been
busy among the flower-beds which it sheltered,
leaving touching traces of their work in buds be-
headed left lying artlessly beside the parent cluster
—joys plucked too soon, and fugitive as they were
pleasing. Fresh marks of little teeth have often
been found deep sunk in a dozen rosy apples
srowing temptingly within reach on the lowest
bough—a trace of “original sin,” natural to every
juvenile descendant of Eve, and easy to forgive
when, as in these instances, linked with so much
innocence; it seemed so childlike to take a bite
out of several ripening apples instead of plucking
and finishing one. But, apart from such human
associations, | have studied the wall often for its
| ee

116 HOLIDAVS ON HIGH LANDS. " [cHAP.
own sake; and to me it has all the interest of a
volume. Covered over with its bright frescoes of
parti-coloured lichens and mosses, and crowned
with its green turf, sprinkled with grass-blossoms
and gay autumn flowers, it reminds me of the rich
binding of an old book on which the artist has
bestowed especial care; or rather, it stands in
relation to the garden like the quaintly illuminated
initial of a monkish chronicle, telling in its gay
pictures and. elaborate tracery the various incidents
of the chapter.

A. rough stone wall in any situation is an object
of interest to a thoughtful mind. The different
shapes of the stones, their varied mineral character,
the diversity of tints, flexures, and lines which occur
in them, are all suggestive of inquiry and reflection.
Sermons may thus be found in stones more profit-
able, perhaps, than many printed or spoken ones,
which he who runs may read. The smallest ap- —
pearances link themselves with the grandest phe-
nomena; a minute speck supplies a text around
which may cluster many a striking thought; and
by means of a hint derived from a mere hue or
line in a little stone—almost inappreciable to the
general eye—may be reconstructed seas and con-
tinents that passed away thousands of ages ago—
visions of landscape scenery to which the present
aspect of the globe presents no parallel. This
flexure of the stone tells me of violent volcanic
eruptions, by which the soft, newly-deposited stra-
tum—the muddy precipitate of ocean waters—

III. ] GEOLOGICAL AISTORY. 117

heaved and undulated like corn in the breeze; that
lamination, of which the dark lines regularly alter-
nate with the grey, speaks eloquently of gentle
waves rippling musically over sandy shores; and
the irregular protuberances, which I see here and
there over the stone, are the casts of hollows or
cracks produced in ancient tide-beaches by shrink-
age—similar appearances being often seen under
our feet, as we walk over the pavement of almost
any of our towns. Yonder smooth and striated
surface of granite is the Runic writing of the
northern Frost-king, transporting me back in fancy
to that wonderful age of ice when glaciers slid over
mountain rocks, and flowed through lowland val-
leys, where corn now grows, and the snow seldom
falls. And if there be a block of sandstone, it may
chance to exhibit not only ripple-marks of ancient
seas, but also footprints of unknown birds and
strange tortoises that sought their food along the
waters edge; and sometimes memorials of former
things more accidental and shadowy than even
these—such as fossil raindrops, little circular and
oval hollows, with their casts—supposed to be
impressions produced by rain and hail, and indi-
cating by their varying appearances the character .
of the shower, and the direction of the wind that
prevailed when it was falling. Every one has heard
of the crazy Greek who went about exhibiting a
brick as a specimen of the building which he wished
to sell; but in the structure of each geological
system every stone is significant of the whole.

118 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [cnav. _

Each fragment, however minute, is a record of the
terrestrial changes that occurred when it was
formed ; ingrained in every hue and line is the
story of the physical conditions under which it
was produced. The Ten Commandments were not
more clearly engraved on the two tables of stone
than the laws of nature that operated in its forma-
tion are impressed upon the smallest pebble by the
wayside. Its materials furnish an unmistakeable
clue to its origin, and its shape unfolds its subse-
quent history. God has impressed the marks of
the revolutions of the earth not merely upon large
tracts of country and enormous strata of rock and
mountain range—difficult of access and inconve-
nient for study—but even upon the smallest stone,
so that the annals of creation are multiplied by
myriads of copies, and can never be lost. Man
cannot urge the excuse that he has no means of
knowing the doings of the Lord in the past silent
ages of the earth, that His path in the deep and
His footsteps in the great waters are hopelessly
unknown. Go where he may, look where he
pleases, he will see the medals of creation—the
signet marks of the Almighty—stamped indelibly
and unmistakeably upon the smallest fragments of
the dumb, dead earth; so that if he should un-
sratefully hold his peace, and withhold the due
tribute of praise to the Creator, “the very stones
would immediately cry out.” Anatomists of scenery,
who look beneath the surface to the skeleton of the
earth, tell us that the features of mountains and

111. ] FOSSTL REMAINS. 119

valleys are dependent upon the geological cha-
racter of their materials; and, therefore, those who
are skilful in the art can tell from the outlines of
the landscape the nature of the underlying rocks,
although no part of them crop above ground. A
passing glance at the wayside walls will reveal the
prominent geology of any district, just as the shape
of a single leaf and the arrangement of veins on its
surface suggest the appearance of the whole tree
from which it has fallen, or as a fragment of a tooth
or a bone can call up the picture of the whole
animal of whom it formed a part. In Aberdeen-
shire, the walls are built principally of granite, grey
and red; in Perthshire, of gneiss and schist; in
Mid-Lothian and Lanarkshire, of sandstone; and
in the southern Scottish counties generally, of trap
and porphyry. Sometimes they are composed of
transported materials, not native to the district ;
and the history of these opens up a field of de-
lightful speculation. But there are no walls so
interesting as those which occur in the mountain
districts of Derbyshire, and in some parts of Lan-

cashire. In almost every stone are embedded fossil ~t<
shells, and those beautiful jointed corals called heet
encrinites, which look like petrified lilies, and have / ml
no living representatives in the ocean at the present ey :

day. Even the most homogeneous blocks are —

found on close inspection to be composed entirely ©

of mineralized skeletons, and to form the graves of
whole hecatombs of shells and corallines long ago
extinct. Strange to think that our limestone rocks

120 HOLIDAYS ON THIGH TARSS [CHAP.

are formed of the calcareous matter secreted by
living creatures from the waters of the sea, and
their own shelly coverings when dead, just as our
coal-beds are the carbonized remains of former
green, luxuriant forests. Thus, while walking along
the highway in almost any locality, the most hasty
examination of the wall on either side furnishes
the student of nature with abundant subjects for
reflection; and those lofty dykes, built by the
farmer to keep in his cattle, or by the jealous
proprietor to secure the privacy of his domain,
while they forbid all views of the surrounding
country, amply compensate for the restriction they
impose by the truths engraven on their seemingly
blank but really eloquent pages—like the tree
which in winter permits us to see the glory of the
sunset and the purple mountains of the west through
its lattice-work of boughs, but in summer confines
our vision by the satisfying beauty of its full oles )
and blossoms.

The mist of familiarity obscures, if not altogether
hides, the intrinsic wonder that there is about many
of our commonest things. The existence of stones
is an accepted fact, suggestive of no thought or
feeling—unless, indeed, we stumble against one;
we look upon them as things of course, as natural
in their way as the rocks, streams, and woods
around—as a necessary and inevitable part of the
order of creation; and yet they are in reality well
calculated to excite curiosity. Sterling, in his
“ Thoughts and Images,” beautifully says: “Life of -

III. ] FORMATION OF STONES. T21
any kind is a confounding mystery; nay, that
which we commonly do not call life—the prin-
ciple of existence in a stone or a drop of water—
is an inscrutable wonder. That in the infinity of
time and space anything should be, should have
a distinct existence, should be more than nothing!
The thought of an immense abysmal nothing is
awful, only less so than that of All and God; and
thus a grain of sand, being a fact, a reality, rises
before us into something prodigious and immeasur-
able—a fact that opposes and counterbalances the
immensity of non-existence.” But this wonder and
mystery stones share in common with all material
things; their own origin is a special source of
interest. Many individuals, if they think at all
about the subject, dismiss it with the easy reflection
that stones were created at first precisely in the
form in which they are now found. It may, how-
ever, be laid down as a geological axiom, that no
stones were originally created. The irregular aggre-
gations of hardened matter so called formed part at
first of regular strata and beds of rock, and were
broken loose from these by volcanic eruptions, by
the effects of storms or floods, by frost and ice, or
by the slow corroding tooth of time. By these
natural agencies the hard superficial crust of the
earth has been broken up into fragments of various
sizes, carried away by streams, glaciers, and land-
-slips—modified in their shapes by friction against
one another, and at last, after many changes and
revolutions, deposited in the places where they are

122. | HOLIDAVS ON HIGH LANDS ic rae

found. We owe the largest proportion of the stones
scattered over the surface of the earth to glacial
action—one of the most recent and remarkable
revolutions in the annals of geology. Man is thus
provided with materials for building purposes con-
veniently to his hand, without the necessity of
blasting the rock, or digging into the earth; and it
is a striking thought, that the very same great laws
by which the disposition of land and sea has been
effected, and the great features of the earth modi-
fied, have conduced in their ultimate results to the
homeliest human uses. The materials which the
poorest cotter builds into the rudest crowfoot dyke
around his kail-yard or potato-field, have been pro-
duced by causes that affected whole continents and
oceans. The meanest and mightiest things are
thus intimately associated and correlated ; just as
the forces that control the movements of the stars
are locked up in the smallest pebble—keeping its.
particles together, a miniature world. Stones are
sometimes out of place, as when they occur in a
field or garden; but they form a feature in the
zesthetic aspect of scenery which could not well be
wanted. What a picturesque appearance do the
huge rough boulders strewn over its surface impart
to the green hill-side! especially if, as is often the
case, their sides are painted and cushioned with
that strange cryptogamic vegetation which oné
sees nowhere else, and a daring rowan-tree plants
itself in their crevices and waves its green and
crimson flag of victory over soil and circumstances.

“

‘A
<

~
.

uj) ..-—s»«- ESTHETIC RELATIONS. 123

There are few things more beautiful than the pebbly

beach of a mountain lake; and some of the finest
subjects for a picture may be found by the painter

along the rough, rocky course of a mountain stream,

where the stones form numerous snowy waterfalls,
and the spray nourishes hosts of luxuriant mosses
and wild flowers. Although dumb, and destitute

of sonorous properties, how large a share of the

sweet minstrelsy of nature is contributed by them.
They are the strings in the harp of the stream,
from which the snowy fingers of the water-nymph
draw. out ever-varying melody—a ceaseless melody,
heard when all other sounds are still. By their
opposition to the current they create life and music

amid stillness and monotony, change the river from

a dull flat canal into a thing of wild grandeur and

‘animation, and redeem the barren waste from utter
silence and death. Commonest of all common
things, it is strange to think that there are parts of

this rocky material earth of ours where stones are
as rare as diamonds, and the smallest pebble is a
geological curiosity. The natives of some of the

coral islands of the Pacific procure stones for their

tools—this being the only purpose for which they
use them—solely from the roots of trees that have

been carried away, with their load of earth and

stones adhering to them, by the waves from the

hearest mainland, and grounded upon their shores.

So highly.are these stray waifs of the ocean valued

that a tax is laid upon them, which adds consider-
ably to the revenue of the chiefs. This reminds us

124 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. {cuae.

of the preciousness of stones during what is called
the stone age of our own country—whose.date is so
apocryphal—when flint and granite were the sole
materials employed for making the various imple-
ments of war and of household use, and these rude
implements were buried with the dead in the stone
cist under the huge cremlech or grey cairn. Those
relics dug up in the times of our forefathers, before
the attention of antiquaries or geologists was
directed to the subject, were accounted as holy
stones, supposed to have formed part of the caba-
listic appendages of the necromancer of bygone
ages; and were in some instances enveloped in
leather or encased in gold, and worn as amulets
round the neck. :
Many of the stones of the garden wall before me
are covered over with a thin coating of vegetation
of various hues and forms. The tints from Nature’s
palette have been applied with wonderful skill; the.
warmer and more vivid hues gradually blending
with the grey and neutral ones. By this means,
the harsh, artificial aspect of the wall has dis-
appeared, and an air of natural beauty has been
imparted to it, exquisitely harmonizing with the
white trunks of the birch-trees, the green flower-
sprinkled bank of the streamlet, and the blue
cloud-flecked softness of the over-arching sky. In-
stead of disfiguring, it now adorns the landscape,
and the-eye rests upon its mottled, softly-rounded
sides and top with unwearied pleasure. It affords
an illustration of the common truth, that there are

|

Ti.] _ HARMONY OF COLOURS. ¥25

no distinct lines of demarcation, no harsh, abrupt
objects allowed in nature. Even man’s work must
come under this law; and wherever Nature has
the power, she brings back the human structure to
her own bosom, and, while dismantling and disin-
tegrating it, clothes it with a living garniture of
beauty, such as no art of man can imitate. The
farmer may keep the meadow or cornfield distinct
from the surrounding scene, heavy with uniform
greenness, or ugly with the discordant glare of
yellow weeds; but as soon as Nature obtains the
control of it, when out of cultivation, she brings it
into harmony with the landscape by carefully
spreading her wild flowers over it in such a way
as to restore the proper balance of colour. As the
earth is rounded into one great whole, so all its
objects are connected with each other, not merely
by laws of structure and dependence, but also by
close zesthetic relations. The rock, decked with
moss, lichen, and fern, shades in sympathy of hue
and outline with the verdure of wood and meadow
around it; the mountain and the ocean melt on
their farthest limits into the blue of the sky ; the
river and the lake do not preserve the distinctness
of a separate element, but blend with the solid land,
by mirroring its scenery on their tranquil bosom;
and the very atmosphere itself, by its purple clouds

on the horizon, raising the eye gradually and insen-.

sibly from the dull, tangible earth to the transparent
heavens, becomes a part of the landscape instead
of the mere empty space that surrounds it.

126 HOLIDAVS ON HIGH LANDS. {cuap.

While this picturesque effect of the wall is
admired, the objects which produce it are very
generally overlooked. If carefully examined, how-
ever, they will be found very interesting, both on
account of their peculiarities of structure and the
associations connected with them. Almost every
stone is made venerable, as also the adjoining fruit-
trees and espaliers, with the grey rosettes of that
commonest of all lichens, the stone parmelia. This
plant used to be extensively employed by the
Highlanders in dyeing woollen stuffs of a dirty
purple, or rather reddish-brown, colour. By the
Arabian physicians it was administered under the
name of dchnen, for purifying the blood; and it
was also an ingredient in the celebrated unguentum
armarium, or sympathetic ointment, which was
supposed to cure wounds if the weapon that
inflicted them were smeared with it, without any
application to the wounds themselves. Besides
this lichen, the ointment consisted of human fat,
human blood, linseed oil, turpentine, and Armenian
bole, mixed together in various proportions. A
present of the prescription for this precious mess
was made by Paracelsus, about the year 1530, to
the Emperor Maximilian, by whom it was greatly
valued. Much was written, in the medical treatises
of the time, both for and against the efficacy of such
applications; and, in an age when prescriptions
as a rule were founded upon some real or fancied
resemblance between the remedy and the disease,
the stone parmelia was an object of great import-

1.) VELLOW WALL PARMELIA. E27

ance. It is now sold by the London herbalists
solely for the use of bird-stuffers, who line the
inside of their cases and decorate the branches of
_ the miniature trees upon which the birds perch with
it. There are also numerous specimens on the
wall of the yellow parmelia, no less renowned than
its congener in the annals of medicine as an astrin-
gent and febrifuge. By Dr. Sander, in 1815, it was
successfully administered as a substitute for Peru-
vian bark in intermittent fevers; the great Haller
recommended its use as a tonic in diarrhoea and
dysentery ; and Willemet gave it with success in
cases of hemorrhages and autumnal contagious
fluxes. In the arts it is employed at the present
day as a dye-stuff, yielding a beautiful golden
yellow crystallizable colouring matter, called chry-
sophanic acid, which is nearly identical with the
_ yellow colouring matter of rhubarb; and, like litmus,
it may be used as a test for alkalies, as they invari-
ably communicate to its yellow colouring matter
a beautiful red tint. It is the most ornamental
of all our lichens. Its bright, golden thallus, spread-
ing in circles two or three inches in diameter, and
covered with numerous small orange shields, decks
with lavish profusion the rough unmortared walls
of the poor man’s cottage; and many a rich patch
of it may be seen covering the crumbling stones of
‘some hoary castle or long-ruined abbey as with a
sunset glory. Growing in a concentric form, when
it attains a certain size the central parts begin to
decay and disappear, leaving only a narrow circular

128 HOLIDAVS ON HIGH LANDS. [cuar.
ee EE
rim of living vegetable matter. In this manner it
covers a whole wall or tree with spreading ripples
of growth and decay—analogous to the fairy rings
formed by the growth and decay of mushrooms in
a grassy field. This yellow wafer of vegetation is
attached to the stone by slender white hairs on the
under surface, looking like roots, although they do
not possess the power of selecting and appropriating
the materials of growth peculiar tou such organs.
We know not by what means lichens derive nou-
rishment. Some species certainly do disintegrate
the stones on which they occur, and absorb the
chemical and mineral substances which they con-
tain, as is clearly proved when they are analysed.
But a far more numerous class are found only on
the hardest stones, so closely appressed and level
with their surface that they seem to form an
integral part of them. In this way they continue
for years, ay centuries and ages, unchanged—their
matrix as well as their own intense vitality resist-
ing all decay. There are instances of encaustic
lichens covering the glaciated surfaces of quartz on
the summits of our highest hills, which may pro-
bably be reckoned among the oldest of living
organisms. Such species can obviously derive no
benefit save mere mechanical support from their
srowing-place, and must procure their nourishment
entirely from the atmosphere, and he colouring
matter from solar reflection.

The eye of the naturalist, educates by practice
to almost microscopic keenness, can discern scat-

FHI. ] LICHENS. 129

tered over the wall numerous other specimens of
this singular vegetation, appearing like mere dis-
colorations or weather-stains on the stones. Some
are scaly fragments so minute as to require very close
inspection to detect them. Others are indefinite
films or nebule of greyish matter, sprinkled with
black dots about the size of a pin’s head. Others
are granular crusts of a circular form, with a zoned
border; and when two or three of them meet
together, they do not coalesce and become ab-
sorbed into one huge overgrown individual. The
frontier of each is strictly preserved by a narrow
black border, however it may grow and extend
itself, as zealously as that of France or Austria.
The law against removing a neighbour’s land-
mark is as strictly enforced in lichen as in human
economy. When a stone is covered with a series
of these independent lichens, it looks like a minia-
ture map of Germany or America; the zoned
patches resembling the states, the black dots the
towns, and the lines and cracks in the crust the
rivers. There is one species growing on pure
quartz, an exquisite piece of natural mosaic of
glossy black and primrose yellow, called the
geographical lichen from this resemblance.
Several of the stones are sprinkled with a grey,
green, or yellow powder, as dry and finely pul-
verized as quicklime or sulphur. These grains
are either the germs of lichens awaiting develop-
ment, or they are individual vital cells, capable of
growing into new plants, in the absence of proper
K

130 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [cuav.

fruit. The pulverulent lichens are always barren,
because a strict individualization of each cell is at
variance with the regular formation of organic
fructification, since in the latter the individuality of
the separate cells appears most circumscribed and
checked. It is difficult to distinguish these pul-
verulent masses from the powder of chalk, verdi-
gris, or sulphur; and yet they are endowed with
the most persistent vitality, which almost no ad-
verse circumstances can extinguish. The principle
of life resides in each of these grains as truly as
in the most complicated organism; and, though
reduced here to the very simplest expression of
which it is capable, it is not divested of its mystery,
but on the contrary rendered more wonderful and
incomprehensible. A wide and impassable barrier
separates these life-particles from the grains of the
stone on which they occur, and yet it is very diffi-
cult in some cases to distinguish the one from the
other. The extreme simplicity of structure dis-
played by these protophytes is more puzzling to .
the botanist than any amount of complexity would
have been. The rudimentary stages of all the
flowerless plants appear in this singular form. The
germs of a moss are similar to those of a lichen,
and the germs of a lichen to those of a fern or
sea-weed. These powdery grains represent the
basis from which each separate system of life starts,
to recede so widely in the highest forms of each
order. The advocates of spontaneous generation
or development—for there is essentially little dif-

UL] DEVELOPMENT THEORY. 131

ference between these two theories—have endea-
voured to derive from this circumstance a plausible
argument in support of their views. They assert
that the germs of all cryptogamic plants are not
only apparently, but essentially, the same; and
that the differences of their after development are
owing to accidental circumstances of soil, situation,
and other physical conditions. If they happen to
fall upon decaying substances, they become fungi;
if they are scattered in soil, they become ferns or
mosses; if water is the medium in which they are
produced, they grow into algz; and on dry stones
and living trees they spread into the flat crusts of
lichens. Plausible as this idea looks, it is not borne
out by experiment, for the same germs sown in the
same soil, exposed to precisely similar conditions,
develop one into a moss, another into a lichen, a
third into a fungus, and a fourth into a fern; showing
clearly that though we cannot discover the difference
between their rudimentary germs, a real distinction
does nevertheless exist—that the seeds of these
minute, insignificant plants are in reality as different
from each other, as the seed of an apple-tree is dif-
ferent from that ofa pine or palm. The developments
of nature are not regulated by accidents and caprices;
they are the results of fixed, predetermined laws,
operating in every part of every living organism,
from the commencement of its growth to the end
of its life-history. And the similarity which we
find between them is not the consequence of a
lineal descent of one from another, but only a
; KZ

132 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [CHAP.

feature of the same grand plan of construction:
the resemblance is not the result of anything in
these forms themselves; it is a purely intellectual
relation of plan. With this small piece of granite
before me, then, what solemn and _ far-reaching
questions are connected! Geologists of the Plu-
tonian and Neptunian schools have keenly con-
tested the mode of its formation ; while arguments
drawn from the living particles of vegetation on its
surface have been advanced in support of the
“development” and “origin of species” theories.
Could we explain the mysteries locked up in this
little stone, we should be furnished with a key to
the mysteries of the universe.

When the powdery lichens occur in large quan-
tities, they give a very picturesque effect to rocks,
trees, and buildings. The trunks and branches of
trees in the outskirts of large towns are covered
with a green powder, fostered by the impurity of
the air; a similar substance is also produced in
damp, low-lying woods, where the trees are so
densely crowded as to prevent proper ventilation
and free admission of light. In Roslin Chapel,
near Edinburgh, the curious effect of the rich
carvings of the walls and pillars is greatly enhanced
by a species of Lepraria, of a deep verdigris colour,
covering them with the utmost profusion. It gives
an appearance of hoary antiquity to the structure,
and is the genuine hue of poetry and romance.
On boarded buildings, old palings, and walls may
be sometimes seen a greyish film sprinkled with

11] ST. WINIFRED’S BLOOD. 133.

very red particles, turning yellow if rubbed, and
exhaling when moistened a very perceptible odour
of violets ; from which circumstance it has obtained
the name of Lepraria Folithus. _Linnzus met with
it frequently in his tour through CEland and East
Gothland, covering the stones by the roadside with
a blood-red pigment. It also spreads over the wet
stones of St. Winifred’s Well in North Wales, and
is supposed to be the blood of the martyred saint—
a superstition which, like the dark stain in the floor
of Holyrood Palace, one has not the heart to dis-
turb. I know not if others have realized the senti-
ment, but I have often felt as if I could willingly
have given up all the knowledge I possess of the
structure and history of these obscure productions,
in exchange for the power of being able to look
upon them with the childish wonder which in early
unscientific days they inspired. There is an air of
mystery and obscurity about them peculiarly fas-
cinating, which it is not desirable to dispel by the
_ garish light of technical knowledge. Each one of
them seemed a self-discovered treasure of child-~
-hood, as much my own as if God had made it on
‘purpose and presented it to me; and it was ever a
‘part of my joy to think that I had found some-
thing which no one else knew or had seen before,
and that I could bestow upon it pet names of
-myown. They were links connecting me with an
unseen, unexplored world, where the marvellous
‘was quite natural—parts of the scenery amid which
elves and fairies, and all the denizens of the heaven

“134 HOLIDAVS ON HIGH LANDS. [cuap.

that lies about us in our infancy, lived. So many
strange things, the existence of which we never
suspected, then presented themselves to our notice
every day,that nothing seemed impossible or super-
natural. Precise limits have now fixed for us the
extent of our domain, and we know everything
within it. “First a slight line, then a fence, then a
wall; then the wall will rise, will shut in the man,
will form a prison, and to get out of it he must
have wings. But around the child neither walls
nor fences—a boundless extent, all irridescent with
brilliant colours.” How full to the brim with
beauty were the flower-cups that were on a level
with the eyes of the little botanist. We men
have outgrown the flower and all its mystical
loveliness ! |
It is among the mosses of the wall, however,
that the richest harvest of beauty and interest
may be gathered. Long have my mingled wonder
and admiration been given to these tiny forms ~
of vegetable life—beautiful in every situation—
spreading on the floor of ancient forests, yielding
carpets that “steal all noises from the foot,’ and
over which the golden sunbeams chase each other
in waves of light and shade throughout the long
summer day—throwing over the decaying tree and
the mouldering ruin a veil of delicate beauty— —
honoured everywhere of God to perform a most
important though unnoticed part in this. great
creation. Well do I remember the bright July
afternoon when their wonderful structure and pecu-

111] THEOLOGY OF MOSSES. 135

liarities were first unveiled to me by one long since
dead, whose cultivated eye saw strange loveliness
in things which others idly passed, and whose
simple warm heart was ever alive to the mute
appeals of humblest wild flower or tiniest moss.
There was opened up to me that day a new world
of hitherto undreamt-of beauty and intellectual
delight ; in the structural details of the moss which
illustrated the lesson I got a glimpse of some
deeper aspect of the Divine character than mere
intelligence. Methought I saw Him not as the
mere contriver or designer, but in His own loving
nature, having His tender mercies over all His
_ works—displaying care for helplessness and minute-
ness—care for beauty in the works of nature,
irrespective of final ends or utilitarian purposes.
Small as the object before me was, I was impressed
—in the wonder of its structure, at once a means
and an end; beautiful in itself and performing its
beautiful uses in nature—not with the limited in-
genuity of a finite, but with the wisdom and love
of an Infinite Spirit. To that one unforgotten
lesson, improved by much study of these little
objects alike in the closet and in the field, I owe
many moments of pure happiness, the memory of
which I would not part with for all the costly,
_ painted pleasures, to gather which, as they ripen
high on the wall, the world impatiently tramples
down things that are far sweeter and more lasting.
A careful search will reveal upwards of a score
of mosses on our garden wall, in almost every

136 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. — [cuav.

stage of growth, from a dim film of greenness to
radiating plumes spreading over the stones, and
cushion-like tufts projecting out of the crevices,
and crowned with a forest of pink fruit-covered
stems. One is amazed at the exuberance of life
displayed on so small and unpromising a surface.
It gives us a more graphic idea than we commonly
possess of the vast and varied resources of creation.
Though so much alike in their general appearance
as to be often confounded by a superficial eye, all
these species are truly distinct ; and when closely
examined exhibit very marked and striking dif-
ferences. They are not slightly varying expres-
sions and modifications of the same Divine idea ;
but rather different ideas of creative thought.
Each of them stands for a separate revelation of
“the Infinite Mind; and the fact that the same
plan of construction, the same type of character,
runs through them all, only indicates that there is
everywhere, in the minutest as well as most con-
spicuous parts of creation, an -undeviating regard
to unity and harmony.

Prominent among these mosses are the curious
little tortulas, found abundantly on every old wall
—when there is sufficient moisture and shade—but
loving especially the rude stone gable and thatched
roof of the Highland cottage, covering them with
deep cushions of verdure till the whole structure
appears more like a work of nature than man’s
handiwork. I have always great pleasure in look-
ing at this tribe of mosses through a lens. The

ITI. | 3 SCREW-MOSS. tSF

leaves are beautifully transparent and reticulated,
and readily revive, when scorched and shrivelled by

~ the sunshine, under the first shower of rain. The

most noticeable thing about the tortulas is the
curious fringe which covers the mouth of the seed-
vessel. In all the species, of which there are about
fourteen in this country, the fringe is twisted in
different ways like the wick of a candle. This
peculiarity may be easily seen by the naked eye,
‘as it projects considerably beyond the fruit-vessel, _
and is of a lighter colour; but the microscope
reveals it in all its beauty. It is a wide departure
from the ordinary type, according to which the
teeth of the fruit-vessel are made to lock into each
other, and thus form a wheel-like lid, composed of
separate spokes, which fill up the aperture. The
great length of the teeth in the tortulas prevents
this arrangement of them; their tops are therefore
twisted, as the farmer twists the sheaves at the top
_ of his wheat-stack, so as to keep'out the rain; and
this plan seems to answer the purpose as effectually
as the normal one. Some of the tortula tufts are
of a pale reddish colour, as if withered by old age,
or scorched by the sun. This peculiar blight ex-
tends in a circular form from the centre to the
circumference of a tuft, where filmy grey textures,
like fragments of a spiders web interweaving
among the leaves, proclaim the presence of an
obscure fungus, in whose deadly embrace the moss
has perished. Thus even the humblest kinds of
life are preyed upon by others still humbler in the

138 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [cuap.

scale; and perhaps there is no self-existent organic
structure in nature. Besides this parasite, there
are other species of life nourished by these tufts.
If one of them be saturated with moisture, and a
drop squeezed out upon a glass, and placed under
a good microscope, the muddy liquid will be found
swarming with animalcule, little animated cells,
wandering with electric activity amid the endless
mazes of the strange forest-vegetation ; and among
them there is sure to be one or more lordly Roti-~
feras, lengthening and contracting their transparent
bodies as they glide rapidly out of view, or halting
a moment to protrude and whirl their wheel-like
ciliz in the process of feeding—the most interesting
of microscopic spectacles.

One of the commonest of the mosses on the wall
is the little grey Grimmza,; looking, with its brown
capsules nestling among the leaves, like tiny round
cushions stuck full of pins. The nerves of the
leaves project beyond the point, and give an ap-
pearance of hoariness to the plant, in fine keeping
with the antique character of the wall. This moss
erows on the barest and hardest surfaces—on granite
and trap rocks, where not a particle of soil can
lodge; and yet every cushion of it rests comfortably
upon a considerable quantity of earth carefully
gathered within its leaves, which must have been
blown there as dust by the wind, or disintegrated
by its own roots from the substance of the rock.
Our garden wall displays two or three tiny tufts of
a curious moss occurring not very frequently on

t

1] APPLE-MOSS. 139

moist shady walls built with lime. It is called the
Extinguisher moss, because the cover of the fruit-
_ vessel is exactly like the extinguisher of a candle,
or the calyx of the yellow garden Lscholizia. We
have also a few specimens, in the more retired cre-
vices, of the Lartramia, or apple-moss—one of the
loveliest of all the species—with its bright green
hairy cushions and round capsules, like fairy apples.
It fruits most abundantly in spring, appearing in
its full beauty when the primrose makes mimic
sunshine on the brae, and the cuckoo gives an air
of enchantment to the hazel copse. A subalpine
species, it is somewhat uncommon in lowland dis-
tricts ; but it would be well worth while to grow it
in afernery. Its Latin name appropriately perpe-
tuates the memory of John Bartram—one of the
most devoted of American naturalists—a simple
farmer and self-taught, yet a man of great and
varied attainments, concealed by a too modest and
retiring disposition. Linnzeus pronounced him “the
greatest natural botanist in the world.” It is a
touching thing to think of the names of scientific
men, great in their own generation, being linked
with such obscure and fragile memorials. They
have passed away, and with them the memory of
all they achieved ; and nothing now speaks of them
save a little plant, of which not one in a thousand
has ever heard, and which only a few naturalists
see at rare intervals. There are hundreds of such
names in the nomenclature of botany, worthy of a
prominent and enduring remembrance, of which

——

140 ‘HOLIDAVS ON HIGH LANDS. [cnap.

almost nothing more is known than this simple
association. It is the plant alone that perpetuates
them—history and epitaph all in one—like the
chronology of the antediluvian patriarchs; and we
are apt to smile when we read of the gratification
which the illustrious Linnzus felt when the little
bell-flowered Lzznca, pride of the Swedish woods,
was baptized with his name—regarding it as a
pledge of immortality; for if there had been nothing
but this floral link to connect his memory with
future ages, very few would have known that there
ever was such a man.

The line of turf along the top of the wall is a
perfect Lilliputian garden. It bears a bright and
interesting succession of plants from January to
December. The little lichens and mosses claim
~ exclusive possession of it during the winter months;
for these simple hardy forms of life are most luxu-
riant when the weather is most severe; they are
the first to come to any spot, and the last to leave
it—growing through sunshine and gloom with meek
and unruffled serenity. There are whole colonies
of that most social of all cryptogams, the hair
moss, looking, with their stiff and rigid leaves, like
a forest of miniature aloes; preserving during sum-
mer and autumn a uniform dull green appearance,
but breaking out in spring into a multitude of little
cups of a brilliant crimson colour, nestling among.
the uppermost leaves, and rivalling in beauty the
gayest blossoms of flowers. Hardly less interesting
are the scores of cup-lichens—holding up in their

na MINUTE LIFE FORMS 141

mealy sulphur-coloured goblets dewy offerings to
the sun, like vegetable Ganymedes. And the lover
of the curious will be sure to notice the livid
leathery leaves of the dog lichen, tipped with brown
shields like finger-nails, that grow redder in the
piercing Christmas cold—bringing us back in fancy
to the days of Dr. Mead, the famous physician and
friend of Pope, Bentham, and Newton, by whom it
was first brought into notice as a remedy for hydro-
phobia. These and numerous other minute forms,
too obscure to mention, may be seen all the year
round; and dim though the sunbeams of winter
may be, they search them out in their hidden
nooks, and stimulate them to life and energy, and
the glow of sunrise or sunset, that sets a mountain
range on fire, rests lovingly on the smallest moss or
lichen, intimating that it too has its place and its
relations in this wide universe. When the first mild
days of early spring come, the Drada, or whitlow-
grass, puts forth its tiny white flowers, and greets
the returning warmth, when there is not a daisy in
the meadow, or a single golden blossom on the
whinny hill-side. Then follows a bright array of
chance wild flowers, wayward adventurers, whose
seeds the winds have wafted or the birds have
dropped upon this elevated site, their colours deep-
ening as the season advances—old thyme, ever
new, hanging down in fragrant festoons of purple;
yellow bedstraw—the Chrysohoé of flowers—like
masses of golden foam, scenting the breeze with
honey sweetness, and ever murmurous with bees;

142. HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [cuap. —

chimes of blue-bells hanging from the wall as from |
a belfry, and tolling with their rich peal of bells—
which the soul alone can hear—the knell of the
departing flowers. A fringe of soft meadow-grass
covers the turf, whose silken greenness forms the
eround colour on which these bright patterns are
embroidered ; while its silvery panicles hang in all
their airy grace over the flowers, like gossamer
veils, greatly enhancing their beauty. That patch
of grass softens no human footfall of care, but it is
refreshing to the eye, and the robin rests upon it,
as it pours out its low sweet chant, according well
with the sere leaves and the dim stillness of au-
tumn, the calm decay of earth, and the peace divine
of heaven. I love, in the silent eve, when there is
scarcely a breath in the garden, and the sunset is
flushing the flowers and purpling the hills, to sit
near that richly-decorated wall, in full view of its
autumn flowers, smiling on the lap of death, for

ever perishing, but immortal—joys that have come |
down to us pure and unstained from Eden, and
amid a world of progress will be transmitted with-
out a single leaf being changed to the latest gene-
ration. Looking at them, and feeling to the full
the beauty and wonder of the world, I enjoy all
that the coming centuries can bestow upon the
wisest and the happiest of our race. Voiceless
though they are, they have a secret power to thrill
my heart to its very core. They speak of hope
and love, bright as their own hue, and vague as
their perfume; they speak of the mystery of human

III. | FHE: ROSE. OF SHARON. 143

life, its beautiful blossoming and its sudden fading;
and, more than all, they speak of Him, who, holy,
harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners, found
on earth most congenial fellowship with these em-
blems of purity and innocence; whose favourite
resort was the garden of Gethsemane; whose lesson
of faith and trust in Providence was illustrated by
the growth of the lilies; and who, at last—as the
Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the Valley—was
laid in a sepulchre in a garden, leaving behind there
a sweet and lasting perfume, which makes the
grave to all who fall asleep in Him a bed of sweet
and refreshing rest.

CHAPTER IV.

A RAMBLE THROUGH NORWAY, THE CRADLE OF
THE HIGHLAND FLORA.

HAVING exhausted the botany of the British hills,
I was anxious to study our Alpine plants in their
original centre of distribution, to compare the forms
which they present under different conditions of
soil, climate, exposure, &c.; and thus ascertain the
value of the distinctions, not merely among the
species reputed to be doubtful, but also among
those commonly considered to be well-established.
For this purpose I undertook, two summers ago,
along with some friends, a short tour in Norway.
I went first to Denmark, a country which holds
out many inducements to the botanist, and presents
peculiar facilities for exploring, the expense of
travelling being extremely moderate, the language
interposing but few difficulties to one who knows
broad Scotch and low German, and the plants of
the woods and marshes being singularly attractive
and interesting. The “Flora Danica,” a splendid
work of some twenty volumes, exquisitely illus-
trated, contains a great many species that are
common in this country; while it gives an admi-

=

CHAP. IV.] BEECH-WOODS. 145

rable idea of the character of the Scandinavian
vegetation as a whole. ) |

The beech-woods are the most remarkable feature
of Denmark. They clothe the whole face of the
country, except the cultivated parts, giving it a
soft, rich, languid look, exceedingly pleasing to
the eye of one accustomed to the bleak hills and
pine-woods of the Scottish Highlands. Hardly
any other tree besides the beech is seen in these
forests now; but it was not always so. Denmark
is a palimpsest of three distinct layers of arboreal
vegetation. In the lowest stratum of the bogs
trunks and other portions of Scotch fir-trees are
found; above this layer is a distinctly-marked
stratum in which nothing but remains of oak
Occur } while the surface of the country is covered
with flourishing beech-forests. These changes in
the character of the woods indicate corresponding
changes in the character of the climate; for the
oak is now a rare tree in the country, and the
Scotch fir is never seen, being unsuited to the
altered circumstances. The age of these extinct
forests is a much-disputed question. Worsa, the
able director of the Museum of Northern Anti-
quities in Copenhagen, showed me several very
interesting human relics dug from these deposits,
which must have belonged to the Bronze period,
and probably dated no further back than the time
of Abraham. The antiquity of the Danish Kjék-
kenmédings, like that of the Swiss Pfahlbauten,
has been unduly stretched. But apart from

L

146 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [cuap.

archzological speculations, which in such spots
are irresistibly suggested, nothing can be more
delightful than a ramble among the beech-woods
in the neighbourhood of Copenhagen on a hot
summer day. ‘The shadows are so cool and deep ;
the belts of golden light that lie across the green-.
sward at every opening among the trees are so
bright and sunny; the far-stretching vistas so
mysterious and seductive to the imagination; and
the trunks and branches of the beeches so smooth,
round, and well-filled, and so covered with heavy
masses of beautiful transparent foliage, that you
feel as if in an enchanted place. You think long-
ingly of the long-ago times when an English
county merited its beautiful poetical name of
“ Buckinghamshire,’—“the home of the beech-
“trees ;” beech being the modern form of the old
Teutonic duck or buch.| From a rising ground,

1 There are some interesting peculiarities in the geographical dis- —
tribution of the beech. It is the tree which ascends highest on the
Apennines, forming large forests immediately below the zone of the
Alpine plants. On Gran Sasso d'Italia, the loftiest peak of the range, ©
it flourishes luxuriantly at a height of 6,000 feet above the Adriatic ;
not far from the line of perpetual snow. On other mountain chains
it is the birch or the pine which ascends the highest, and adjoins the
zone of the Alpine flora. In Norway the beech is unknown, save
in the extreme south and in the plains; while in the Alps it occurs
only in the lower valleys. On the Apennines it ascends several
thousand feet above the region in which corn can be cultivated, and
where man lives permanently ; and yet corn is grown as far north as
Lapland, and a few patches of it ripen even at Hammerfest. The
reason of this is that the beech is affected by the heat of the whole
year, while the corn depends upon the summer heat. The heat of
summer in the Arctic circle is much greater than at a height of 6,000

v.} PLANTS OF THE BEECH-WOODS. 147

through a break in the forest, you catch a
glimpse of the blue waters of the Sound flashing
in the sunlight, with white, spirit-like sails flitting
to and fro over its placid bosom: you thus feel that
the place is haunted for ever by harmonies of winds
and waves—visited by delicate influences from
sea and land. Occasionally, at the end of a vista
among the trees, a solitary deer may be seen
feeding, or pausing to gaze at the stranger, and
eliding silent as a shadow into the remoter recesses.
The ground is everywhere enamelled with the
wild flowers which we see im our own woodlands ;
and every sight and sound are so homelike that
it is difficult to realize the idea that one is in a
foreign land. I saw large patches of the yellow
-wood-anemone (A. Ranunculoides) and of the guul
fugls melk (yellow bird’s milk), Ovruzthogalum
luteum, but they were both past flowering. When
in full bloom, in spring, they make the woods
quite a California. In this primitive country
almost every plant is known to the peasant, and

feet in Italy, while the cold of winter is much more severe. Altitude
and latitude, which correspond so far as herbaceous plants depending
upon summer heat are concerned, do not correspond so far as trees
which depend upon a certain degree of heat all the year round are
concerned. It is because of the somewhat uniform annual tempera-
‘ture of the Antarctic regions—less warm in summer and less cold in
winter—that the Evergreen beech (/agus Forsteri) forms the cha-
racteristic woods of Terra del Fuego, and the Antarctic beech grows
even farther south in the Antarctic regions, while no species of beech
can flourish in the extreme climate of the Arctic regions. The
abundance and beauty of the beech in Denmark is doubtless owing
to the same cause..

148 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. {cuap.

associated with some quaint incident. I was greatly
struck with the beauty of the lichens, mosses,
and fungi, which grew upon the trunks of the
trees, and especially upon the fallen ones, in |
moist and shady spots. Many of the beeches
were sprinkled with the rich yellow powder of
the lichen calicéuwen; others were covered with
the chocolate patches of the tamarisk seale-moss ;
while on several prostrate trunks I found the
curious fungus Dedalea growing to an enormous ©
size, and exhibiting on the under side its intricate
sinuosities, like a Chinese carving in ivory. I
gathered some foreign plants which afford an
illustration of the curious way in which the flora
of one country finds its way to another. When
the statues which Thorwaldsen sent from Rome
were unpacked in Copenhagen, several flowers
sprang up very soon after in the neighbourhood
formerly unknown. It seems that the sculptures
were carefully wrapped round with bands of hay —
from the Campagna, containing the seeds of plants
peculiar to Italy. Might not the incident be
regarded as typical of Thorwaldsen’s own genius,
which had grown and been developed in the
Eternal City, and at last blossomed in old age in
his native place? I observed in moist, rocky dells,
among the moss, great quantities of the Prvzmula
farinosa. The leaves and stalks were powdered
with the characteristic lemon-dust, but the beautiful
lilac flowers were overpassed, and fruit formed.
In early May the market-women come into town,

Av.] REPOSE OF DANISH SCENERY. 149

bearing basket-loads of this lovely flower tied in
little nosegays. The glens of Lyngby and Ramlosa
are covered with it in spring. Many spots in the
neighbourhood of Copenhagen in this delicious
- season are like the Vale of Tempe. Indeed, at any
time, nothing can be more soothing to ruffled
nerves than the serenity and loveliness of Danish
scenery. Doctors should send their patients, jaded
and excited by the hurry and over-work of our
large towns, to these peaceful drowsy retreats,
where the very spirit of repose has made its home
and the mere fact of existence is a delight.
‘Denmark is indeed a land where it seems always
afternoon; and the lotus-eater can wander day
after day among its beech-woods, and never weary
of the monotony. | |
But we tore ourselves away ere the beech-woods
had completely bewitched us with their sorceries.
More bracing and stimulating work awaited us
among the dark fjords, snowy fjelds, and _pine-
forests of Norway. ‘This country possesses a pe-
culiar interest to a Scotchman, not only because
it is the original home of the Highland flora, but
chiefly on account of its former intimate connexion
with the northern and eastern parts of Scotland
Colonies of Norsemen occupied these parts suffi-
ciently long to effect a radical change in the
appearance and manners of the primitive inha-
_ bitants—transforming the undersized Celt, afraid
of the sea, into the bold, adventurous, finely-
developed seaman. [rom this source were derived

150 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. {cuae.

the fair hair, blue eyes, and straight limbs which
characterise a large proportion of our seafaring
population, as well as the names so common.
among them, ending in soz, Anderson, Henderson,
Johnston, Paterson—which are the most frequent
at the present day in Norway—and the peculiar
terms applied to the Scottish firths, bays, and
promontories. With pleasant hopes kindled by
these associations, we embarked on Wednesday,
25th June, on board the Vzken, a Government
steamer regularly plying in the postal service
between Copenhagen and Christiania. Our pas-
' sage was a somewhat stormy one among the
white waves of the Cattegat. But after we had —
passed Gottenburg, on the Swedish coast, at which
we had called about two o'clock next morning,
when the town was buried in profound repose, ail
the rest of the voyage was calm and beautiful, and
there was nothing to mar our high enjoyment of ©
the wonderful intricacy and picturesque shores and
islands of the Christiania Fjord. Retiring to rest
after leaving Moss glowing with the indescribable
hues of a northern sunset, we awoke from a very —
unrefreshing sleep about six o'clock on Friday
morning, and found the steamer quietly moored
to the quay of Christiania. |

The morning was very bright and sunny.
Hastily dressing ourselves and collecting our traps;
we stepped ashore, glad enough to exchange the
heaving deep for solid earth, and the coffin-like
airless berths of the steamer for a limitless supply

Iv.] _ CHRISTIANIA. 151

of fresh air, blowing from the hills of Gamle
Norge. A few leisurely porters and drowsy
_ Government officials, blinking in the sun, were
lounging about, and neither bustle nor business
reminded us that we were standing on the quay
of a metropolis. After waiting a while, a custom-
house officer condescended to examine our lug-
gage, with his hands in his pockets and a cigar
in his mouth; and as we carried no contraband
goods, not even a flask of Glenlivet or a canister
of “bird’s-eye,” we were let off very easily, and
our crumpled toggery was speedily repacked. We
tried two of the hotels which the English are in
the habit of frequenting, but fortunately for our
purses we found them quite full, and were at last
obliged to take refuge in the Hétel Scandinavie,
where we were charged something like native
prices, and had no reason to complain either of
the fare or the attention. We were told that it
was a great gala day in Christiania, a market
being held there called St. Hans’ Fair, at which
timber-merchants from every part of Norway
meet to buy and sell wood. We should certainly
not have found out this fact ourselves, for the
streets appeared to us exceedingly quiet and
_deserted, only two or three people at long intervals
walking very slowly along the rough pavement,
smoking the eternal cigar, and wearing an air of.
leisureliness and repose, as if they were the heirs
expectant of time, most provoking to a fidgety
and active Englishman. Most of the population

Loe HOLIDA VSON HIGH LANDS: [CHAP. |
seemed to have congregated in our hotel, over-
flowing bedrooms, stairs, and lobbies, treading on
each other’s toes, distracting the hapless waiters
by their multifarious commands, and filling all.
the air with a confused clattering of unknown
tongues. | : Leaded
Christiania does not awaken much admiration in
a stranger’s mind. It is a very small city to be a
capital, and none of the buildings are either ancient
or imposing; most of the picturesque log-houses
that used to exist having been destroyed by fire
and replaced by plain brick buildings without any
architectural features. There are few shops, and
these generally small and shabby, dealing in mis-
cellaneous ware, like a druggist’s emporium in an
English country village. The best places of busi-
ness are in the Kirke-gaden; but the Norwegians
have so little skill and taste in displaying their
goods in the windows, that even the finest shops
present but a poor appearance outside. Some —
beautiful pieces of filigree silver, of native metal
and manufacture, may be purchased in this quarter,
as well as very ingenious specimens of Norwegian
carving, an art in which the inhabitants, especially
of Telemarken, rival the Swiss and Germans; but
the prices to English visitors are generally very
high. The people in their intercourse with one
another and in their business transactions outdo
the Parisians themselves in politeness. Their hats
are more frequently in their hands than on their
heads; and the magnificent sweep of the bow. with

wv] , THE PALACE, ae

which one grocer acknowledges the presence of
another in the street always elicited my unqualified
admiration. The free and independent British
tourist, who persists in wearing his hat alike under
the dome of St. Peters at Rome and in a
Christiania curiosity. shop, suffers immensely by
the comparison; and a blush of guilt rose to my
own cheek on more than one occasion, when, in
momentary forgetfulness that I was not at home,
I entered a shop with my hat on, and was recalled
to painful consciousness by the significant panto-
mime of the shopkeeper. If slaves cannot breathe
in England, Quakers certainly could not exist in
- Norway. 2 |

The only buildings that are at all handsome are
the Storthing or House of Commons, where the
Parliament of Norway meets once every three
years to transact during three months a very large
amount of gossip and a very small amount of busi-
ness; the university, with its library and museums;
and the palace of the king, situated on'a command-
ing eminence above the town, and surrounded by
gardens kept in a very slovenly stvle, the walks of
_ which are a favourite promenade of the citizens in
the cool of the evening. We visited this palace. It
_ was guarded by a solitary shabbily-dressed sentinel,
who paced slowly backwards and forwards with a
slouching gait, stopping every ten minutes to rub a
lucifer match against the wall of the building and
light a penny cigar. We asked him if we could
get admittance, and he pointed out to us a small

154. HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. {cuar.

side door, at which we knocked. A tall, fat, good-
natured woman appeared, and, conducting us
through a series of underground passages, brought
us up to the principal entrance-hall, from whence
we followed her over the whole building. We found ©
the palace of Charles XV. very similar to other
palaces. There were great rooms of state with
much édizarre gilding and little comfort; and there
were small rooms with little gilding and great snug- ©
ness. The private apartments of the king, queen,
and heir to the throne were very plainly furnished ;
and the bedrooms in which royalty takes the sleep
that, according to the Turkish proverb, makes
pashas of us all, had small curtainless beds like
sofas, and couches draped with a very threadbare-
looking tartan of the clan M‘Tavish. I suppose
the descendant of Bernadotte, on the same etymo-
logical principle that Donizetti was proved to be
the Italianized form of the Celtic Donald Izzet,
was a ninety-second cousin of some Highland —
family, and therefore took the tartan. The view of
the fjord and surrounding country which we ob-
tained from the leaden roof was truly magnificent,
and decidedly the most regal thing about the palace.
A wide expanse of sea stretched out before us, calm
and blue as an inland lake, studded with innumer-
able islands, covered with ships and boats sailing
in every direction, each floating double, ship and
shadow, in the transparent water, and bounded in the
distance by an irregular grouping of picturesquehills,
which gave the fjord a varied outline like the Lake

Iv. ] ENVIRONS OF CHRISTIANIA. 155

of the Four Cantons in Switzerland. Immediately

below was the old romantic castle of Aggershuus,
situated on a bold promontory of the sea, and
adorned with fine avenues of linden-trees along the
ramparts. This castle was besieged and taken by
the redoubtable Charles XII. of Sweden, and now
contains the regalia and the state records of Nor-
way. Close to the old town rose up the hill of
Egeberg, richly cultivated and wooded to the top,
and commanding an extensive prospect on every
side. Westwards, the white tower of Oscar’s Hall
—a summer residence of the King of Norway, and
containing a fine series of Tidemand’s paintings—
peeped out with picturesque effect from the midst
of a perfect nest of foliage, while the landscape in
that direction was perfected by the snow-capped
mountains of Valders and Telemarken visible in the
far background. Everywhere there were rich woods,
not only of pine and fir, but of deciduous trees,
elm, plane, ash, lilacs, and laburnums, growing in
the utmost luxuriance. On every side there were
cultivated fields, picturesque groups of rocks, gleam-
ing waters, rugged hills, and elegant villas em-
bosomed among fruit-trees and flowering shrubs.
I know of no town that has so many country-
houses scattered around it; and it would be difficult

to say which of them is most beautifully situated.

Each has its own separate view, its own woody
_ knoll, and cultivated field,and rocky islet, and vista
of the fjord. And this wondrous combination of
art and nature makes the environs of Christiania

156 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. {cuap.

quite a fairy scene. The sky, too, was so mellow
and blue, the air so clear and sunny, and the
colouring of the landscape so intense and glowing,
that I almost fancied myself in Italy instead of on
the 60th degree of north latitude—in the parallel
of the Shetland Islands. The only scenery which
the view from the palace suggested to me was the
southern extremity of the Lake of Geneva, looking
across the outskirts of the town to the Jura moun-
tains; but the comparison is greatly in favour of
Christiania.

We paid a visit, as in duty bound, to Mr. Bennett,
who is the great authority on matters Norwegian
to all Englishmen—reverenced by them almost as
much as Murray or Bradshaw. He lives amid a
curious collection of novels, “ Leisure Hours,” old
broken-down carrioles, silver drinking-cups, and a
lot of mixed pickles and Worcester sauce; the last
supposed to be absolutely essential to the existence
of the British tourist in Norway. He acts in so-
many capacities that he must be a kind of universal
genius, being antiquary, librarian, purveyor, cus-
tom-house agent, Deus ex machina of the Christiania
Carriole Company, and last, not least, churchwarden
and collector of subscriptions for the English chapel
in town. He has done, I have heard, many kind
and disinterested acts to strangers introducing
themselves to him; and he has been repaid in too
many instances by dishonesty and ingratitude. We
did not need the aid of his topographical know-
ledge, however, as we had previously sketched out

IVv.] THE MIOSEN LAKE. 157

our tour with remarkable fulness, and were deter-
mined to adhere to the programme in every parti-
cular. We therefore contented ourselves with
buying from him the last edition of the “ Lomme
reiseroute,” or Government road-book, and a trans-
lation or commentary upon it in English, called
“ Bennett's Handbook,” both of which we found
exceedingly useful, indeed indispensable, on the
journey; for an appeal to the prices of posting
marked in the “Lomme reiseroute” was never
disputed by the station-house keepers, and it saved
much loss of temper and waste of time in haggling
about payment. |

Having seen all that was to be seen in the way
of curiosities about Christiania—which certainly
was not much—we took out tickets on the follow-
ing Saturday for a short ride of forty-five miles on
one of the only two railways in all Norway, as far
as Eidsvold, the Norwegian Runnymede. The
railway was constructed by British navvies, and the
railway carriages were made in Birmingham. Proud
of our country’s universal services to humanity, wé
rolled along at the rate of eight miles an hour, over
a broken country of pine-woods, lakes, and rocky
foregrounds, till we came at last to the scene of the
Convention which framed the present admirable
constitution of Norway. Here we embarked on
the Miosen Lake in a steamer, boasting the funny
name of Skibladner, so called from Odin’s magical
_pocket-ship. This lake is the largest in Norway,
being 63 miles long and about 7 broad. It is very

158 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [cuap.

highly praised by the Norwegians, and the scenery
on its banks is considered the finest they have.
This is owing, however, to the same law of contrast
which made the Swiss peasant say to the Dutchman,
when told that Holland had not a single mountain,
“Ah! yours must be a fine country.” The Nor-
wegians have so little arable land, and such an
overwhelming preponderance of huge barren moun-
tains and rocky plateaux, that the scarcer article as
usual is most valued, and the profitable is preferred
to the picturesque. The proportion of soil under
culture, or capable of being cultivated, to the entire
extent of the country is not more than one to one
hundred ; while upwards of forty per cent. of the
surface of the southern half exceeds 3,000 feet
above the level of the sea. We were a good deal
\ disappointed in the scenery, having heard it com-
pared to Lake Como, with which it has not a single
feature in common. It is a fine sheet of water for.
boating purposes and for the transport of timber,
through many rafts of which the steamer in some
places fought its way; but the shores at the lower
extremity are banks of bare clay, crowned on the
top with a few miserable birches, and farther up
the land around it lies low, and is thickly dotted
with red wooden farmhouses and variegated by
potato and corn fields ; while the hills beyond are
of no great elevation, and are covered with inter-
minable forests of sombre pines, which produce a —
melancholy impression by their extreme monotony
—especially when, as is usually the case, the sky

P

3 | LOVE OF FLOWERS. 159

~ overhead is grey ee cloudy. We landed at about

_ half-past nine at night at a pretty large village at

- the head of the lake, called Lillehammer, amid the

silver splendours of a very singular sunset. This
village is built upon an elevated terrace, a consider-

able distance above the shore of the lake, and com-

mands a most extensive view. Bare brown moun-
tains sprinkled with patches of snow gird the
horizon, and give an air of Alpine loneliness and
wildness to a landscape that would otherwise have
been too rich and luxuriant. The houses, which
are all built of wood, are very clean-looking, and
neatly painted in pale colours of pink, yellow, and
green, which are frequently renewed. Many of
them are surrounded by gardens and orchards, or

-embosomed among clumps of white-stemmed
_birches and purple lilacs. In every window of
_ every house, even the poorest, are pots of the most
prilliant flowers, roses, calceolarias, verbenas, gera-
' niums, petunias, and many other plants, which one

would not expect to see in sucha latitude. They

are most carefully and skilfully tended; and even

in a duke’s conservatory such perfectly-formed and
gorgeous blossoms are rare. The love of flowers
is quite a passion with the Norwegians. Go where

you will—in the large towns and in the loneliest
parts of the country—you will find the windows of

the houses filled with the choicest plants, even the

_humblest making an effort to grow something green
-and brightly-coloured, that may remind them of a
world of beauty beyond their own bleak hills. A

160 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [cuar.
philosopher like him who made out murder to be
one of the fine arts, who is fond of tracing the final
causes of human phenomena, might find the reason
of this universal floral mania an interesting subject
of speculation. It may be caused by the love of
contrast ; the eye seeking relief in the bright colours
of roses, geraniums, and calceolarias, from the ex-
treme monotony of the green pine-forests and dark
brown fjelds. At any rate, the red and other gay
colours of the dwelling-houses, and the Oriental
brilliancy of the costumes of the people, may

fairly, I think, be attributed to this cause. |
_ We spent the Sunday in the village, and had the
privilege of worshipping in a little Lutheran church
not far from Hamar’s inn, where we stayed. It
was a welcome rest to body and soul. The day
was very beautiful, calm and soft, with wandering
gleams of sunshine breaking through the grey
clouds, and illuminating here and there the shadowy
pine-woods and the cornfields with a more vivid —
greenness. The lake lay still as a mirror below,
with belts of light and shade crossing its bosom,
and yellow timber rafts lying motionless along its
shores. At intervals the mellow monotone of the
cuckoo, whose Norwegian name gowk is the same
as the Scotch, came from the far-off pine-woods ;
nearer at hand, in the green fields, the corn-craik
uttered its harsh cry ; while the roar of the numer-
ous waterfalls of the Mesna, a powerful stream that
flows through the village down into the. lake,
sounded very loud in the universal Sabbath still-

"1.) PINE-WOODS OF LILLEHAMMER. 161

ness. After dinner I walked up the heights into
_ the shadows of the pine-woods. I sat down with
F: my Bible in avery peaceful and beautiful sanctuary
of nature. Before me, a fine cascade gleamed white
through the trees, and filled the wood with its
psalm of praise. Around me, the red trunks of the
pines stretched away into endless vistas of green
loneliness and odoraqus gloom. The ground every-
where was carpeted with rich and rare mosses—
cushions of that loveliest species, the ostrich plume
feather moss, and tufts of the Lycopodium annotinum.
There was one splendid lichen peculiar to Norway
and the Arctic regions, called Nephroma arctica,
which I saw in this wood for the first time. It
formed an immense rosette, upwards of a foot in
diameter, of primrose yellow lobes, their under side
tipped like finger-nails with the rich chocolate-
coloured fructification. It was really a most beau-
tiful plant, spreading over the ground everywhere,
-and would have been more in keeping with the luxu-
riance of a tropical forest than with the monotony
of a Norwegian pine-wood. The mossy carpet was
starred with fragile wood-sorrels and white coral-
like bilberry blossoms. I read the first chapter of
Revelation, and mused upon it, until I too had a
_ revelation of Jesus Christ in my Patmos; saw the
hairs of His head in the white flowers around me,
and His eyes and feet in the flaming sunset that
burned through the trees; and heard His voice in
the cataract, like the sound of many waters, and
felt, like “ Aurora Leigh ”— |

162 § HOLIDAVS ON HIGH LANDS. [cHap.

“No lily-muffled hum of a summer bee, Wes

Sa
cee

But finds some coupling with the spinning stars ;
No pebble at your feet, but proves a sphere ;
No chaffinch, but implies the cherubim ; >

. . « Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God ;
But only he who sees takes off his shoes.”

We started from Lillehammer early on Monday
morning, through the valley of Gudbrandsdal, to
Molde, a distance of nearly 200 miles, in a north-
western direction. Fortunately, there was at the
village a four-wheeled English carriage that had
brought a party from Molde to the Miosen Lake,
and now waited. to be brought back to its owner.
We got the carriage free on the condition of pay-
ing for the horses; and this arrangement materially
lessened the expense of the journey, as well as
added greatly to the comfort of the ladies of the
party. We formed a somewhat imposing pro-
cession as we passed through the village, and

attracted a considerable share. of attention from |

the inhabitants. The vehicle which contained my
friend and myself was what is called a s¢olkjerre,
or double carriole. It was simply a square un-
painted box, mounted on two wheels, without
springs, and furnished with long shafts and a hard
board laid across for a seat. It held us’ both
tightly jammed ; free to turn our heads round, but
not our bodies. The animal did not reflect much
credit upon his species, and his accoutrements
consisted of a most complicated and ragged
system of grey cord and old leather. -Altogether

v.) START FROM LILLEHAMMER. 163

it was a sorry turn-out, and it would require a
considerable amount of moral courage to drive

through London init. But the villagers thought

it rather grand than otherwise ; at least the boys
did not run after us, and a few peasants actually
doffed their caps. On we sped, seeing the rich
hilly scenery in glimpses through the dust of our
chariot wheels, with frequent and loud exclamations
of “Oh!” as the machine made a rougher jolt than
fsucal After: about an hour and a half’s drive,
the carriage suddenly disappeared up a by-road.
But we, absorbed in conversation, or in looking
at the scenery, had not noticed this movement ;

and thinking the carriage was ahead, though out

of sight, drove confidently onwards at full speed.
We were alarmed when we had gone a few hundred

_yards by hearing shouts in very energetic Nor-

wegian—meaning probably “Stop thief!”—and

seeing half-a-dozen fellows bounding rapidly to-
| wards us through the brushwood above the road.

One of them came forward, and, mounting on our

vehicle, without a word of explanation seized hold

of our reins, and drove us back prisoners up a
side-path till we came to a cluster of wooden

houses, where we halted. It seems that we had
arrived at the first of the series of stations placed

for the convenience of travellers at distances of

about one Norwegian, or seven English miles,
through the whole length of the Gudbrandsdal

valley. The horse and machine we had brought

with us from Lillehammer must here be changed

Mr

164 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [cuae.

for a fresh horse and machine, and the boy who
had accompanied the horses of the carriage had to —
take them back along with our equipage. Hence
the alarm of the natives at our ignorant escapade.
They thought that we were going to run off with
our magnificent dog-cart, and sell the whole affair
for a large sum at Molde. Of course, had they
known that we were clergymen, they would not
have insulted us and excited themselves by che-
rishing such fears; but there was nothing in our
appearance to indicate our profession, and I sup-
pose our faces, apart from our professional habili-
_ ments, were not accepted as conclusive evidence of
our honesty. | |

I must here pause a little to give an idea of the
mode of travelling in Norway, as this is a con-
venient halting-place for the purpose. There are
no stage coaches or diligences, for the people very
seldom travel, and then only on pressing business.
The most common and characteristic vehicle of
the country is called a carriole, shaped somewhat
like an old-fashioned gig. It has no springs, but
the shafts are very long and slender, and the
wheels very large, so that its motion is far from
being uncomfortable. It carries only one person,
who has to drive with his feet nearly on a level
with his nose, and a boy sitting behind on the
portmanteau, amalgamating its contents, whose
duty it is for an exceedingly small drikkepenge
or gratuity to take back the horse and machine.
‘Owing to this arrangement, a large party must go

s

Iv.] - MODE. OF TRAVELLING. 165

in a long file of carriages like a funeral procession.
The Norwegian horses are all small, cream-

~ coloured, and remarkably. docile and sure-footed,

so that the most timid lady or the youngest child

might safely drive them down the steepest gradients

at full speed. The roads are made by Government :
but each proprietor along the highway has to keep
a certain portion of it in good working order, this
portion being regulated according to the size and
value of the property through which it passes.
Painted wooden poles are placed at certain in-
tervals along the road, inscribed with the name of
the person who has to keep that part of it in order,
and the number of yards or a/en entrusted to his
supervision. You can, therefore, form a pretty
good idea of the wealth or poverty of any neigh-

bourhood through which you travel by the greater

or less distances of road thus distributed to the
owners of land. At regular intervals of seven or
eight English miles—as already observed—there
are placed . station-houses, where fresh. horses

and conveyances may be had, as well as lodging

and entertainment for man and beast. These

stations are either fast or slow stations. At
_ the fast stations a number of horses and carrioles
are kept regularly, ready for the convenience of
travellers; so that you ought not to be detained on

your journey more than half an hour. A printed

_ Government-book is kept at each of these stations,
where the traveller writes down his name, the
“number of horses and carriages he requires, the

IG HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [cnap.
place he has come from, and his destination, as
well as any complaint he may have to make on
the score of carelessness or detention. Such com-
plaints are inquired into regularly by a Govern-
ment inspector, and redressed as far as possible.
Some of the remarks made in the column of
complaints by Englishmen are very amusing.
There was one English name which we found in
the road-book of every station, coupled with some
depreciating remark upon the scenery, the manners
of the people, the nature and price of food, &c. &c.
Nothing seemed to please his jaundiced eye and
bilious stomach. Doing the journey post-haste, a
detention of ten minutes in changing his horse and
carriage at a new station was a most exaggerated
offence. Desirous of making a profit of his tour,
by spending less for travelling and keep together
than his ordinary personal expenses would have
cost at home, the charge of fivepence for a cup of |
coffee with solid accompaniments was considered —
most exorbitant. Here the people were exces-
sively disobliging, and he was half-starved upon |
strong-smelling gamle ost (old cheese), parchment-
like fladbrod, of which nearly an acre is required
to satisfy an ordinary appetite, and butter that
looked like railway grease; there the eggs were all
rotten, there were no toothpicks, and the landlord
was an extortionate Jew. With a slight variation ,
upon the same lively tune he went from place to ~
place. Fortunately, as English was not the lan-
-guage of the country, his Parthian shafts did not

1v.] THE ROAD.BOOK. ete

wound so severely as he intended. On the con-
trary, it was amusing to see the conscious pride
with which his ill-natured remarks were pointed
out to us by more than one innkeeper, who
imagined in the innocence of his heart that they
could not be anything else than highly laudatory.
We were glad to see that others of our country-
men, following in the wake of Mr. Smith, had
reversed his decision, and by their genial and
hearty commendation of many things that were
really excellent saved Englishmen from the impu-
tation—which they too often justify abroad—of
being a nation of grumblers. And while I am on
this subject I may as well mention that very great
harm is done to the peasantry by the thoughtless
and indiscriminate lavishness on the one hand, and
the excessive meanness and stinginess on the other,
of our countrymen. The simple-hearted people
_ cannot understand the inconsistency ; and Norway
promises, if the same demoralizing system con-
_ tinues to be pursued as at present, to be a second
edition of Switzerland and the Rhine—a result
which every one who knows and can appreciate
the primitive straightforwardness, the genuine
kindness, and honest independence of the Nor-
_ wegians must deplore.

At the slow stations the peasants of the neigh-
bourhood are obliged by turns to supply the traveller
with a horse and conveyance; and, unless he sends
a forbud or messenger before him to apprise the
people of the exact time of his coming, he may have

168 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. | (ieuar. &
to wait several hours while the horse is being caught _
on the hills. Of course, should the traveller dis- —
appoint the station-keeper, either by delay or by _
failing to appear altogether, compensation must
be given. We had no experience of these slow
stations, for all the stations on. the route. we
took were fast, so that we got on very swiftly
and pleasantly. We met no English travellers
alli the time; and our claims for horses and
conveyances were never brought into competition
with those of others. Some of the stations are
poorly furnished, and very scantily supplied with
provisions. You may riot in Goshen-like plenty
to-day, and to-morrow be reduced to fladbrod and
porridge. The traveller who passes in the morn-
ing may fare sumptuously upon reindeer-venison,
.ptarmigan, and salmon; while he who comes late
in the day may have to content himself with polish-
ing the bones and gathering up the fragments which
his more fortunate predecessor has left. In some
quarters the innkeepers shift so frequently that no
dependence for two successive years can be placed
upon Murray’s certificate of character; and we
ourselves found the best entertainment, the great-.
est attention, and the most moderate charges, in
places marked dangerous on account of the very
opposite qualities. Many of the stations are filthy,
and uninhabitable by any one more refined than
a Laplander, swarming with F sharps and B flats. —
Indeed, the king of the fleas keeps his court—not
at Tiberias, as travellers say—but at a Norwegian

ae PROVISIONS. , 169

station-house of the worst class. We, however,
were either more fortunate than the great bulk of

— tourists, or our bodies were unusually pachyder-

matous, for in no case were we tormented during

the night watches, and generally the larder was
well supplied with salmon, trout, beefsteaks, and
eggs, The price of accommodation was ridiculously
low—at least when compared with the bill of a
Highland hotel. We had a magnificent supper,
a capital bed, and a breakfast consisting of more
than six dishes of a very solid character, at the first
station we halted at, and the cost of the whole was
only Is. 104d. for each. The price of accommoda-
tion, as well as the charge for horses and con-
veyances, is fixed by Government tariff, but the

innkeepers invariably ask more from Englishmen,

as they imagine that every native of these. islands
who travels in their country must be an embryo
Rothschild. The usual rate of keep per day is a
specie-dollar,—that is, 4s. 6d. of our money; and

the day’s travelling expenses, along with keep,

unless you go enormous distances at a stretch,

should very rarely exceed an average of 10s. The

-station-house keepers are a very respectable class

of men, usually. They are often landed proprietors
or justices of the peace, and only set themselves
out for the entertainment and transport of travellers
because they are obliged to do so by Government.
Indeed, this innkeeping and posting business is a

tax, and they pay it as we pay income-tax, with

something like a grudge. They must, therefore, be

170 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. {cnar.

treated with civility, and in some instances with
very considerable respect. A Norwegian innkeeper,
if ordered about like a Highland Sandie M’Tonald,
would considerably astonish the traveller guilty of
such boldness. |

But to return from this digression, necessary ©
to explain our mode of travel, to the route itself.
The road through the Gudbrandsdal is the regular
postal route from Christiania to Throndhjem, and is
therefore the most frequented and the best known
part of the country. And yet the people are almost
as unsophisticated as in the remotest districts.
They crowded around us at the different stations,
questioned us on all sorts of subjects, and carefully
examined our dress and luggage. The ladies of
our party were especial objects of curiosity to the
. women. Their ornaments and watches were tenderly
touched, and greatly admired. Hands were lifted
up in amazement at the strange wonders which
glimpses of foreign boots and petticoats disclosed. —
An air cushion. inflated for their benefit, and
placed on the carriage seat, and then sat upon by
an adventurous Dutch-built dame, elicited shouts of
merriment. A few presents of pins, buttons, and
Birmingham trinkets made them insist on shaking
hands with us all round, a proof of friendship
which, owing to the general prevalence of that
touch of nature which makes Norway and Scot-
land kin, the ladies were somewhat shy of accepting.
The flaxen-haired cherubs had a revelation of a
higher world than the common world of fladbrod

4

a

IV. | VICHENS OF ,FISTAD. | 171

and porridge—a foretaste of Valhalla itself—in the
unknown delights of English comfits and lollipops;
though I am not sure that it was really kind in us
thus to awaken capacities and educate senses which,
after a momentary fruition of bliss, must thence-
forward be craving for the unattainable and “the
unconditioned,”

After passing several stations, and accomplishing
nearly fifty miles, we arrived late in the evening at
Listad, near the picturesque and ancient church of
Ringebo, where we stayed all night. About half a
mile distant from the station-house, a wild gorge be-
tween micaceous cliffs is formed by the Vaalen Elv,
a large torrent that flows from the mountains on
the left into the Lougen. Here, on the white vellum-
like bark of the birch-trees, I gathered for the first
time in Norway great quantities of that most lovely
lichen, the Cetrarza juniperina, in full fructification.
The thallus is richly frilled, and of a most vivid
yellow colour, contrasting beautifully with the
broad shields of deep chocolate brown borne on
the extremities of the lobes. Expanded by. the
recent rain, this lichen covered with its shaggy
tufts all the trunks and branches of the trees, and
imparted to the wood a very singular appearance.
The mossy ground was also tesselated by large
patches of the Cetraria nivalis, a snowy scolloped
lichen growing in erect rigid tufts, which in this
country is only found on the extreme summits of

the Cairngorm mountains. The scenery of the

Gudbrandsdal valley is praised in the most exagge-

Fi te OOS oe

172 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [cuap. -

rated terms by Murray. He says that it affords
a series of the finest landscapes in the world, and
that it is doubtful whether any other river can show

such a constant suecession of beautiful views as-

the Lougen, which flows through it. The valley is

indeed remarkable for its length, being 168 English

miles long; and the greater part of it is richly
cultivated, with pine-clad hills rising on either side,
but almost never picturesque in outline, or assuming
an Alpine character. It is in fact a mere trough
-across one of the most massive and featureless
mountain chains in Norway, bounded on both sides
by comparatively uniform and level background.
The great peaks retire behind the sky-line so as to
be completely invisible; there are no distant pros-
pects, none of those charming lateral vistas caused

}
*

by interlacing mountains, which reveal enough only |

to stimulate the imagination, and solicit it onward
to grander scenes beyond. Even in the wildest

and most romantic parts of the route, which are —

considered to be the entrance of the valley between
Lillehammer and Moshuus, and the Pass of Rusten,

between Laurgaard and Braendhaugen, the view is

either exhausted altogether, or, as in passing up
Loch Katrine to the west, the eye sees out through
the romantic to the tame and flat beyond; thus
greatly impairing the impression which such a spot
ought to produce. There are many landscapes in.
the Highlands quite equal, if not superior, to those
of the Gudbrandsdal valley. Owing to the peculiar
conformation of the mountains, the really splendid

A PASS OF RUSTEN. Ce we

scenery of Norway 1 is confined to the fjords of the
_ west coast.
_ We were greatly charmed suit the river ae
which, always very broad and deep, expands here
and there into chains of lakes—some of which, like
the Lake of Losna, are navigable for large vessels.
Indeed, for upwards of twenty miles, between
Moshuus and, Listad, the journey used to be ac-
complished by a steamer, which has now been
withdrawn. Some very fine cataracts occur in the
course of the river; and the roar of the immense
_ body of water, broken up into snow-white masses
contrasting beautifully with its uniformly rich green

colour elsewhere, combined with the picturesque-
ness of its lofty banks adorned with hanging woods
of pine and birch, produce a profound impression.
At the Pass of Rusten especially the river is truly
sublime, forcing its way through a narrow gateway
in thé mountains, which approach each other so
closely that the road has been cut out of the living
rock. It is a fearful place, of which the Pass of
Killiecrankie can give one no idea; and we drove
shudderingly through it on the brink of precipices
overhanging the deep foaming linns of the river.
On the eneissic rocks through which the road was
_ cut I observed an immense quantity of a very rare
lichen called Gyrophora murina, which is included
in the list of British lichens on the authority of
_ specimens found on St. Vincent’s Rock by a Mr.
_ Dare, but which has not since been seen there, or
_ indeed anywhere else in this country. It consists

9

ies HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. (CHAP. ”

of a single roundish, crumpled, concave leaf, from
an inch to an inch and a half in diameter, attached
by acentral disk to its growing-place. Its upper
side is of a dark ash colour, passing into dark brown
on the edges ; the under side being of a deep black,
covered with minute shagreen-like roughness, inter-
spersed with scattered fibres. The rocks in this
locality were completely blackened with it; and
were thus harmonized with the profound gloom of
the spot. Norway is the head-quarters of this
tribe of lichens; which are also common on our
highest Highland mountains. On the bare arid
rocks behind Christiansand occurs that most sin-
gular member of the family, the Umbihcaria
pustulata, like large ragged patches of dark brown
parchment, covered with warts or pustular eleva-
“tions of the whole surface of the thallus. Below
the fortress of Bergenhuus, that guards the harbour
of Bergen, I noticed it growing in immense pro-
fusion, giving a very shaggy look to the rocks.
Common on the granite of Devonshire, and espe-
cially on Dartmoor, in Scotland-it is only found
near the head of Loch Sligachan in Skye. On
this route we saw no villages cosily grouped round
a church, whose spire is conspicuous from afar.
The churches are lonely buildings, few and far
between, and the names crowded so thickly on
Munch’s admirable map indicate mere farmhouses
with their steadings, called a gaard, equivalent to
the Scottish towz. This isolation and dispersion
of the houses over a wide area is a singular feature

Ww] MASSACRE OF KRINGELEN. 175_

in Norwegian landscapes, and arises from the fact
that almost every head of a family is the proprietor

of the land on which he dwells. It gives, as Pro-

fessor Forbes has remarked, a dreary interminable
aspect to a journey, like that of a book unrelieved
by subdivision into chapters, where we are at least
invited to halt, though at liberty to proceed.

Next day, before coming to the gorge of Rusten,
we passed the cleft of Kringelen, where Colonel
Sinclair, nephew of the Earl of Caithness, and his
regiment of Scotch mercenaries, were massacred

by an ambush of the peasants in 1612. Sinclair

offered his services to Gustavus Adolphus, King of
Sweden, who was then at war with Norway and
Denmark. Landing from Scotland at Molde, he
marched through Romsdal, intending to cross the
uplands of Norway to the frontiers of Sweden,
laying waste the country as he passed with fire and
sword, and committing many acts of remorseless

cruelty. Exasperated to the utmost fury, and un-

able to contend with Sinclair in open fight, a band
of 500 peasants adopted the same expedient as
that recorded in the Tyrolese war of independence.
Having collected an enormous quantity of rocks
and stones on the brow of the hill immediately

_above the pathway leading through the narrow
defile of Kringelen, they awaited the signal of a>

young man who had undertaken to guide Sinclair
to this spot. No sooner were the devoted troops

fairly underneath, and the signal given, than the
fatal avalanche descended, burying them under the

La, | ‘

‘176 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [ewap.”
huge pile, so that only a few escaped. An affect-
ing incident in connexion with this tragic event is
commonly told to the traveller. A Norwegian
lady in the neighbourhood, hearing that Mrs. Sin-
clair was with her husband, sent her own lover, to
whom she was to be married next day, to protect
her from insult; but Mrs. Sinclair, mistaking his
intentions, drew a pistol from her bosom, and shot
him dead on the spot. It is said that Mrs. Sinclair,
a young and beautiful woman, was most devotedly
attached to her husband, whom she followed across
the sea disguised in male attire, and did not reveal
herself until the arrival of the troops in Norway,
when she could not be sent home.- The dalesmen
are never tired» of, reciting the praises orm cae
valorous countrymen on this occasion, An inscrip-—
_ tion on a pillar by the roadside marks the scene of
the massacre, and tells how “the peasants, among
whom dwell honour, virtue, and all that earns
praise, brake the Scotch to pieces like a potter’s -
vessel.” In the peasants’ huts, matchlocks, broad-
swords, powder-flasks, and other relics of the regi-
ment are shown to tourists with much patriotic
enthusiasm. There is a Norwegian ballad entitled
“Herr Sinclair’s Vise af Storm,’ sung by almost
every native, of the end of which the following is a
free translation :—

“ Strike home, ye valiant Northmen all!
Was the dalesmen’s answering cry ;
And fast the Scottish warriors fall,
And in their gore they lie. 7

=

ev) NORWEGIAN BALLAD. Fey

“The raven flapped his jet black wing
As he mangled the face of the slain ;

And Scottish maids a dirge may sing
For the lovers they'll ne’er see again.

“No one of the fourteen hundred men
E’er returned to his home to tell
What peril awaits the foe in each glen,
Where the stalwart Northmen dwell.

“A pillar stands where our foemen lie,
In deadly fight o’erthrown ;
And foul fall the Northman whose heart beats not high
When he looks on that old grey stone.”

The natives, as in this ballad, try to prove that
the slaughter of the Scotch was not a treacherous
_ massacre, but the result of a brave hand-to-hand
_ encounter. And they will not believe that Scotch-
men care very little for the fate of Sinclair and his
_mercenaries, of whom not one in a thousand has
ever heard. We certainly did not blush for our
country when we surveyed the wild scene.

After passing through the dark gorge of Rusten-
berg the road gradually ascends, until, at last, an
elevation of 1,800 feet above the level of the sea
has been attained. The scenery in consequence
becomes bleaker and less wooded ; the spruce and
pine gradually giving place to the birch, which here
forms the principal tree—-and, as usual, has a
whiter and cleaner trunk and brighter foliage in
proportion to the altitude.’ The cultivation of

1 It is interesting to notice that in all probability the name of the
_ birch comes from the Sanscrit word 4ho00rja, applied to the laminated

bark of an Indian birch (Betula Bhojpatra) used for writing and
: N

\

178 HOLIDAVS ON HIGH LANDS. [cuar.

corn and potatoes is merged in that of grass and
hay; and the fields, which look dry and parched,
are irrigated by means of wooden troughs, in which
water is led down, often for long distances, from
the mountains. The air feels keener and more
bracing ; patches of snow appear in the shady
hollows far down the mountain sides on our left ;
and the landscape assumes a wilder and more
Alpine character. At Braendhaugen the road is
very sandy ; this part of the valley, called Lessoe,
which is purely pastoral, having evidently been
once the bottom of an extensive glacier lake.
Great banks of clay, scantily covered with grass,
and presenting a peculiarly bleak grey appearance,
rise up on the right-hand side of the river. This
feature continues uninterruptedly to Dombaas, and
the soil is so loose and sandy that the steep sides
of the road are covered with withered patches of
artificial turf fastened by wooden nails to prevent
them slipping. It is very disagreeable travelling
along this part of the route in dry weather, owing
to the clouds of dust raised by the vehicles. Fol-
lowing immediately behind the carriage—for our
spirited horse could not be kept back—we were

ornamental purposes, like the paper-birch of North America. If
this be so, it affords a striking proof of the theory that the ancestors
of the present races of Europe migrated westwards from Central Asia.
The bestowal of the name of an Indian birch upon a similar tree-
peculiar to the northern latitudes of Europe is as curious in its way
as the bestowal of Saracen names, such as Mischebel, Al-al-’Ain,
derived from the natural objects of the Arabian desert, upon the
mountains and glaciers of Switzerland during the Moorish invasion.

Iv.] TOFTEMOEN. 179

nearly suffocated. Our clothes were as white as a
miller’s, and the scenery appeared to us all the
harsher on account of the scanty glimpses we
obtained of it, and the irritation of the gritty
particles in our eyes. At Braendhaugen the good
old lady who keeps the station showed us the silver
cup presented to her by the Queen of Norway and
Sweden; but my recollection of this stage hangs
chiefly upon a pair of magnificent reindeer antlers
nailed above the door, indicating that reindeer
venison is occasionally found here.

We were very tired after the long day’s journey;
the heat and dust had been very oppressive; and,
for my own part, the jolting on a cushionless seat
had made me so sore and tender that I could
scarcely walk or sit. At eight o'clock at night we
arrived at the mountain station of Toftemoen.
Here we expected to stay all night; but a party
from Throndhjem had sent on a fordud and secured
all the available accommodation, and we had there-
fore to go on to the next station, where we could
get quarters. We were glad, however, to rest a
little and get some refreshment at Toftemoen.
This is a very ancient place, and famous in the
sagas. It is one of the mountain stations which
have the privilege of immunity from taxes, and
appears to be one of the most comfortable resting-
places in Norway. The proprietor is Mr. Tofte,
well known throughout the whole country. He is
the lineal descendant of Harold Haarfager, the
first King of all Norway, and, in consequence of

N 2

180 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [cuar.

Odin, the mythological Hercules of the North.
The family are exceedingly proud of their birth, -
and take precedence of all the other proprietors
at church and market. They have never been
known for many generations to marry out of their
own family—-the result being that the present
owner of the name is a simpleton, and his eldest
son nearly a dwarf. This descendant of kings and
representative of the oldest family in Europe un-
harnessed our horses for .us like any common
stable-boy. I treated him with considerable defer-
ence—though whether he was more impressed by
my manner or my attempts at Norwegian I cannot
say. But, in return, he showed me the principal
rooms in his house, which contain many curious
old cabinets, and a broad slate table on which the
present King of Norway and Sweden dined on his
way to be crowned at Throndhjem. I saw the
king’s autograph, which he had scratched with a
knife at one corner of the table. Tofte told me,
with an air of considerable self-importance, of the
dignified reception which he had given to the king;
and related that, when the king wished to bring
out his silver for dinner, he replied that he had as
much silver in his house as would suffice to dine a
much larger party than the king’s. This was no
idle boast, for I never saw in a private person’s”
dwelling such a vast quantity of massive silver
articles, evidently heirlooms, dating, some of them,
many centuries back. Besides being possessed of
the bluest of blue blood, Tofte is a wealthy landed

*

Iv. | - ILIWILIGHT AT DOMBAAS. 181

proprietor, a member of the Storthing or House of
- Commons, and a justice of the peace. This did
not prevent him, however, from charging us a
higher price than we had paid anywhere else for
the entertainment we had at his house. He pre-
_ sented me with his photograph taken at Christiania,
dressed very stiffly and uncomfortably in Sunday
clothes. The face is intensely Scotch, with a pecu-
liar look of combined simplicity and shrewdness.
The rest of our journey that night was not very
pleasant, and it was past eleven o’clock when we
arrived at the telegraphic station of Dombaas. All
was quiet and still; the people apparently having
gone to bed, and sunk into the first deep sleep.
Though so late at night, there was no darkness.
You could read the smallest print with the utmost
_ distinctness ; and but for the stillness of nature,
and an indefinable feeling of mellowness and
tenderness in the air, you might imagine it to be
noon instead of midnight. The long bright Nor-
wegian twilight is inexpressibly beautiful. The
earth sleeps, but her heart waketh; the golden
tints of the departing day still linger on the dis-
tant hills; and a light, soft and sweet as the smile
of an infant in its first slumber, fills all the sky,
and you would think that the dawn had returned,
only that the glory is in the west instead of in the
east. Nothing reminds you of darkness and sleep
but the rich liquid lustre of Venus hanging near
the pale blue horizon, like a silver lamp let down
out of heaven by an unseen hand, and flecking a

182 HOLIDAVS ON HIGH LANDS. aa

little shadowy pathway of light upon every ex-
posed sheet of water. The long daylight is very

favourable’ to the growth of vegetation, plants
growing in the night as well as in the day in the
short but ardent summer.. But the stimulus of
perpetual solar light is peculiarly trying to the
nervous system of those who are not accustomed
to it. It prevents proper repose and banishes sleep.

I never felt before how needful darkness is for
the welfare of our bodies and minds. I longed for
night; but the farther north we went, the farther
we were fleeing from it, until at last, when we

reached the most northern point of our tour, the
sun set for only one hour and a half. Consequently,

the heat of the day never cooled down, and accu-
mulated until it became almost unendurable at last.
Truly for a most wise and beneficent purpose did
God make light and create darkness. “Light
is sweet, and it is a pleasant thing to the eyes to
behold the sun.” But darkness is also sweet ; it is
the nurse of nature’s kind restorer, balmy sleep ;
and without the tender drawing round us of its
curtains, the weary eyelid will not close, and the
jaded nerves will not be soothed to refreshing rest.
Not till the everlasting day break, and the shadows
flee away, and the Lord Himself shall be our light
and our God our glory, can we do without the
cloud in the sunshine, the shade of sorrow in the
bright light of joy, and the curtain of night for
the deepening of the sleep which God gives His

beloved. : oe)

IV. ] _ SHORTNESS OF BEDS. 183

We had considerable difficulty in arousing the
people from their slumbers, but at last we suc-
, ceeded in obtaining the services of a blithesome lass,
who speedily extemporized beds for us, and made
us as comfortable as possible on such short notice.
The beds in Norway, I may mention, are all pro-
crustean ; a kind of domestic guillotine invented
for the purpose of amputating the superfluous
length of Englishmen’s legs. The Norwegians are
a tall race, but I suppose they lie doubled up in
bed like the letter V, the os coccygis touching the
footboard, and the feet and head keeping loving
company on the same pillow. Though not above
the average height, my own unfortunate limbs were
hanging exposed over the footboard; the down
quilt Jay in all its rotundity in my arms like a
nightmare of some monster baby ; and, while sleep-
ing uneasily in this awkward posture, I dreamt that
I had been metamorphosed somehow into a water-
fall, and was flowing in white masses of foam, and
with a considerable murmur, over very hard and
slippery rocks. Next morning we felt the air a
good deal colder, for we were now at an elevation
of upwards of 2,000 feet above the level of the sea.
The scenery of the place was bare treeless upland,
_ very sparingly cultivated. The road to Throndhjem
passed in a series of ups and downs over mono-
tonous brown hills to our right; while the high-
_ way to Molde lay far down in an equally featureless
valley to our left. A few hillocks here and there
broke the level surface, covered with grey boulders,

184 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [cHap.”

and clothed, instead of heather, which is somewhat
rare in Norway, with crowberry and arbutus bushes.
The lovely large blue-bells of the Menziesia peeped ©
up everywhere among the familiar moorland vege-
tation; the Andromeda displayed its rich crimson
blossoms on every dry knoll; while the clayey
banks were brightened and beautified exceedingly
with multitudes of the fairy Scottish primrose,
whose sulphury leaves and tiny purple flowers are
the ornament of the Caithness cliffs, but proceed
no farther south in this country. There was an air
of inexpressible loneliness about the place; the
stillness being broken only by the feeble bleat of a
few sheep and goats—as diminutive, though full-
srown, as lambs and kids—and the tinkle of the
bells suspended round the necks of the no less
* Lilliputian cattle. A few pigs ran about, as thin
as greyhounds; and the Alpine vegetation, as well
as the small size of animal life, testified to the
ungenial character of the climate. The coolness —
of the air was very pleasant to us, roasted as we
had been so long in the confined valley; but it
must be a very trying thing to live at this elevated
station in winter. Storms must blow over its
shelterless fields with unexampled fury, and the
snow drift in huge masses around it. The short
black December day will be like the frown of Odin,
and every wild night lit up by the magical radiance
of the Aurora Borealis will be a Walpurgis-Nacht.
Woe to the traveller who is then obliged to cross
the Dovrefjeld!

wi) POVERTY-STRICKEN DISTRICT. 185

After leaving Dombaas, the scenery became
exceedingly tame and uninteresting. Huge fea-
tureless mountains of gneiss scantily clothed with
brown moorish vegetation enclosed a dreary valley
covered with straggling pines. The road at first
passed over a desolate height among stunted firs
and junipers—where immense cairns of stones
blackened with tripe-de-roche lichens and Alpine
mosses everywhere encumbered the ground. The
pastures here were very bare and stony. Large
tufts of the aconite or monkshood, peculiar to
_Alpine pastures, spread over them as thickly as the
yellow rag-weed spreads over a fallow field in
England. The sheep and cows were miserably
thin and ill-fed. It was a poverty-stricken region,
sadly contrasting with the rich Gudbrandsdal and
the fertile Romsdal, between which it lay. Most
of the houses were rude hovels of the most primi-
_ tive construction. We noticed that a considerable
number of the birches by the roadside had a broad
ring of black round their white stems. The bark
had been stripped off to cover the roofs of the
houses ; shingles or turf being laid above. This
birch bark has a very pleasant smell, and is besides
very durable and quite impervious to moisture.
The walls were made of squared trunks of trees, in-
geniously dovetailed at the corners, with layers of
sphagnum or bog moss inserted between each log, in
order to keep out the cold. From these squalid
abodes crowds of bareheaded, barefooted children
in fluttering picturesque rags rushed out as we

pre

186 HIOLIDA YS ON HIGH LANDS, [CHAP.

passed by, clamorous for alms, following us for
long distances with their importunities. As the
road in this locality was crossed at frequent in-
tervals by gates, separating the numerous small
farms from each other, this circumstance was taken
advantage of in earning an honest penny. No
sooner did our carrioles appear in sight than a boy
would rush out from a house, with three pieces of
rag floating behind him, and run with headlong
speed along the road to open the nearest gate for
us. Frequently, however, his hopes of a skilling or
two were disappointed by the forethought of a
longer-headed comrade, who had stationed himself
at the gate in readiness to open it at once to the
expected travellers. In such cases, we always re-
warded the honest labour of the legs, and not the
slothful cunning of the brain. The Lovgen at this
part of the route passes through several lakes, the
largest called Lesje Vand, and the smallest Lesje
Vaerks Vand, which is 2,078 feet above the level

of the sea. Here a rare and curious phenomenon
in physical geography may be seen. The river
Lovgen, whose course we had been following for
upwards of 200 miles from Lillehammer, issues from
the last-mentioned lake on the south-east and
flows through the Miosen Lake to the Christiania
Fjord; while the Ravma issues from the other
extremity and, flowing to the north-west through
the valley of Romsdal, falls into the Molde Fjord.
The whole of Southern Norway is thus surrounded
by water, and converted into an island.. |

Iv.] ASCENT OF DOVREFFELD. 187

Passing a miserable place called Holager, we
arrived very early in the day at Holseth, a very
clean and comfortable station. As we had resolved
to remain here over the night, I embraced the
opportunity of ascending one of the Dovrefjeld
mountains, upwards of 4,000 feet high, immediately
in front of the inn. The first part of the ascent was
exceedingly arduous, leading through a tangled
maze of junipers and dwarf birches (Letula nana),
creeping over loose fragments of rocks, and form-
ing the underwood of a splendid forest of Scotch
firs. I was delighted to find here the Pyrola unzfiora,
perfuming the air with the delicious fragrance of its
large erect snow-white blossom. -In boggy places
grew a remarkably beautiful and stately species of
“rattle” (Pedicularis sceptrum Carolz), called by
the people Karvl’s skefter. It is peculiarly a Lap-
land plant, and I was astonished to find it so far
south. It is upwards of three feet high, the upper
half being a spike of golden flowers. Rearing its
lofty head above the grass, it looks like a royal
sceptre, and is a great ornament to the wood. In
the same moist localities I also found the stately
Angelica archangelica, whose pungent aromatic
stems, called syrstut, are highly prized by the
Norwegians for their stomachic properties, and
eagerly gathered wherever they can find it. Above
the forest region, the mountain, though very much
steeper, was less encumbered with shrubs, and
therefore more easily climbed. The most abrupt
_declivities of the Norwegian hills are invariably on

ne

188 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [cuap.
the western side, the eastern side having a gradual
inclination, while the summits consist of broad flat
tablelands. Owing tothis feature, the various zones
of vegetation do not rise above one another as in
the Alps and other mountain chains, but rather lie
side by side; so that you may travel several days
on slightly rising ground through the region of
the firs ; for several days more through the zone of |
the birch; and for an equal length of time through
the belt of the Alpine plants, before the snow-
covered ridge is attained. ‘The botany of Norway,
therefore, over very wide spaces of mountainous
territory, is somewhat monotonous, presenting none
of those quick transitions which form the charm
of Alpine exploration, and rendering botanizing a
work of time and great fatigue. The season of my
visit happened to be a late one—the previous winter
having been unprecedentedly severe and protracted.
The side of the hill was therefore covered with
brown and matted grass, smoothly pressed’ by the
snow that had very recently lain upon it; and on
the top there were great snow-wreaths, over which
I walked with considerable difficulty. Few of the
Alpine plants had yet begun to flower; but in
many places exposed to the sun I observed
enormous patches in full bloom of the Alpine
azalea. The foliage could not be seen for the mul-
titude of rosy flowers. In this country we see it
only in little tufts or fragments, which, however
beautiful, give no idea of its exquisite loveliness
when growing,as on the Norwegian mountains, in

muna LY AND VARIETY OF PLANTS. 189

solid masses of colour almost acres in extent. Its
beauty was greatly enhanced by a setting of rein-
deer-lichen, which whitened the ground everywhere
with its snow-white coral-like tufts. It is with
lichens as with Alpine plants; they increase in
beauty and luxuriance the higher the altitude or
latitude. Every one is familiar with the reindeer-
moss of our own moorlands; but the variety that
grows on the mountains of Norway and the plains
of Lapland is far lovelier, forming dense and much-
divided tufts of snowy purity and exquisite shape.
The rosy flowers of the azalea gleaming among
these lichens looked like rubies or garnets set
round with filigree work of frosted silver or carved
ivory.

Every dry stony knoll on the hill was covered
_ with the compact cushion-like masses of the Green-
land saxifrage, with dense tufts of the Alpine
Lychnis (which in this country, as already men-
tioned, is only found in one locality), or with carpets
of mossy campion. Here and there, in marshy
places, the rare Andromeda hypnoides formed bright
green mossy tufts, from whence arose a profusion
of slender hair-like crimson stalks, each bearing a
single white bell-shaped blossom. Side by side
with it grew the Pedicularis lapponica, whose soft
yellow blossoms formed a pleasing contrast; and
the globular snow-white heads of the rare cotton-
grass (Eriophorum Schevchgzert). Owing to the
lateness of the season, the Axemone vernalis was
‘still in flower on the sunny slopes, distinguished

190 | \HOLIDAVS ON HIGH LANDS. — [cuap.,

by its shaggy calyx clothed with brownish silky
hairs, and its large white blossoms tinged with
purple. But it was among the cryptogamic plants
that I gathered the richest harvest of species,
The droppings of horses immediately above the
fir-forest were covered with no less than four species
of Splachnum—that rarest and loveliest genus of
mosses, viz. S. rubrum, luteum, ampulaceum, and
vasculosum. The first two are peculiar to Norway
and the Arctic circle; and the last two are found
on the highest Scottish hills, forming dense cushions
of large transparent foliage around springs. It is
the peculiarity of this singular tribe of Alpine
mosses that they almost all grew on organic sub-
stances, such as skulls of sheep and deer; one
species having been found on the decayed hat of a
traveller who had perished amid the snows of
St. Bernard. On the summit of the hill, the ground
was covered everywhere with dense erect tufts of
Cornicularia ochroleuca, and the snowy scolloped —
Cetraria nivalis—iichens which in this country are
found very sparingly distributed only on the highest
summits of the Cairngorm range. The stems of the
former are sulphur-coloured, about half a foot long,
repeatedly branched, the ultimate branches tinged
with a dark greenish hue, as if a faint foreshadow-
ing of grass. Nothing could exceed its luxuriance
in this spot, forming carpets into which the foot
sank up to the ankle. The rocks were whitened
with the large granulated branchy excrescences of.
the Steveocaulon paschale, a lichen common on our~

1v.] MR EINDEER, lal

own hills; which is remarkable as being the first
trace of vegetation that appears on naked lava, and
is therefore very general on Vesuvius, Etna, and
Ischia. On this Norwegian plateau we have the
exact counterparts of the ¢uuzdra or plains that
border the Polar sea, covered almost exclusively
with dense masses of the same cryptogamic vegeta-
tion, and forming the pastures of innumerable herds
of reindeer. As if to increase the resemblance, I
found many of the lichen tufts and patches of
Ranunculus glacialis growing beside the snow,
cropped as if reindeer had been feeding there very
recently; and fortunately lifting up my eyes, I
saw over the shoulder of the hill, about a quarter
of a mile off, a herd of about sixty reindeer quietly
grazing—one buck with large branching antlers
standing as sentinel, and the light-coloured does
and fawns collected in the centre of the group. It
was a romantic sight, and would have delighted
a sportsman’s heart. In a little, while they were
apparently alarmed by something, and rushed
away, till they were mere specks on the snow of
the opposite hill. The reindeer are fast disappear-
ing from the southern mountains of Norway, where
_they used to be exceedingly numerous, and retreat-
“ing to the northern parts; and this is owing, not
only to the disturbance of their haunts by an in-
“creasing number of sportsmen, but also to the
gradual amelioration of the climate. It is rare
now to see herds of any size farther south than the
-sixty-third degree.

192 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [cuap.

The Dovrefjeld Mountains are to Nowe: what
the Breadalbane Mountains are to Britain—the
finest botanical field in the country. They have
been successfully investigated by the late Professor
Blytt and his son, the present accomplished curator
of the Christiania botanical gardens, with whom I
had a pleasant meeting on the Sogne Fjord; but a
very large portion remains still to be explored.
The greatest variety of rare plants is found about
_ Fogstuen, Jerkin, and Kongsvold. A great number
of species peculiar to the Polar circle, and unknown
elsewhere in Norway, may be gathered in these
places. A large succulent species of moonwort
(Botrychium virginicum) occurs on the Dovrefjeld,
which has a very remarkable geographical range.
In Europe it is found only in Norway; but it
abounds in many parts of the Southern United
States, grows on the Andes of Mexico and on the
Raklang Pass in the Himalayas, and is frequent
on the mountains of Australia and New Zealand,
where it is boiled and eaten by the natives. Like
the Erigeron alpinus and Phleum alpinum—a species
of Alpine grass both growing on the Dovrefjeld,
on the British mountains, at a great height on the
Himalayas, and in the Straits of Magellan and
the Falkland Islands—the distribution of this plant
over such widely-separated areas is a very puzzling
problem.

I do not know whether I was the first who
ascended this nameless mountain of the Dovrefjeld,
but I gathered a cairn of loose stones which I

————

IV. | VIEW FROM SUMMIT OF HILL. 1938

piled above one another on the highest point, and
writing my name, address, and date of visit on a
card, enclosed it in the centre for the benefit of
future explorers. The view from that elevated spot
was truly grand: behind me Snehattan — long
considered the highest hill in Norway—towered
up 7,700 feet above a bleak desert plateau; its
upper half covered with snow, and, forming an am-
phitheatre, broken down on one side by great black
precipices enclosing true glaciers. Over against
me stretched the peaks, pinnacles, and horns of
the Langfjeld; while a lofty snow-cone rose stern
and solitary on the distant horizon, which I iden-
tified as Galdhoppigen, now ascertained to be the
highest Norwegian mountain, being nearly 1,000
feet higher than Snehattan. Westward I saw
the fantastic summits of Romsdal, with the sphinx-
like form of Storhattan, reposing amid the splen-
dour of golden clouds, and facing the setting sun
as if looking over the verge of the earth and
peering into another and a brighter world. It was
altogether a view peculiar to Norway, with an air
of utter desolation and gloomy grandeur. Such
vast masses of inorganic matter filled the horizon,
that the presence of a little plant beside my
feet was cheering— reminding me of the organic
chain of sympathy that bound us together. No
creature appeared in sight, either on the earth or
in the sky. No tinkling of cow-bells or shrill goat-
song—sounds elsewhere common—broke the op-
pressive lifelessness and loneliness of the place. For
| O

194 HOLIDAVS ON HIGH LANDS, | owas

upwards of an hour I sat on my cairn drinking in
the sublime influences of the scene; but the waning
light warned me that the day was far spent. In
descending I had to traverse a long snow-field as
smooth and hard as ice, and lying at a pretty steep
‘angle on the hill-side. I had no sooner stepped upon
it than my feet went from under me, and I glis-
saded with great rapidity down the slope, striking
very hard against some birch stumps that protruded
out of the snow at the bottom. I was soaked to
the skin, and a good deal stunned ; but I forgot
every bodily discomfort in astonishment at the
strange sight which my fall had disclosed. I had
noticed before stepping on the snow that the sur-
face was of a curious salmon colour in some places,
and covered with fine particles like brick-dust ; and
now I found that wherever my body had pressed
the snow together there was a long crimson streak,
as if a creature’s blood had been shed there. This
was the famous red snow, which is so frequently
found in the Arctic regions and on the Alps, pro-
duced by an immense multitude of microscopic
plants, consisting only of gelatinous cells. Captain
Ross on one occasion noticed a snowy ridge ex-
tending eight miles in length, tinged with this
singular hue to a ‘depth: of sSeveralfeese Vat
masses of it spread over the Apennines in 1818;
and it is recorded that in the beginning of this
century the vicinity of Belluno and Feltri was
covered with rose-coloured snow to the depth of
twenty centimétres. The snow is not its natural

1v.] RED SNOW. 195

situation, for it is found, like the zostoc and other
gelatinous alge, on moist rocks in this country; but
its great tenacity of life enables it not only to pre-
serve its vitality when its germs fall on this ungenial
surface, but to grow and propagate itself with the
astonishing rapidity of its family, favoured by the
heat of the sun and the melting of the snow. Its
colour in this country, when growing on rocks, is
green; but it has been observed that there is a
curious coincidence between a white ground and a.
red flower; so that its brilliant carmine hue on the
snow may be produced by the excess of light
reflected by its chilly habitat. Had I not been
familiar with this curious phenomenon—having
seen it on the Alps—I should have been alarmed,
naturally supposing that the crimson streaks had
been shed from my own veins by the accident.
At the next station beyond Holseth, called
Stueflaaten, the valley of Romsdal fairly begins.
From this point the view of grey Alpine peaks,
seamed with watercourses, closing in and shutting
up the vista to the westward, is very striking, and
stimulates the imagination by the thought of
grander scenes beyond. ‘The road, recently recon-
structed in the most admirable way, winds along
by the side of the Rauma. No amount of praise
bestowed upon this river can be exaggerated. It
is the finest stream in Norway, combining features
which are not united in any other river. Its course,
though short, is exceedingly varied and turbulent.
For twenty miles it has worn its way by the sheer
ie O02

——— a Ee

196 HOLIDAY S'ON TTIGH LAW [ CHAP.

force of its waters through schistose rocks, and
formed deep circular basins, narrow channels, and
projecting ledges, over and through which it
thunders and foams in the wildest manner. The
contrasts of colour exhibited by the pale malachite
green of its linns, shading into black in the deeper
parts, and the snowy whiteness of its cataracts,
were very beautiful, and afforded a perpetual feast
of delight. Wishing to enjoy the scenery in a
calmer and more leisurely way, we walked between
Stueflaaten and Ormen, a distance of nine miles.
Although the heat was great and rendered exertion
of any kind very fatiguing, I never enjoyed any
walk so much; my only regret being that it was so
short. Every turn of the road opened up a new
and grander scene than before—loftier precipices
and wilder reaches of the river. Among the in-
numerable waterfalls of the Rauma—many of
which, deeply hidden between perpendicular walls
of rock, can only be seen by lying down’ on the
verge of the precipices and gazing over—the
finest is the Sdndre Slettefoss, a short distance
from the road. An enormous body of water is
here hurled about forty feet into a long deep cave
worn in the rocks, from whence it issues through
a rugged gorge fringed with hanging birches,
The noise was deafening; and the mists rising up
from the abyss clung in wreaths to the black sides
of the rocks and tossed the dripping birches in
their swirling eddies. It required a considerable
amount of courage to stand on the brink and look

.w.] ORMEN. 197

over into this wild torment of waters. In a little
sunny birch-wood beside this waterfall grew in
greater profusion than elsewhere a little flower,
called Swzlacina btfolra, peculiar to Norway. It
is closely allied to the lily of the valley, having,
like it, two broad leaves; but its cream-coloured
blossom is smaller, exceedingly delicate, and foam-
like. It completely hid the grass with its snowy
sheen, and looked as though the foam of the
waterfall borne by the wind to the spot had blos-
-somed into flowers. A beautiful species of Szzz-
facina, which grows from two to five feet high, and
has plaited leaves and crowded panicles of white
bell-shaped flowers, is found on the Himalayas.
Its young flower-heads, sheathed in tender green
leaves, are used as a pot-herb by the natives, under
the name of choklz Oz.

Ormen, the next station, is most picturesquely
situated on a rock overhanging the river, which
here flows through a very narrow part of the defile.
In front is a dense pine-wood ; and on the opposite
side of the river a large stream flows obliquely
down the face of the hill in one long line of white,
dividing at last into two parts, and forming a series
of waterfalls into the Rauma. A wooden bridge
crosses at this point, and gives access to several
comfortable séefers and rich green pastures. Stor-
hattan rises above the brow of the hill, but is not
visible from the station-house, as an extensive
table-land of snow intervenes. This isolated.
mountain, whose sphinx-like form, wherever it is

198 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. {cuar.

seen, is one of the most striking features in the
landscapes of Romsdal, is of great height, and
commands from ,its sharp semicircular summit a
vast range of snowy peaks. The ascent, which
takes three hours, is very laborious and in some
places highly dangerous. The whole of this region
presents peculiar attractions to the sportsman,
being famous for its game of all kinds. On the
mountains reindeer are not unfrequently met; the
copses which run up the sides of the valley are the
coverts of the /jerfe, or hazel-hen, and the skov-
ryper, or wood-grouse; while, in the pine-woods,
the capercailzte (called by the natives stor-fugle or
big bird) is sometimes seen, or at least heard, as
it makes a startling noise when it is disturbed, in
crashing through the branches. The Norwegian
squirrel, which differs from our species, is very
numerous hereabouts. Like the Alpine hare and
ptarmigan, it changes its colour in winter from
brown to grey. The winter skin is greatly ad-
mired, forming the fetzt gris of commerce, and
is much worn by cardinals in Italy. Tracks of
bears have occasionally been found at the foot of
Storhattan. The day before we passed, broken
branches, fresh droppings, and footprints were seen
in the copse opposite the station-house, indicating
that Bruin had -been very recently tienen fae
only place in Norway where one now has a chance —
of coming in contact with a bear or an elk is in
Saeterdal. | |

At Fladmark the river flows smoothly between |

IV. ] ROMSDALHORN. 199

richly wooded banks of alders and aspens, and here
and there a green meadow sprinkled with golden
globe flowers and white Alpine bistort. The water is
of the loveliest green colour, and so clear and trans-
parent that the mica stones could be seen glittering
in the sunlight at the bottom. It was a perpetual
baptism of refreshment ; while its pleasant murmur
marched along with us like the refrain of a song.
From this point for fourteen miles we had an end-
less succession of the most magnificent views of
precipices, peaks, and waterfalls. The only place
that can be compared to this part of Romsdal is
Loch Corruisg in Skye; but it is a very small and
insignificant imitation of the tremendous gorge
through which we passed. On one side is a series
of vertical walls of rock between two and three
thousand feet high, with innumerable waterfalls
streaming down their sides or leaping sheer down
from the top to the bottom, and filling all the air
with the confused echoes of their shoutings. At
the extremity of this chain of precipices towers up
the famous Romsdalhorn, an inaccessible obelisk
of granite upwards of 4,000 feet high, seeming
quite close wherever one goes, and, like the Matter-
horn, changing its shape according to the point of
view. On the other side of the gorge are lofty
mountains weathered into the most fantastic shapes.
One curious point, bearing some resemblance to a
monk, is called Martin Luther; and the whole
range receives the name of the Troldtinderne or
Goblin Peaks. The breadth of the gorge from

ee

—6200 HIOLIDAYVS ON HIGH LANDS, [CHAP.

cliff to cliff may be about two miles, but it does
not look a quarter of a mile, owing to the height —
of the precipices on either side. The Rauma, here
a deep, wide river, flows through it, reflecting on
its placid bosom the grandeur around. Every-
where the ground is strewn with huge boulders and
fragments of rocks; while green verdure and birch-
woods struggle up the talus heaps which have
crumbled from the weathered peaks above. All
the woods by the roadside were covered as thick
as they could grow with wild lilies of the valley,
bearing a profusion of snowy blossoms, larger and
‘more fragrant even than the garden ones. In the
potato and corn fields, growing in great abundance
as a common weed, was the beautiful cornel (Cornus
suecica) with its white corolla and curious eye of
black velvet—an Alpine plant which is only found
in a few places on our highest Highland hills. The
sun was setting when we arrived at the inn of Aak,
and a rich crimson glow shone on the snowy
pinnacles around, making them look like pyramids
of solid fire; while a sky of inexpressible softness
and beauty linked the glorified summits together,
and gave the whole scene an ethereal look like
fairy land. It was a place where the most callous-
hearted might worship as in a temple; and when
from every birch and lily of the valley rose up on the
still evening air a perfume most deliciously subtle
and sweet, my senses were fairly intoxicated, and
I will not now repeat the extravagant analogies
that ran through my brain.

;

(is

Prey AAK. 201

Aak is the most comfortable and delightful
place of residence in all Norway. The inn, which is

-a plain wooden building by the roadside, is kept by

Andreas Landmark, a /ensmand, or justice of the
peace, who also owns a large portion of the valley,
and the fishing of the Rauma for a mile or two.
His wife is said to be a sister of the Bishop of Bergen,
and his daughters can speak English very correctly
and fluently, especially Laura, who is a most ad-
mirable kousekeeper, and attends personally to the
wants of the guests. Nowhere does the tourist feel
so much at home or fare so well as here; the
visitors’ book being full of the most glowing praises
of the landlord and his daughters. Elsewhere
semi-starved on fladbrod and that horrible cheese
made of sugar and curd which looks like a Bath-
brick, or a lump of diachylon, or half-poisoned by
the cooking heresies of ignorant peasants, he here
revels in all the luxuries of the country properly
prepared and served. The table is lavishly supplied
with fish and game of various kinds, and wild fruits
in the appropriate seasons. As for salmon, for
which the Rauma is celebrated, thanks to the suc-
cessful fishing of two Englishmen who lived at the

inn, we got it so often, and in so many forms,
that we were in the end perfectly sick of it. We

understood, in a way that we never did before, the

_ stipulation of Scotch servants in former times, when

about to engage with a new master, that they were

not to get salmon oftener than three times a week.
There is certainly something in the air of Norway

202 ° HOLIDAVS ON HIGH LANDS. [cuap.

that acts in an extraordinary manner as a stimulant
to appetite, for we ourselves found that two hours
after a breakfast of the most solid and varied
_ character, which if partaken of in this country
would infallibly lead to a bilious attack, and a
course of water-gruel for a fortnight, we were quite
ready for another meal as substantial. My bed-
room, in a separate wing of the house, was a small
pigeon-hole of the most primitive kind, approached
by a staircase so steep that I had to perform a series
of severe gymnastic feats in getting up, and in ~
- going down to go backwards, cruelly scarifying my
shins. Howthe chambermaid managed to bring up
a tub full of water for ablutionary purposes, without
breaking her neck or drowning herself, was a puzzle
which I could not solve. But once in, the room
was scrupulously neat and clean, and fragrant with
freshly-gathered bouquets of lilies of the valley.
The garden close by was a delightful retreat in the
evening. It was well stocked with culinary vege-
tables, which were merely in a germinating condi-
tion, and the cherry and apple trees were still loaded
with blossoms, although it was the beginning of
July. The ardent sunshine working night and day,
however, would ripen the garden crop in this high
latitude quite as soon as in our country.

Saturday after our arrival was an exceedingly ©
sultry day ; the thermometer ninety degrees in the _
shade, and not a breath of wind moving even on >
the bank of the river. The mosquitoes were very |
troublesome, adhering so pertinaciously to our |

Iv. MOSQUITOES. 203

clothes that we could not drive them off: one
member of our party suffered severely from their
bites. This fondness of the mosquito for blood is
an inexplicable fact in its history. It is not its
natural food, for the insect abounds in places which
no warm-blooded animal frequents, and where man
is never or rarely seen, and when permitted to suck
its fill it turns on its back and remains thus till it
dies. This curious point deserves the study of
the physiologist. The Norwegian name for this
suicidal phlebotomizer is souga or mouge, from
whence is derived the Scotch word midge, the
pest of our summer woods and river-sides. Lying |
gasping, perspiring, and tormented with heat and
mosquitoes, under the shade of the trees, I looked
up with longing eyes to the pure white snow-fields
of the Goblin Peaks, so suggestive of coolness and
vigour. In vain, however, for none of them could
be climbed, and the exertion on such a day would
be fearful. Across the river, right in front of the
inn, is a hill of moderate height, clothed on the
lower part with dense scrub, which promised to be
easily accessible. It is called “ Mid-dag Hili,” be-
cause the sun appears above its summit at noon,
and it is thus a kind of public clock to the neigh-
bourhood. A pathway leads up to the top, and
ladies occasionally ascend. This circumstance
caused my friend and myself to undervalue the
difficulties of the ascent, and refuse the services of a
suide. We were not long, however, in finding that
_ we had been too rash and confident in going alone,

204 HOLIDAVS ON HIGH LANDS; ~~ (\CHar.

for we lost the track, which was frequently concealed
under huge wreaths of snow, the relics of the past
winter, lingering there on account of the lateness of
the season, and were surrounded by precipices in
every direction. We managed with great difficulty to
reach the highest point to which we could venture
with safety, which was not more than thirty feet
below the real summit. Here the ground, com-
posed of comminuted schist and moistened by the
melting of the snow, was carpeted with dense tufts
of the beautiful Dzapensia lapponica, growing side
by side with cushions equally dense of the moss
campion. The former plant is peculiar to the Alps
of Norway and the Arctic circle, and is distinguished
by its large white strawberry-like blossom, which is

produced so abundantly as almost to hide the
“foliage. The rosy flowers of the campion were
equally abundant, so that together they made a
lovely garden in the wilderness. The lily of the ©
valley, though much dwarfed, ascended here to
within a hundred feet of the top, wherever there was |
soil in the crevices of the rocks. On the pure white
quartz. veins which protruded from the schist grew
in immense quantity a black tufted lichen) of
extremely rigid habit, called” Cornuicularia ¢tristzs,
which is one of the most Arctic, Antarctic, and
Alpine lichens in the world, being found at the
extreme limit of vegetation on the Alps, Himalayas,
and Andes, and in north and south latitudes.
Over the shoulder of the hill we caught a glimpse
of the Romsdalhorn, lifting its giant finger into

qW.] MID-DAG HILL. 205

heaven, as if upbraiding us for our foolhardiness in
venturing so near it. It had a peculiar, weird,
awful look, like one of the gods of Scandinavian
mythology changed into stone, especially when a
small wisp of mist—mysteriously formed, for there
was not a cloud in the sky—trose up and partially
veiled its summit. The view was wonderful, not
only in its extent, but also in the peculiarity of its
character. Green fjelds sloping down into the
green Romsdal Fjord, and, hiding in their recesses
greener lakes, contrasted in a curious way with snowy
mountains, standing out boldly against a deep
blue sky. As we descended it was interesting to
watch the gradual closing of the boundary line, and
the disappearance first of the snowy peaks, and
then of the upland lakes, until at last the precipices
of Aak confined our horizon. This descent gave us
a considerable amount of anxiety, for, unlike the
Scottish mountains, which slope down gradually
to the valley and reveal their whole outline from
the top to the bottom, this hill was exceedingly
precipitous, and we could only see at a time about
a dozen yards of steep rock below us, terminating
abruptly in blank space, terribly suggestive to the
imagination. We capped with stones the more
_ prominent rocks by the side of the path as we
ascended ; but these beacons were of no more use
to us in our descent than the crumbs of bread
which the boy in the fairy tale dropped on his
track, for we got confused with the sameness and
_ gigantic scale of the features of the hill. Our thank-

206 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LAT Ds, [cHaP.

fulness and relief, therefore, in reaching the base in
safety may be more easily imagined than described.
Our gratitude was still further deepened, when, sur-
veying the hill during our evening walk, we noticed
how frequently we had come unconsciously to the
verge of precipices over which another step forward
would have hurled us, to be dashed in pieces more
than a thousand feet below.

Sunday was a rainy day, and all the hills were
covered to their bases with thick curtains of mist.
It was a wild Sinai-like scene. When portions
of the mist occasionally thinned away, revealing
elimpses of the snow-flecked rocks, so pure and far
up, it seemed like vistas opened in heaven—like the
vision of Jacob’s ladder, with angels ascending and
descending. The grand spire of this natural temple,
the Romsdalhorn, was completely blotted out of
the landscape; but we heard now and then the
muffled roar of its avalanches, its awful bell tolling
in the darkness. On Monday we left the Romsdal
valley with great regret, and embarking on board
a steamer calling at Veblungsnzset, we sailed
down the fjord amid pine-clad rocks of the most
fantastic forms, and islands white with eider ducks,
terns, auks, and puffins. At Molde we landed for
two hours. From an eminence behind the town,
which is of considerable size, and carries on a large
trade in fish and timber, we beheld the wonder-
fully grand and extensive view for which this place
is celebrated, rank rising behind rank of lofty snow-
peaks, until the last mingled with the white clouds

v.] VIEW FROM MOLDE. — 207

in the distance. Conspicuous in the front row was

the Romsdalhorn, the Matterhorn of Norway; be-
yond was Snzhattan with its silver helmet; and to
the south-east the huge fantastic horn of Per-
-puatind or Skjorten, curved round and covered all
over with snow, even on the under curve. In this
direction, farther away, were the shattered Aiguilles
of the Langfjeld, and the lofty but unknown moun-
tains at the head of the Stor Fjord. No more
bewildering array of Alpine peaks crowds upon the
eye from the Righi Kulm. It far surpasses, in my
estimation, the famous view of the giants of the
Oberland from the platform of the Federal Hall
at Berne. The Swiss picture lacks the sea, with-
out which no mountain scenery, however grand, can
be complete. But the waters of the Molde Fjord,
spreading out into a wide island-studded basin,
gave an idealistic charm to the vast amphitheatre
of mountains rising beyond; and the lights and
shades of a sunny day imparted to sea and moun-
tain a witchery of hue and form which made them
perfect. We gazed upon the glorious sight with
sense and soul stretched to the utmost tension of
admiration. The proverb runs, “See the Bay of
Naples and die;” but I would say, “See the view
from Molde, and have a joy for ever !”

It was eight o'clock at night when we reached
Adalesund, a pretty large town, carrying on a con-
siderable trade in codfish with Spain and Italy. It is
situated amid a perfect fastness of rocks and water,
‘quite inaccessible except to a Norwegian sailor ;

208 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [cnap.

while the views from it of the distant serrated snow-
flecked peaks of the Langfjeld are very magnificent.
The whole region around is full of the most inter-
esting historical associations. It was the country
of the Sea Kings; and from this wild robber’s nest
they swept down upon the defenceless coasts of
England, Scotland, and France. Here are the
ruins of the dorg or castle of the famous Ganger
Rolf, the founder of the Duchy of Normandy,
and the ancestor of William the Conqueror. We
landed in a boat at the quay, and went succes-
sively to the two inns in search of beds, but they
were both full, owing to a court of justice then
sitting. We had therefore to return and sleep on
board the steamer. Next day we sailed, amid the
same kind of scenery, down the Stor Fjord, calling
at the different hamlets on the shores, and at the
head of the intricate creeks; and arrived at six
o'clock in the evening at the extremity of a long
arm of the fjord, where there was a little village
called Aa&hjem, unknown to “ Murray.” It was a
most solitary place—“ the world forgetting, by the
world forgot.” The daughter of the innkeeper had
never seen an English lady before. The son, how-
ever, a fine smart young man, who spoke a little
English, had been to the Paris Exhibition; and we
found in the sitting-room the usual souvenirs of
French travel. He was looked upon as a great
man by the primitive inhabitants; and certainly a
more startling contrast could not be found than
between the metropolis of fashion and this lonely,

1v.] SAETER-LIFE. 209

far-off Norwegian village. When we landed, the
sky from end to end was of molten gold without a

single cloud, while the sun trembled in a furnace of

dazzling brilliancy above the waters of the fjord,
which seemed like a brazen sea. The surrounding
mountains were purple with light, and looked as
ethereal as clouds; while the universal stillness
seemed like the awe and reverence of nature at
the great sight. Among moist friable cliffs at a
considerable height above the village, decked with
starry saxifrages and Alpine alchemilla, I gathered
a great many rare cryptogamic plants; and a birch-
wood copse at the foot is especially memorable
as the spot where I first noticed in Norway the

Linnea borealis, afterwards so common and familiar.

On the following morning we took carrioles and
drove up a very steep Alpine road, over a moun-
tain plateau, studded with numerous tarns. On the
top of the mountain, beside a lake, we saw a séeter
or mountain farm, to which the cattle are sent to

pasture in spring and summer, under the care of

the daughters and female servants of the farmer.
Upon these saeters there are houses of very rude
construction, and very poorly furnished, in which
the tenants live and carry on all their dairy-work.

‘This saeter-life, alone on the mountains for four

|
:
|

months in the year, must be very dreary and mo-
notonous. The servants say that they could not
endure it, were it not that their lovers come up to

see them on the Saturday evenings, when they ~

hd
®

ie
a

put on their best dresses and faces, and have a
. P

210 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [cuav.

feast of dairy produce and a merry dance. This
custom, however, has been formally prohibited by
Government, on account of the injury done on
such occasions to the game, for the lovers try to
kill two birds with one stone. The saeter which
we passed was certainly a very lonely place; the
pasturage was scanty ; and the house a mere hovel
of rough unmortared stones, with a hole in the turf
roof for a chimney, and another in the wall for a
window. The cattle were very small, and wandered
about with bells round their necks, making a sweet
musical tinkle that increased the loneliness and
sadness of the place. It is not wonderful that in
such a region should have arisen the strange super-
stition of the AYw/dre,a mountain spirit who goes
forth in the morning with her spectral herd of voice-
less and milkless cows, following at a distance the
cattle from the ¢vo,or fold, when they are driven
out to the pastures, and returning with them in the
evening. The saeter-girls collect during the summer
immense quantities of the reindeer-moss from the
fjelds; and when the autumn storms sweep the
snow down the sides of the mountains, and cover
up with its smooth uniform surface the steep and
almost impassable roads, the farmer brings the.
moss, frozen into hard compact masses, on sledges
down into the valley, where it forms an essential part
of the winter fodder of the cattle in this district.

_ After a fatiguing drive of about three hours, |

exposed to the scorching sunshine on bare treeless ©
moorland, we came down to a station hidden in a

:
|
|

1v.] BRYGGEN. 211

nook of the Nord fjord, called Bryggen. The
whole of this region is beyond the ordinary
tourist’s ground, and is quite fresh and unexplored.
Mr. Murray’s guide has not penetrated into the
scenery of the Nord fjord, some parts of which are
truly grand and Alpine in character. Here we
were admitted for the first and only time into the
bosom of a Norwegian family. On all other occa-
sions, travelling on frequented ground, we were
treated as tourists, and got our meals in our own
rooms. But here we were treated as guests and
dined with the members of the household. If it
was “pot-luck” we got, the proprietor must have
been uncommonly well off to keep such a table,
loaded with fish, flesh, and fowl. Our hostess did
not sit with her husband and children. She brought
in the dishes, and attended to the comfort of the
guests. This created an unpleasant feeling in our
minds ; but apologies or entreaties to sit down with
us would have been misplaced, as in Norway the
lady of the house considers it her especial duty to
superintend the operations of her servants, and
make her guests perfectly comfortable.

_ Inthis part of the Nord fjord there were little
creeks, where the shore sloped gradually down into
the profounder depths. In this shallow water
erew large quantities of wrack, dulse, tangle, and
other common sea-weeds. Owing to the great
depth of the water, into which the rocky shores
descend abruptly, these sea-weeds are rare in
Norway. Only in one other place did I notice
2

Al tye HOLIDAYS: ON HIGH LANDS: [CHAP. —

anything like the sight which our weedy sea-shores
present when the tide has ebbed. Usually there is
but the slightest fringe of sea-vegetation marking
the water-line along the rocky shore ; and in many
of the fjords even this is absent. At the head of
the Sogne fjord, upwards of 120 miles from the
open sea, there are no sea-weeds lining the preci-
pitous shores. The water at the surface is almost
fresh ; indeed, I sawa sailor putting down a bucket
into this stratum and drinking the contents. The
influence of the tide is little felt; andthe niaes
that empties itself into it overlies the heavier salt
water, and prevents by its intense coldness and
freshness the growth even of the green ulvas and
enteromorphas which in this country mark the
junction between fresh and salt water. Owing to
the absence of vegetation, fish and other fauna of
the sea are rare; so that the inhabitants have not
this source of supply to eke out the scanty produce
of their miserable corn and potato fields. In the
creeks of the Nord fjord, however, there was an un-
usual abundance of shell-fish and other forms of
sea-life lurking among the dark tufts of fuci and
tangle. I gathered a few specimens of Vatica
Grenlandica, an Arctic and circumpolar mollusc,
which becomes rarer and smaller towards the south;
and of Pecten islandicus, which does not. reach
Britain. While gathering these northern shells, I
thought of the remarkable parallelism between the
distribution of the Arctic fauna and flora in Britain.
Just as we have the remains of an Arctic flora, once

1v.] ARCTIC SHELLS. 213

overspreading the whole country, on the summits
of our highest mountains, so we have the remains
of an Arctic fauna which peopled all our seas during
the Glacial epoch in the profoundest depths of our
western sea-lochs, such as Loch Fyne and the
Kyles of Skye. A little south of Tarbert, Loch Fyne
deepens into a basin 624 feet below the surface of
the water, a far greater depth than that of the sea
outside, and clearly indicating that this narrow
inlet is a submerged land valley, whose bed, if suf-
ficiently upheaved, would be marked by a fresh-
water loch, like Loch Lomond. From this profound
abyss Professor E. Forbes and Mr. McAndrew, ‘in
1845, brought up with the dredge an extraordinary
assemblage of molluscan animals, eminently Arctic
in their character, once common in all our seas,
ranging from the shore-line downwards. When the
beds of these glacial seas were upheaved, several
of the more delicate molluscs perished under the
change of conditions, while others more accom- |
modating survived. As the climate became more
genial, the northern and Arctic shells that lived in
the littoral zones retreated northwards, driven out
by the migration of more temperate forms. Those
that had greater capacities for vertical range, how-
ever, remained behind in the deepest parts of our
sea-lochs, where the conditions of temperature were
still suitable; and to this narrow range they are
mow westticted. - The extreme ‘scarcity of these
Arctic shells in a living state, and the comparative
abundance of dead valves, seem to indicate, as

Pa

214 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [cuap.

Professor Forbes suggested, that the species thus
isolated are now slowly dying out: so that the
time may not be far distant when the last of the
Arctic forms of the mountain-top and sea-bottom
will disappear before the inroads of plants and
animals of a milder climate, that will spread uni-
formly over all parts of land and sea. In connexion
with the mollusca of Norway the singular fact
may be mentioned, that some of its characteristic
Arctic species are found as fossils in Italy and
Sicily; and that other perfectly identical species
are found living at the present day in the Medi-
ferranean and Adriatic and in’ the Wemw Sea,
which are absent on the intervening coasts of the
Atlantic, the only route by which, according to the
present arrangement of Europe, they could have
reached the one locality from the other. Among
the living species common to Italy and Norway are
Nephrops Norvegicus, Lota abyssorum, Sebastes 1m-
pertalis, Macrourus celorhynchus, and two shells
found by Professor Sars of Christiania, in t he sea
at Bergen, Cerithium vulgatum, and Monodonta
limbata. The presence of these mollusca in the
Mediterranean and in Norway, with their absence
from the intermediate coast, is supposed to be owing
to a connexion that existed during the Post-Pliocene
period to the east of Europe, between the Mediter-
ranean and the North ‘Sea, which was interrupted:
at a later period by the elevation of the Alps.1

1 This theory is still further confirmed by the flora of Sweden.
Several of the most characteristic plants of Gothland, an island in~

Iv.) HORNELEN ROCK. 215

At nine o'clock at night a Government steamer
employed in the postal service, and carrying on
the traffic with all the stations on the Bergen
route, appeared in sight. We rowed out to it in
a small boat, and then’ steamed down the fjord,
through the most intricate labyrinths of hills and
islands. ‘There is one rock rising 1,200 feet per-—
pendicularly from the water, shaped like a huge
cathedral with a gigantic tower at either end. It
is called Hornelen, and our steamboat was named
after it. It is the loftiest and most massive sea-
cliff in Norway south of the Luffoden Isles. A
great slice of it had fallen down two years pre-
viously, about two hours after a steamer had
passed. ‘The scar was still fresh on its side, and the
débris formed a talus bank at the foot projecting
into the sea. The depth of the water in this
narrow channel is said to be very great, there
being no soundings for two thousand feet. After
spending some hours on deck, admiring the wild
and ever-changing scenery, and watching the giving
out empty and taking in full herring-barrels at
the different stations at which we called, we retired
to our berths and slept till about seven o'clock in
the morning, when we found ourselves among the

the Gulf of Bothnia—such as Helianthemum fumana, Inula enst-
folia, and Serapias rubva—are identical with those of the limestone
mountains of Austria; while the vegetation of the neighbouring
island of Oland is of a decidedly Mediterranean, or even African,
type. Among its rarer plants may be mentioned Helzanthemum
GClandicum, Carex obtusata, Artemisia laciniata, Anemone Se ala

Ulmus effusa, and Viola persictfolia.

216 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [cuap.

skerries on the coast, within forty miles of Bergen.
These rocky islets are very remarkable. They
occur in countless numbers all along the coast
from Christiania to the North Cape, and though
composed of gneiss afford a striking proof of the
tremendous abrading action of one of the stormiest
seas in the world. They are of various sizes, from
a huge boulder barely rising above the level of
the water, to lofty castellated crags many acres in
extent, and are either bare or covered with shrubs
or fir-trees. Between them the sea winds in and
out in the most intricate fashion, and they are so
like each other that it is astonishing how the pilot
can thread his way among them. There is never
any of that sloping which distinguishes the shores
of other countries. Quite close to the rocks the
depth is in some places unfathomable. In many
instances the narrow creeks and channels run
far inland, so that it is frequently necessary to
journey a hundred miles by land between two
places not more than two or three miles apart in a
straight line. Many of the skerries are shaped like
the Devonshire tors; they are what are called in
geological language voches moutonnées, rounded,
smoothed, and polished hummocks, moulded by
the passage of a thick body of ice over them during
the Glacial epoch, and marked, many of them very
distinctly, by close parallel flutings, indicating the
direction of the moving ice. From these glacial
markings, where no ice is now to be seen, we can
trace by the characteristic evidence of stria, moraines

Iv.) RISING OF NORWEGIAN COAST. 217

and boulders, the course of ancient glaciers up to
the great ice-fields of Justedal and the Folgefond,
still existing in the interior. We must regard the
present glaciers of Norway as the shrunken remains
and silent witnesses, ina milder climate, of immense
glaciers which at one time stretched down and
filled each valley, and went out to sea like the
glaciers of Greenland at the present day.

The glaciated skerries, judging from the pro-
found depths of water around them, are the tops
of submerged mountains, and the fjords that wind
among them deep glens that have not yet fairly
risen out of the sea. That Norway has been slowly
rising from the sea within comparatively recent
times is proved by many indisputable signs. On
the shoal or bank which lies out in the Christiania
fjord to the west of Drobak, and which is from sixty
to ninety feet deep, there are immense masses of a
peculiar coral called Oculina prolifera, firmly at-
tached to the solid rock, though dead and stripped
bare of its formative polyps. This coral is found
on the western and northern coast of Norway in
a living state, only at the vast depth of from 1,000
to 2,000 feet, where it forms large, bush-shaped
clusters about two feet in diameter. The fact of
its occurrence in a dead state on the Drobak bank
proves beyond doubt that that bank was elevated
to the extent of at least 800 feet, when the polyps,
incapable of bearing the increased temperature of
the shallower water, died zz sztu. On the same
bank, also in a dead state, is found the Lzma

218 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS, _ [cuar.

excavata, a species of shell-fish which lives only in
the region of the deep-sea corals, at from 150 to
300 fathoms. Professor Forbes and Mr. Robert

‘Chambers speak of “the great freshness of the

raised terraces which stretch at various heights
along the coast, as if to show where the surf had
beat during prolonged intervals in the course of
upheaval.” On these terraces vast quantities of
shells are frequently found identical with those
living in the neighbouring seas, and looking as
fresh as if they had been cast ashore only yester-
day. Brogniart found balanus shells on the solid
rock at Udevalla, on the Swedish coast of the
Cattegat, 200 feet above the present level of the
sea, and Keilhau near Hellesda, in Aremark, 450
feet above the sea. The last accomplished geolo-
gist pointed out to Mr. Robert Chambers serpule
still adhering to the face of a rock about a mile
from Christiania, 186 feet above the surface of the
fjord. We have thus the best possible proof of an
elevation of the land during the existence of its
present fauna. ~

Every traveller is greatly struck with the resem-
blance, only on a larger scale, between the coast
of Norway and the coast-scenery of the West
Highlands of Scotland. The same causes, acting
in similar circumstances, produced this resemblance.

In Scotland these causes have long been quiescent,

and we can only speculate and theorize regarding
their mode of action in the remote past. In Nor-
way they are still in operation, and their modifying

|
|
i}

Iv.}| NORWEGIAN FAUNA IN SCOTLAND. 219
effects may be seen fresh and recent in many
places. Norway may be regarded as a connecting
link between the present state of Greenland and
the state of Scotland during the Glacial epoch.
When Scotland had its glaciers and snow-fields,
Norway was completely enveloped in ice ; and now
that the line of perpetual snow has gone beyond
the summits of our highest hills, we recall in the
perpetual snow regions of Norway the appearance
of our own country at the close of the Glacial
epoch, when the glaciers were retreating from
the coast into the high grounds of the interior.
Not only in geological development, but also so
far as progress during the historical epoch is con-
cerned, Norway may be regarded as “a larger
scotland post-dated,” a country still in its green
youth, while Scotland is inits old age. The forests
that overspread its surface at the present day are
like the extensive forests of Scotland during the
Roman invasion, whose remains are found in our
Numerous peat-mosses. The existing Norwegian
fauna once roamed in our woods and hills. In
Caithness the reindeer lingered until about the
beginning of the thirteenth century. The Ork-
neyinga Saga relates that the Jarls of Orkney
crossed over to the mainland to hunt it in the
twelfth century. Acccording to tradition, the last
wolf in Scotland was slain in 1680 by the famous
Sir Ewan Cameron of Lochiel, There is ample
evidence to prove that the brown bear lived in this
country less than a thousand years ago. Up to

220 “HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS onset

the middle of last century the capercailzie, or
great cock of the woods, the largest member of
the grouse family, abounded in our woods. It
disappeared with the destruction of the Caledonian
forest, the cones of which formed its principal food ;
and though it has been reintroduced from Norway,
it is confined to one or two districts, where it is
almost as tame as a barn-door fowl. In the
highest solitudes of the Grampians still linger the
Alpine hare and ptarmigan, the last survivors of
the ancient Norwegian fauna of our country, which
owe their preservation to their power of adapting
themselves to their circumstances, changing the
colour of their fur and plumage, a provision which
not only regulates the temperature of their bodies
according to the changes of the seasons, but by
assimilating them to the prevailing colours of the
scenes amid which they live, enables them to elude
the keen eyes of their numerous enemies. Thus
the wild animals of Norway are those which for-
merly lived in Scotland, but are now nearly all
extinct. The manners and customs of the Nor-
wegians in the remoter districts are also those of
our ancestors several hundred years ago, and their
udal system of land proprietorship is that which
existed in Scotland prior to the introduction of
clanship and feudalism, and the remains of which
may still be seen in the existence among us of
“bonnet lairds,” similar to the Norwegian “bonder,”
who cultivate the small properties which they
inherit. Thus a visit to Norway gives the Scotch-

| isk BERGEN. O94

man an admirable idea of the appearance of his
country and the condition of his ancestors in the
Middle Ages.

No incident of any moment occurred while we
threaded our way in and out among the skerries—
except that at breakfast in the cabin a member of
our party who had a peculiar penchant for sausages
persuaded one of the ladies to taste a particular
kind, on the plea that he had found it exceedingly
nice. He asked the waiter if it was made of rein-
deer venison, and grew somewhat solemn—as well
as his fair Eve—when told that it was genuine
horse-flesh! We arrived at Bergen at two o'clock,
and were delighted with its picturesque appearance
and romantic situation. It is built upon two bays
of the fjord, with a narrow point of elevated land
between them, on which stands the fortress of
Bergenhuus, where formerly stood the palace of
King Olaf, the founder of the town. It is sur-

-rounded by steep and rugged mountains, between
| two and three thousand feet high, so that you have
all the bustle of a commercial town quite close to
the loneliness and grandeur of an Alpine solitude.
|The narrow harbour is always crowded with ship-
ping, and the suburbs at the base of the mountains
ee occupied with gardens, and country villas
-embosomed among woods, with green lawns sloping
down to the fjord. Outside the town there is a
magnificent avenue of old linden trees about a mile
long, from whence beautiful glimpses of the sur-
feunding scenery may be obtained. This is the

i

229 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [cuar.

most northern limit of this tree, and yet it is as
full grown and majestic here as in the avenues of
England or Germany. We heard a sermon in the
fine old cathedral, and inspected the antiquities
and objects of natural history in the museum. The
antiquities are principally sepulchral urns, arms,
Runic inscriptions, Norwegian coins dating from
the time of Haco the Good in the tenth century,
and a curious old Byzantine picture presented to
one of the churches in the Sogne fjord in the
eleventh century by a sea-king who had procured
it from Constantinople. I observed that there were
no contributions to this department from the
Arctic provinces. Worsa, the director of the
museum of northern antiquities at Copenhagen,
informed me, while conducting me over the rooms
devoted to relics of the Stone period, that all these
stone implements came from Denmark and the
southern parts of Sweden and Norway—none
having been found in the northern parts. The
inference is therefore clear that these northern
provinces were unoccupied by man during the
earliest ages of British and continental history.

This theory coincides with the evidences of phy- |
sical geography, and points to the gradual amelio- |

tation of the climate in these regions.

We were greatly amused by the extraordinary |
character and variety of the costumes of the pea- |
sants from the surrounding districts, who came in |
to Bergen to do their marketing. Some of these |
peasants are said to be of Scotch extraction—a

1v.] : FISH-MARKET. 223

large colony of Scotchmen having settled about
the twelfth century in the neighbourhood of
Bergen. Some of the women had white shirt-
sleeves, scarlet jackets, gorgeous breastplates of
coloured beads, and white caps of the most ex-
traordinary shapes and dimensions. Others had
green jackets and dark caps. It is a great pity
that both in Switzerland and Norway the pic-
turesque costumes of the peasants should to so
large an extent be abandoned for the uniform
and unmeaning dress of all classes throughout
Europe. We paid a visit to the fish-market, which
is one of the most interesting sights of the place.
All the fish—of which there is an immense variety
—are brought in alive, and kept swimming about
in tubs of salt water until purchased ; for a Nor-
wegian would never think of buying a dead fish ;
he likes to be assured by more senses than one
that it is quite fresh. Among the fish we noticed
grey gurnards, forskwrasse, of many colours, and
coalfish (Gadus carbonarius) in shape and size like
a salmon, with a black back and a silvery belly.
There were also a few specimens of the bergelt, or
Norwegian haddock (Sebastes Norvegicus), some-
what like a perch, which exhibits all the hues of the
gold fish. It is caught in very deep water with
long sea-lines, and is considered a great delicacy.
Bergen has the reputation of being one of the
rainiest places in the world. The average number
/of rainy days in the year is said to be 200.
pets extreme humidity is shown not only in the
'

|

294°. HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANES aiensr,

actual amount of the rainfall, but in the almost

constant presence of large quantities of aqueous
vapour in the atmosphere, even on days that are
considered clear and bright. This constant wet
blanket spread over the town, if it does damp
the joys of the inhabitants and engender melan-
choly “vapours,” gives compensation by greatly
modifying the severity of the winter. Pro-
bably the range of temperature throughout the
year is smaller and the mean annual temperature
higher in Bergen than in any other place eo jar
from the equator. During our residence, however,
there was not a cloud in the sky, which was as
deep-blue and transparent as that of France or
Italy. The heat was tropical, and we had to dodge
the sun continually in our walks through the dusty
and glowing streets. The mere effort of writing a
letter in a room where all the windows were thrown
wide open threw me into a profuse perspiration. I
love to look back upon the wonderful beauty of the
nights we spent at Bergen. From my bedroom
window I looked out for hours with intense enjoy-
ment of the scene. Below, the gaily-painted houses
looked ghostly in the tender twilight that brooded
over them; above, the moon shone large and golden
in the blue languid sky, casting down a path of
light along the surface of the placid fjord. The
mountains, mellowed down and empurpled by the
sunset, reposed with a dream-like beauty on the
near horizon; while the stillness was broken by
sounds that harmonized with it—the ripple of a

IV.) #8 BERGEN BY NIGHT. 22,5

passing oar, or a simple song heard clear and dis-
tinct from afar. The whole air and appearance
of the place at such a time reminded me more
of Oriental cities described in the Arabian
Tales, than a matter-of-fact Norwegian town,
crammed with odoriferous stock-fish and casks of
cod-liver oil.

CYPAPT ER.
THE SKJEGGEDAL-FOSS IN NORWAY.

‘SOME one has remarked that mountains present
peculiar attractions to men, while women find in
waterfalls something more congenial to their nature.
This, like a great many other general statements,
is probably too large an induction from the facts
of the case. It is true that the membership of the
“Alpine Club” has been confined exclusively to
the male sex; but, in districts favoured with a
famous waterfall, it has not been found that the
fair sex have monopolized the services of the local
guide. Ever since the discovery of the picturesque
in nature, during the present century, both sexes
seem to have shared indiscriminately in the ad-
miration which mountains and waterfalls call forth.
If there be any preference shown by women, it is
perhaps due to the fact that waterfalls are more>
accessible than mountains, and do not require for
their cultivation specialties of dress and muscular |
development. Notwithstanding this, however, it.
seems to me that there is a measure of truth in
the aphorism. I believe that the mountain does.

“CHAP. V.] WATERFALLS IN GENERAL. 227

harmonize more with the masculine than with
the feminine character. Its ruggedness, solidity,
height, and changelessness symbolize peculiarly
manly qualities; while the toil, patience, and
endurance needed in its ascent are exercises in
which man delights. It appeals in its form and
associations to his sense of power and self-reliance.
‘The waterfall, on the other hand, speaks more to
the gentleness and softness of the feminine nature.
It is moulded by the form of the rocks and by the
play of the winds, and it yields itself gracefully to
the influences of its circumstances. The continuous
murmur and fall of the snow-white water; the
unity-and variety of the forms which it presents ;
the quick play of light and shade on its surface ;
the rainbow that opens its blossom of light amid
its spray; the tender and graceful vegetation
which its perpetual moisture nourishes around it,
from the aspen that trembles to its shout, and the
birch that hangs its tresses in its foam, to the moss
that cushions the ledges of its rocks, and the lichen
that makes its cliffs hoary: all these features of
the waterfall appeal to qualities that are more
often found in woman than in man.

Waterfalls, however, are very varied. Some are
quite as masculine in their character as mountains.
They have no soft and graceful surroundings.
They do not hide themselves in the loneliest
recesses of glens, protected by cliffs and shaded
by foliage; but leap in the open light of day, in
eeaight lines, from the brink of naked precipices.

Q 2

928 | HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [cuar.

Grandeur and sublimity are their sole chatac-
teristics. In proportion to their height and volume,
they lose their picturesqueness and beauty; and
appeal to another order of feelings in the human
bosom. This is especially true of the Norwegian
waterfalls. They possess grandeur, but not beauty.
Owing to the peculiar formation of the country, it
is rare to find that gradual sloping of the stream,
and that succession of leaps, fringed with trees and
shrubs, which contribute so much to the picturesque-
ness of a waterfall. The mountains are immense
tablelands or plateaus, terminating abruptly on
both sides in lofty mural precipices. Consequently
the streams that are formed on them from the
melting of the snows in summer, after running a
short course, fall sheer down into the glen or the
fjord; whereas in this country or in Switzerland
the mountains are constructed, not in the embattled
style, but on the ridge and furrow principle, and
slope gently into the valleys, so that the streams
that gather in their bosom flow gradually down,
increase as they flow, and form a succession of
waterfalls, according as they meet with rocks in
their course. The waterfalls of Norway are thus
necessarily higher than those of any other part of
‘Europe; but they want the fringing of woods and
the concealment of picturesque rocks Pooks to
more gradual falls. 4

Waterfalls are also more numerous in Norway |
than they are anywhere else. “The mountains,”
to use the expressive language of a Belgian |

Wl] NORWEGIAN WATERFALLS. 229

tourist whom I met at Utne, “are peopled with
them.” They lend animation to every scene, and
hang from every cliff their scarf of liquid drapery.
“Hundreds of cascades unknown to fame, though far
higher and grander than the Marboré fall, near
the Gavarnie, in the Pyrenees, or the too celebrated
Staubbach in Switzerland, may be seen in the course
of a single day’s journey in the interior. The Riu-
kan-foss, or Reeking Fall, in Upper Thelemarken,
‘drops almost perpendicularly about 800 feet into
a gulf so filled with vapour that its bottom
cannot be seen. The body of water is very con-
siderable, being the overflowing of the Midswasser,
a lake thirty miles long and more than two miles
broad. The Sarpen-foss is grander than the falls
of Schaffhausen on the Rhine, being formed by
the united waters of the Lougen and the Glommen,
the two largest rivers in Norway, which drain the
whole of the east side of the country for more
than 300 miles. The height of the fall is eighty
feet, and almost equals in volume of water the
famous Trollhatta Fall, by which Lake Venner in
Sweden empties itself through the Gotha-Elv into’
the Cattegat. The most numerous as well as the
finest waterfalls in Norway, however, are to be seen
in the Hardanger district. In this region are the
Rembiedals-foss and the Skyttie-foss—both very
magnificent falls, though situated in remote out-of-
the-way glens, and therefore visited by few travellers.
Here, too, is the better-known Ostud-foss, which
falls into the depths of the Steindal valley, not far

i
te a

230 HOLIDAVS ON HIGH LANDS. — [cHAP.

from the station-house of Vikor.! But by far the
most celebrated of the waterfalls of the Hardanger
is the Voring-foss, said indeed to be the grandest
cataract in Europe, and the lion of Norway. Its
height is upwards of goo feet, and its volume of
water fully larger than that of the Handek in
Switzerland. A Frenchman on one occasion was
so excited at the thought of visiting it, that even
when his steamer entered the Hardanger fjord,
nearly a hundred miles distant, he broke out in a
transport of enthusiasm, “I am coming near it;
T am coming near; -for thirty: year PB dream
Voring-foss.” The spectacle is indeed grand be-
yond description ; but it labours under the great
disadvantage that it cannot be seen from below.
I believe that one or two daring cragsmen suc-
ceeded in getting pretty near them t@ormen
but their view of the waterfall was greatly ob-
structed by a projecting rock: | [ie oeainar,
tourist sees it from the edge of a great precipice
ata considerable height above the top of the fall.
Keeping a firm hold of the guide’s hand—if you
have sufficient nerve and are not oppressed with
giddiness—you can bend your body half over, and
look down into the awful abyss filled with seething |
waters and blinding mists. A vision of a great |
white mass of foam falling, minute after minute, —

1 Murray has evidently taken his description of it on trust heal |
some imaginative native, for the proportions which he gives are ||
prety exaggerated. It pours over its rock certainly more water than |

‘a gill in a minute,’’ but, like Southey’s ‘Force of Lodore,” it is |

very qr poultin® to the eager visitor. \
|

v.| THE SKFEGGEDAL-FOSS. 231

pausing as it were at intervals in mid-air, but still
falling down, down, far out of sight into the bowels
of the earth, with a roar that seems to shake the
rocks to their foundations, is caught during the
frenzied gaze and photographed upon the memory
for ever. Woe betide the unhappy tourist who is
seized by nightmare the first time he goes to sleep
after having stood on this giddy height!

Within the last few years a waterfall has been
known to the tourist-world which promises to rival
the Voring-foss. The Skjeggedal-foss—for such
is its jaw-breaking name—is not nearly so high;
but the body of water is larger, the scenery is
more savage, and it can be approached quite close
and seen in all its grandeur from the foot. Opinions
are very much divided regarding the claim of
each to pre-eminence. Very few have visited the
Skjeggedal-foss; and therefore the notices of it
are exceedingly scanty. Murray does not mention
it at all. In the “ Dag-boks” at Vossevangen and
Odde I found it praised by one in the most ex-
travagant terms as decidedly the finest waterfall
in Norway, while another entry was to this effect:
“The Skjeggedal-foss should be seen before and
not after the V6ring-foss.”

_ Happening to be with a party of friends at Odde

a small picturesque village at the extremity of the
Sor fjord—a branch of the Hardanger, and the
nearest starting-point for the Skjeggedal-foss—I
determined to judge for myself regarding the merit
of this cascade. Accordingly, accompanied by a

| “ss 2?
a >»

932 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. {cuar.

friend, I set out on Wednesday the 17th July, at |
seven o'clock in the morning. We secured the
services of Lars Olsen, a native of Odde, who dis-
charged the duties of guide throughout the day in
the most admirable manner, and whom we have
therefore much pleasure in recommending to future
travellers. There was all the interest and excite-
ment of discovery about our adventure. It was
something to boast of, to be able to visit a scene
unknown to the ubiquitous Murray, to act as the
pioneers of that paladin of modern times, and
perhaps add an interesting paragraph to future
editions of the well-known red Handbook of
Scandinavia. The morning was all that could be
desired. A few clouds threatened at first to dis-
charge their watery burdens, but they soon passed
off, and the sun shone brightly in a blue and un-
clouded sky. We laid in a comfortable stock of
provisions, as the excursion, we were told, would
occupy the whole day. Two smart fellows from
Scotland recorded the fact that they Mad dome
it in eight hours, but sensible men who were not
walking for a wager, and who preferred enjoying
scenery to doing it under steam-pressure, gave
their evidence that it could not be managed in less
than twelve or fourteen. The latter verdict we
found from our own experience to be the true one.
We brought with us waterproofs on account of the
lowering appearance of the sky at starting, but we
found them very serviceable afterwards, enabling
‘us to approach nearer the waterfall than we could

= fit RE nf.» ;
a

i
;
4

Vl GLACIER OF THE FOLGEFOND. 233

otherwise have done, without being drenched by
the spray. Lars had his provender carefully rolled
up in a coloured pocket-handkerchief; it consisted
‘of about six square feet of fladbrod—a kind of
very thin barley-scone—and a small piece of raw
mutton dried into the hardness and colour of a
mahogany slab, and needing no further cooking.

_ Stepping at the quay into one of those rickety
Norwegian boats, sharp at both ends, which are so
alarming at first to timid sailors, we rowed up the
fjord for about four miles. The sea here is very
Narrow, and the banks on both sides very steep
and lofty. At the foot of the left bank are green
patches of cultivated land here and there, and
‘clusters of picturesque red wooden houses; in the
higher region’pines and birches fringe the ledges
‘of the rocks ; while on the sky-line the great glacier
‘of the Folgefond shows its white teeth in every
hollow between the cliffs. In some places the
‘glacier was suspended over the edge of a pre-
‘ipitous rock far up in the air, and one felt afraid
am passing underneath lest the huge mass should
be loosened and fall down with a mighty plunge
into the fjord. Many of the houses look as if
they lay directly in the path of the avalanches,
‘great talus-heaps of débris lying perilously close to
them. The overhanging tongues of ice were very
beautiful, being much crevassed, and showing in
every wrinkle and hollow that marvellously vivid
Sapphire colour with which every glacier-student
is familiar, Nothing could exceed the purity of the

934 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS, [cuar.

ice, or the stainless whiteness of the snow—in this
respect presenting a striking contrast to the dis-
coloured glaciers of Switzerland, whose dirty faces
no amount of Alpine rain can wash clean. Some
years ago, when the supply of ice in London was
nearly exhausted, a ship was chartered to the Har-
danger, and brought home a cargo of magnificent
fragments of the Folgefond glacier. Though the
experiment answered admirably in every way, I
am not aware that it has been repeated.

Calm and still as the morning was, we did not
hear the tinkle of the bells of the Wesu seven
parishes said to be buried on account of their great
wickedness under the everlasting snows of the
Folgefond, and which many superstitious ears have
heard on certain propitious days. This tradition
is very similar to that of the Bliimlis Alp in Switz-
erland, and, like it, is evidently not altogether a
myth. It tells of a change of climate andyon2
eradual advancement of glaciers, overwhelming dis-
tricts once fertile and inhabited, of which many
traces may be seen in the physical appearances
around. For hundreds of years the Folgefond
glacier is said to have remained stationary, but it
is most certainly advancing in one direction; for
during a visit to the small tongue which descends
on the east side to within a thousand feet of the
sea-level, called the Buerbre iis, I saw the ice dis-
tinctly moving, stones falling from its edge, and the
ground newly ploughed up before it. The right
bank of the Sor fjord is more precipitous than the

oM] HARDANGER FFORD. 235

left, though not so wild and Alpine-looking. Huge
‘masses of broken rocks are piled above each other,
like a Titanic battle-field, at the edge of the water.
Bright green birches, with uncommonly white
stems, are interspersed among them, and soften
their harshness, while high overhead the precipices
form a gigantic wall, with a fringe of pine-trees
gleaming along their ledges in the sunlight, like the
spears of a celestial army. Little streamlets on
both sides flow down the rocky gullies in one long
continuous line of foam from the clouds to the sea,
and make a pleasant all-pervading murmur in the
air. The water of the Hardanger fjord in this
place is of a deep green tint, and in the chart is
marked as upwards of a thousand feet deep. There
is no shelving shore, but the rocks go straight down
into the profound depths.

After two hours’ rowing through this magnificent
scenery, we came, on the right bank of the fjord, to
the entrance of a wild gorge, through which flowed
the foaming waters of the Skjeggedal torrent. An
enormous wall of rock rose up on the left side with-
out a ledge or a break, destitute of the slightest
tinge of verdure. On the other side the precipice
was more sloping, and admitted here and there of
a few clumps of birches and pines growing on its
shelving sides. The mouth of the gorge was filled
with great banks of débris brought down by the
stream in the course of ages; and on these, which
were carefully cultivated, stood a small but very
neat-looking hamlet, called Tyssedal. The people

936 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. {[cuar.

were busy hay-making —gathering the natural
_ grass, and piling it, to dry in the sun, on the upright
framework of wood which is erected as a perma-
nency in every hay-field in Norway. Two or three
sunburnt girls, with green bodices, white sleeves,
and unusually large picturesque-looking caps, were
singing a wild Norwegian jod/, while tossing about
the hay. The position of this hamlet struck us as
exceedingly precarious. It seemed to fill up all the
available space in the gorge, and it looked as if a
storm of more than ordinary severity might have
washed both houses and fields down into the sea.
Crossing the foaming torrent, which for half a
mile agitated the placid waters of the fjord, we
moored our boat in a sheltered creek, and stepped
on shore. As we entered the frowning portals of
the gorge, leading to the great inner mystery of the
waterfall, we had a feeling of strange awe, such as
the Assyrians of old must have experienced when
passing between the monstrous human-headed bulls
that guarded the gates of their temples. Our course
at first lay up the steep bank of the river on the
right hand, through a fine wood of Scotch firs,
whose great’ red trunks and rich green foliage
would have done credit to any nobleman’s park.
The sun shone through the openings between the
trees in bright belts of gold on the mossy sward,
crowded with myriads of whortleberries, whose |
glossy leaves and clusters of white bells excited our
admiration. I never saw such a quantity of the
beautiful Linnea borealis—named after the im-

——————

oy]. FIRWOOD IN THE GORGE. 237

mortal botanist, and called by the Norwegians
windgras — growing anywhere as in this wood.
Its modest pink blossoms covered every available
space, and its rich fragrance pervaded all the air,
producing, along with the resinous scent of the firs,
a peculiarly delightful and exhilarating impression.
Fine specimens of the Melampyrum sylvaticum,
with flowers larger and yellower than those of the
Same species in this country, bloomed on every
side. Ferns abounded: clusters of the tall Sztruthz-
opteris germantca, lovely patches of the fragile oak
fern, and, above all, large tufts of the Woodsia
growing everywhere among the stones. This last
fern, which in this country is only found in two or
three remote localities among the loftiest mountains,
is very common and abundant by the waysides in
many parts of Norway—indeed, as common almost
as the Polypodium vulgare with us. There were
also numerous anthills, formed of the dry needles
of the fir, like those with which the tourist is familiar
in the pine-woods of Braemar. Some of these were
of enormous dimensions, and their tenants were
swarming in myriads on the outside, running up
and down to warm themselves in the sunshine. A
stick thrust into one of the hills smelt overpower-
ingly of formic acid.

Gradually, as we passed through this enchanting
wood, where everything was left to fall or grow in
the wild yet graceful disorder of nature, the path
became steeper and less defined. In some places
it consisted only of a tree-trunk fixed along the

238 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [cuap.

sloping side of a granite rock by an iron bolt. Over -
this precarious footway we practised successfully a
series of tight-rope performances. We were struck
with the curious appearance of some of the nearer
eneissic rocks, forming bands of thin, regular strata,
lying over each other, exactly like the huge, un->
shapely slates on the roofs of Norwegian houses, or
the armour-plate of a man-of-war, and covered
with the black stains of a species of Lectdea. On
emerging from the wood, we found ourselves on a
kind of plateau of bare rock, without a particle
of vegetation—not even a lichen or a moss to tint
its surface. It was perfectly smooth, and sloped
rapidly down at a perilous inclination for a few
yards, terminating abruptly in a precipice. Across
this steep slope the guide walked without a
moment’s hesitation, his flat shoes catching firm
hold of any roughness in the rock. I followed
mechanically, though not without considerable
trepidation, for the soles of my boots were very
thick and slippery, and I knew that if I lost my
footing I could not recover it, but would be hurled
with fearful momentum down the slope into the
abyss. One shuddering glimpse I caught of a wild
whirlpool of waters far below made my blood run
cold ; and as in this case discretion was the better
part of valour, ] am not ashamed to own that I
willingly submitted to “a spirit of infirmity,” and
crawled on all fours. To make matters still worse,
we had to ascend, about the middle of the passage,
to a higher stratum of sloping rock by means of a

= * » A

v.J “HOTEL DU SK¥EGGEDAL-FOSS.” 239

fir-trunk, with notches cut in the side of it for

steps. I need hardly say that I breathed more

freely and saw more grandeur in the scenery when

we reached the other side of this dangerous roof.
The pathway after this was along the edge of a
precipice, but its terrors were concealed by a pro-
fusion of trees and bushes. In a wider space, we

came upon a man and his wife busy erecting a

wooden hut from the materials on the spot. An
axe was their only tool, and it was wonderful what
a shapely framework they had constructed by its

means, without any nails. We asked them what
induced them to build a house in such a spot. It

could not be a saeter or hill-farm, for there was no
grass around, and no possibility of housing or feed-
ing cattle on such a precipitous slope. The man
replied that it was intended to be an inn—lI sup-

_ pose the “ Hotel du Skjeggedal-foss.” It seemeda

—<— — eee
~— Se
wy *s* 1

very hopeless speculation in present circumstances,

but it was an idea worthy of the genius that first
thought of an inn on the top of Snowdon, on the

Riffelhorn, or the St. Theodule Pass, and deserved
from its very boldness and originality to succeed.
Perhaps this sketch may be the means of bringing
custom to the place. If so, the only commission I
shall expect as a touter from the hotel-keeper and

his lady is a bottle of the best Baiersk Ol the next

time I pass by their hospitable door, for in my

thirst and fatigue I grievously missed it on this
occasion.

We had now reached the highest point of the

240 HOLIDAVS ON HIGH LANDS. {cuap.

ascent, and were congratulating ourselves that all
danger and cause of fear to weak nerves were past,
when we came to a staircase that beat all structures
of the kind I have ever seen. It descended for
about twelve yards at an angle of some fifty-five
degrees, and consisted of rough irregular steps pro-
jecting an inch or two beyond each other. On the
one side was a lofty wall of rock dripping wet, and
covered with bright green mosses and gelatinous
“masses of vegetable growth, so that there was very
little hold for the hands, while on the other there
was a sheer precipice, and far below a raging torrent
falling into a hideously black linn; and from this
danger there was nothing, not even the slightest
handrail, to give one a feeling of security. It was
a place to try the nerves even of a member of the
Alpine Club. We crawled down, clinging to every
projection with tooth and nail, the calves of our
legs all the time trembling like a jelly. When we
sot safely to the bottom, we thought that we had
accomplished a feat to be proud of all our days,
but our vanity received a severe shock when the
cuide, looking back upon the staircase, said in the
most matter-of-fact voice, “Det er ond plads for
_hesten” (That is a bad place for horses). After all,
_ we had only done what a quadruped was in the
habit of doing; though how a great long creature
like a horse could manage to come down this break-
neck place, with nothing to cling to, was a puzzle
which I cannot yet understand. I can only say
that I should like to see him at it. Astley might

v.] DESCENT OF STAIR. 241

get a new idea from it. There is a kind of saeter,
or hill-farm, farther up the gorge; and its dairy
produce, it seems, is strapped on a horse, and thus
carried down to Odde, where it is sold for groceries
and other needful articles, which are brought back
in the same picturesque fashion. Of course, no
one could ride on horseback along the path by
which we had come, although we found an entry
in the “dag-bok” at Odde, complaining bitterly
that the innkeeper had refused to give horses for
the excursion to a lady and her husband! We had
previously seen in our carriole-travelling some of
the remarkable feats of the Norwegian pony, but
we had no idea he was capable of such an Alpine
Club exploit as the descent of this staircase, and
we vowed a vow on the spot that nothing would
ever induce us to venture upon a path which a
Norwegian pony could not traverse—a vow which
we religiously kept. We had now got over two
very bad places, but of course we had to go back,
and the thought of returning in the same way did
not add much to our peace of mind or enjoyment
‘of the scenery. It was the sword of Damocles
suspended over our head.

_ The descent from this staircase was very rapid,
but it was over very rugged ground. We picked
‘our way in and out among chaotic masses of large
loose stones, placed at every possible angle, but
generally the sharpest side uppermost. At last we
‘came unexpectedly upon a little oasis in the wil-
derness—a quiet nook of cultivated ground. The
R

242 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [cuap.

space here was wider, the rocks having retired to
a greater distance, and allowed more of the blue
sky to be seen, and the sun to shine down unob-
structedly in all his warmth and golden splendour.
This miracle of refreshing greenness and beauty
was evidently the slowly-accumulated deposit of
the denuding power of the stream. The soil,
though light and shallow, yielded a fair crop of
potatoes, and the grassy pastures were golden with
buttercups, and sprinkled with white honey-sweet
clover blossoms. A cluster of rude wooden houses
stood on the spot amid clumps of graceful birches.
A little tarn stretched out in front, into the head of
which tumbled down an enormous body of foaming
water from a considerable height, while the other
end of it, a little way down, discharged a powerful
torrent that had to force its way through a very
narrow passage in the rocks. In the struggle, the
water presented a most lovely appearance, broken
up and churned into snow-white billows tinged
with the brightest cerulean hues, like the interior
of glacier crevasses. It was a sight that had a
terrible fascination about it, and from which it was
most difficult to withdraw the eye. As we were |
gazing, spell-bound, a strange specimen of humanity |
came up to us with a peculiar duck-like waddle. |
He was a young man apparently about eighteen |
years of age, blind, dumb, and idiotic. He had no |
chin, and his face had the strange bird-like look |
which we see in the hieroglyphic paintings of the |
Aztecs, or in South American antiquities. He was |

4

v.] HOUSE OF BONDER. 243

conscious of the presence of strangers, but he had
no sense to which we could appeal, and we were
therefore compelled to pity his wretched condition.
in silence.

The house into which we entered was that of the
bonder, or peasant proprietor, and was far superior
to the others. The whole gorge of the Skjeggedal,
eight miles in length, and I know not how many in
breadth, belongs to this man as “udal-land,” pay-
ing no acknowledgment, real or nominal, as a feu
duty or reddendo, possessed consequently without
charter, and subject to none of the burdens and
casualties affecting land held by feudal tenure.
But as this property consists principally of rock
and water, it is not very productive. There is a
great supply of timber, however, and the quantity
annually cut down and floated on the river to
the Hardanger ought to yield him a comfortable
income. He informed us that he had nine milch
cows, three horses, and twenty sheep, all finding a
precarious subsistence on the grassy patches laid
like green carpets on the sloping débris of the rocks.
He had under him three or four married farm ser-
vants, holding cottages beside his own with a small
portion of land, rent free, but under the obligation
of working for him during a certain number of days
in the year. Our “bonnet laird” had a wife and
family of four small children, as shy as the ryper or
ptarmigan of the fjelds. They were very unlike
the inhabitants of a civilized world in look and
.* and so unaccustomed to visitors that on our

Bs
{

244 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [cuap.

appearance they fled and hid themselves behind the
maternal wing. The gudewife—a very slatternly
woman, with a patient, depressed face—offered us
a drink of rich milk. The room was large, but
very bare and cold. Its only furniture consisted
of a curious cooking-stove, with Pompeian figures
moulded in its iron sides, two rough bedsteads
covered with reindeer skins, and a dairy press well
filled with cheeses, butter, and bowls of milk. On
the bed was a strange wooden dish, grotesquely
carved, and painted in red, blue, and yellow, filled
with a dark, muddy-looking liquor. This was a
species of ale, prepared, instead of hops, with the
leaves of a kind of ranunculus called feast, growing
in miry spots. It is said to possess very peculiar
intoxicating qualities, inspiring those who drink it
with extraordinary activity and contempt of danger,
but leaving a reaction of profound lassitude and
debility. Tradition points to this beverage as that
used by the famous Berserkir to inspire them with
fury when going on their marauding expeditions.
Our friend the, farmer took a hearty draught of it,
and offered it to Lars, who very modestly touched
it with his lips, after having first shaken hands
with his host and hostess, as the manner of the
Norwegians is when receiving any favour. It was
offered to us hesitatingly, but we shook our heads.
It looked such a disgusting mess, that nothing could
induce us to try it; and Lars assured us afterwards
that it was as abominable to the taste as to the
sight. We pitied the lot of these poor people, shut

‘

———$_$_—______

v.] ISOLATION OF PEASANT-LIFE. 245

up in this wild dungeon among ‘the rocks, far from
their fellow-creatures, and isolated from all the
refining and ennobling influences of civilization.
The contrast between their winter and summer life
must be very great. In summer their occupations
are exceedingly varied, owing to the absence of all
division of labour; and these are not shortened in
this latitude by any interval of darkness; conse-
quently they have that recreation in change of
labour, which is perhaps the greatest enjoyment of
a working man. But to this excessively active
period succeeds a long winter of nearly nine
months, during most of which there are only a few
hours of daylight, while the frequent storms, and
paths made impassible by snow and ice, prevent
all communication with their nearest neighbours
for weeks together. At such times their sufferings
from enforced idleness and exuuz must be very
great. Indeed it is astonishing, considering the
wild and gloomy character of the scenery, and the
loneliness and monotony of their lives, that cases
such as those of the wretched young man we met
‘are not even more frequent. Scotchmen or English-
men compelled to live in like circumstances would
infallibly go mad; but the Norwegians are very
patient and much- sane their tastes are simple,
their wants few, and they have never known any
other mode of life, so that custom reconciles them
to what to us would be unendurable.

; At this stage Lars had to resign his office: for
e duty of conducting us to the waterfall now
)

246 HOLIDAVS ON HIGH LANDS. [CHAP.

devolved upon the bonder. Going before us, there-
fore, we followed him past the hamlet, through
fields purple with bluebells and the largest and
loveliest pansies, over a rough wooden bridge, under
which thundered a foaming torrent, forming a fine
waterfall among the rocks high on the left. Dressed
in knee-breeches of well-worn reindeer-skin, we
ereatly admired the symmetry of his calves, and
the firmness and precision of his tread. His were
the very legs of a mountaineer, accustomed to
footing it in the most precarious places. A row of
large silver buttons—made out of old coins, with
the image and superscription of Frederick of Den-
mark still upon them—adorned his blue woollen
coat, so that he was change for two or three specie
dollars at any time. He brought us to the boulder-
strewn edge of the tarn, and, launching his boat,
speedily ferried us across the troubled waters. We
landed on a plot of peaty ground, covered with
tufts of beautiful cross-leaved heather in full rosy
bloom, and white with the large flowers of the
Moltibéer, or cloud-berry, which would afford many
a delicious feast when the rich orange fruit was
ripe. Clambering up by the side of a craggy
knoll, over which the aforesaid waterfall precipi-
tated itself,—so smooth and transparent at the top,
before it was churned into foam, that the rock
underneath could be plainly seen,—we came to the
edge of another lake, four miles in length, and
about half a mile wide, called the Ringedal’s Vand.
It is upwards of a thousand feet above the level of

|

ae RINGEDAL’S VAND. 247

the Hardanger fjord, and is surrounded on every
side, except where it discharges itself in the
cataract, by lofty rocks which rise perpendicularly
from the water’s edge to a height of between two
and three thousand feet. In a few places only is
there any sloping ground formed of the débris
brought down by waterfalls on either side; and
such ground, covered with dwarf birches and bright
green grass, formed a refreshing contrast to the
dark frown of the barren rocks. I always looked
out for such places, and had a feeling of relief when
nearing them, forthere at least I knew that I could
scramble out and find a footing if anything hap-
pened to the rickety boat. Wherever there are any
ledges or crevices in the precipices, there the hardy
spruce and Scotch fir flourish. Hundreds of trees,
with astonishing pertinacity, cling to the most
fearful places, where there is hardly a particle of
soil to nourish them ; and their gnarled roots, fully
exposed, crawling over the bare rock, look like
the talons of a bird of prey. When passing by,
close to the shore, we saw the farmer’s servants
perched above us on a precipitous rock, cutting
down a huge fir, or lopping off its branches, and
squaring its trunk for the market—their boat lying
moored close by; while, on a projecting crag over
the cataract, others of them were pushing with a
long pole into the current the logs that had got
jammed together in the back water. Both occupa-
tions looked very perilous, but the men seemed
cool, smoking their pipes, and hailing us with a

\

948 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. {cuap.

very cheery “ gud-dag.” Lars and the farmer
took an oar each, and rowed us across the current
to the other side of the lake in alarming proximity
to the edge of the waterfall. None but strong and
practised boatmen could hold their own here, and
keep the boat in the right place. The breaking of
an oar would be fatal. The water was cold as ice,
and very deep, between one and two hundred
fathoms, the bonder assured us. Its colour was
dark indigo blue, the colour of the ocean when
deepest ; but in one or two places, where the depth
decreased near a projecting promontory of boulders,
it was of a rich green. Nothing could be more
soft and tender than the gradations of this tint
made by the water shoaling to the edge; gleams
of malachite and emerald vanishing in transparent
aqua-marine, and strangely interspersed with
cobalt hues from the darker depths. It was a
miracle of colour such as would have astonished
and delighted a painter’s heart.

Several waterfalls poured down the cliffs on
either side, the finest of which was the Tysses-
trengene. It was very peculiar, consisting of two
distinct falls, formed by two torrents—separate,
and yet blending strangely together. The one
leapt down straight as a rod for three or four
hundred feet, preserving its integrity to the bottom;
the other formed a curious curve; and both dis-
appeared in a dark chasm, from which issued a
rainbow-wreathed cloud of spray. A great curtain
of the purest snow hung over the brow of the rock

We] | TYSSESTRENGENE. 2A9

where they both came in sight, and the blue of the
sky above it was wonderfully quiet and intense
from the contrast. Altogether there was something
SO spirit- -like and ethereal in the source and destiny
of these twin waterfalls, issuing apparently from
the same snow-wreath far up, and vanishing in the
same rainbow-tinted cloud of spray, that we were
quite lost in admiration of the sight, and thought
this of itself a sufficient recompense of our excur-
sion. On the banks of one of the twin-streams, a
long way beyond the precipice, there is a mountain-
farm, called Floren, whose loneliness and dreariness
must be uncommon even in Norway. Another
farther down is called Lia. How the inhabitants
get out of the place and into communication with
their nearest neighbours is to me incomprehensible.
The path must be as dreadful as that of the “ Dead
Man’s Ride” in Vettie-gial. Looking back, when
we had advanced about a mile on the lake, the
scene was truly extraordinary. The rocks had
come together and closed up the entrance, so that
‘We were surrounded on every side by vertical pre-
cipices, and there seemed no outlet. It required
little exercise of imagination to picture ourselves
the ghostly crew of Charon sailing over the Stygian
pool. There was something truly infernal in the
look of the place, from which a warm human heart
recoiled. Dante and Doré might have felt at home
in it, but our tamer spirits craved for something less
terrific and more earthly. The sun was shut out
by the overhanging rocks, and the light was therefore

ee ees —_

950 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [cuar.

dim and feeble. We were chilled to the marrow
by the cold air of the water ; and when the clouds
gathered, and a heavy shower fell, increasing the
sublimity of the scene, the climax of our discomfort
was reached. I would advise future visitors to
take with them, for this part of the way, a plentiful
supply of rugs, for the temperature, even on the
hottest day, is like that of the Arctic regions. I
know not if there be any superstitious legends
connected with this fearful lake. If not, there
should be ; for I cannot picture a more appropriate
haunt for those strange beings, half human and
half spiritual, which, according to the Northern
mythology, infest the dark fathomless fjords, and
require to be appeased every year by the drowning
of one or more human victims. It seemed easy, in
such a place, to understand how the wildest tales
of spirits and monsters of the deep originated. It
would be almost impossible to live in Norway and
not be superstitious. The powers of nature are so
terrible, and on so grand a scale, that they could
not fail to be personified and invested with a dread
control over human life.

Turning the corner of a great dripping promon-
tory that rose straight from the water into the
clouds, like a castle of Thor, a sight burst upon us
which for a minute or two nearly took away our
breath. It was the Skjeggedal-foss at last! This
first glimpse of it was one of those climaxes of
life which contrast strangely with its usual tame-
ness and monotony, and make us wonder at the

v.] THE WATERFALL. 251

suddenly revealed greatness of our being. There
before us was the jealously-guarded secret of the
gorge, of which every object all the way had been
-conscious—the fierce yet beautiful Pythoness of
this inmost shrine of nature. As if by one consent
the men paused upon their oars, and we gazed in
silence. To utter our admiration while that mighty
tongue was pouring out its mystic secrets to the
trembling rocks we felt would be sacrilege. All
waterfalls have a strong family likeness, and should
therefore be left undescribed for the imagination
to sketch. This one, however, had some peculiar
features. The body of water was enormous, and
the height upwards of 580 feet. It fell sheer down
from the edge of the precipice without touching the
rock; and though a great quantity of vapour was
disengaged, the vast mass of its waters reached the
bottom entire with a solid sound like the fall of a
ereat avalanche. We were upwards of a mile from
it, but even at this distance the noise was so pene-
trating, so transfixing, that the roll of thunder, or
the firing of artillery, can give no idea of its
fulness and solemnity. As we drew nearer the
cataract increased in size and sublimity ; while the
rocks literally overhung the water. The summits
of those on the left were broken up into the most
fantastic outlines—rude resemblances of monks,
sphinxes, and castles, some of which were half-
detached and seemed ready to topple down. Great
patches of snow lay wedged in the shady recesses,
and increased the peculiarly grey weather-beaten

252, HOLIDAVS ON HIGH LANDS. [cHap.

look of the precipices. No more venerable rocks
than these bold gigantic masses of gneiss and mica-
schist can be found in the world. They are like
exposed portions of the skeleton of the earth;
and one feels, in looking at them, the appropriate-
ness of the: title, “ _2ldvamle Kiga~, “aimcya)
kingdom,” given to their native country by the
Norwegian poets.

We landed on an extensive sloping bank lying
along the foot of the rocks beside the waterfall.
This bank was covered with straggling dwarf
birches, and yielded a rich crop of grass wherever
there was a clear space of soil among the great
lichen-covered boulders. It was evidently a saeter,
for there were two or three ruinous wooden sheds
erected on it for storing hay until carried down
by boat to the farm, and several of those curious
wooden frames for drying it were scattered about.
In the shallow inlet where we moored our boat, the
bottom was composed entirely of thin round pieces
of mica-schist, all of the same size, and so like coins
that we offered a handful of them playfully to Lars
as sma penge for ein mark. They had evidently
been coined in the mint of the waterfall. I gathered
_several very rare lichens and mosses among the
stones. Nothing could exceed the variety and rich-
ness of the flowers growing in the more sheltered
places. It was a curious combination of plants
which in this country are never seen together.
Lowland and Alpine species bloomed side by
side without any incongruity. Bluebells, pansies,

vi ALPINE VEGETATION. 253

marsh-marigolds, lilies of the valley, ragged robins,
displayed their familiar charms in loving sisterhood
with the shiest beauties which in Britain are found
only in one or two isolated spots among the loftiest
Highland mountains. Ajuga alpina, Bartsia alpina,
Salix reticulata and herbacea, Pedicularis lapponica,
Cornus suecica, Rubus arcticus, Smilacina bifolia,
Saxifraga cernua and rivularis, Thalictrum alpi-
num, Pinguicula villosa, Sonchus alpinus, Ceras-
ium alpinum, Ranunculus glacialis, Hierochloe
borealis, Phleum alpinum; these and many more
Alpine plants, exceedingly rare in Britain, were
gathered on this little plot of ground. Here, as on
the summits of the Highland mountains, the Sz/ene
acaulis formed great soft carpets on the mossy
ground, with its tufted foliage hardly seen for the
multitude of rosy blossoms. The wondrous loveli-
ness of the large blue eyes of the Alpine Veronica
—looking out upon me from behind the shelter of
every stone—haunts me still. And high on the
tops of the largest boulders the magnificent Saxz-
fraga cotyledon waved its long rich spike of snowy
blossoms in every gust of wind. It is well named
Berg-kongen, “king of the rocks,” for it is a truly
royal plant. It recalled many a delightful memory
of the Alps, where I gathered it among the grand-
est scenes. I could have spent a whole day
botanizing in this rich habitat; but as our
time was limited, I was obliged to content my-
self with the species that came most readily to
hand, leaving many a rare and beautiful plant

254 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. {cuap.

“1 esis unseen, and waste its sweetness on the
desert air.’ |

Wrapped in poeta: we climbed among
the wet rocks, past the limits of vegetation, as near
as we could venture to the edge of the abyss; and
there through a dense writhing mist of spray, which
poured in streams from our garments, we caught a
glimpse of a huge wreath of snow lining the sides
of the caldron all round, which seems to be per-
petual. Into the heart of this cloven wreath the
cataract fell with an appalling sound, and from
thence plunged down in a series of smaller falls
into the lake. We could not see the nature of the
linn beneath the cataract, for it was filled with
blinding vapour, which rushed half-way up the
sides of the black rocks and fell down again in
numberless cascades—which of themselves would
have attracted admiration in any other place,
High overhead on the sky-line the vast volume of
water burst over the ledge of rock. We watched
it descending, churned and ground by the concus-
sion into the smallest atoms, and yet forming in
their aggregate mass a snowy pillar of gigantic
dimensions and irresistible strength. We lingered
on the spot, loth to leave, fascinated by the inde-
scribable wildness and terror of the sight; and
when we did go, we looked behind again and again,
for the eye was not satisfied with seeing. We
rowed safely back to the farm, where we had the
rare luxury of paying a landed proprietor a sum
equivalent to two shillings and sixpence of English

mee.” RETURN TO ODDE. 955
money, and receiving in acknowledgment of our
munificence a hearty shake of the hand and “ mange
tak” (many thanks). The steep staircase was
ascended with less trepidation than it was de-
scended : and over the bare house-roof of rock we
walked with greater boldness, in the erect attitude
that becomes a man; having, at the guide’s sugges-
tion, taken the precaution of putting off our shoes,
and going across in our stockings. All the way as
we descended we obtained through the trees mag-
nificent views of the snowy plateau of the Folgefond,
reddened on its highest part by the exquisite abend-
gliihen, or after-glow of sunset. We reached Odde
at eight o'clock, moderately fatigued and immensely
gratified with our excursion, but leaving the com-
parative merits of the Voring-foss and the Skjeg-
sedal-foss an open question, to be settled for himself
by each tourist who follows in our footsteps.

CHAPTER WE

THE PASS AND HOSPICE OF THE GREAT
ST. BERNARD.

THERE is no episode in continental travel more
interesting at the time, and more suggestive of
pleasing memories afterwards, than a visit to.the
Great St. Bernard Hospice. It does one moral as
well as physical good. The imagination is stimu-
lated by the associations of the place, and the
heart filled with the feverish unrest and love of
excitement so characteristic of the present age is
rebuked and calmed by the loneliness and mono-
tony of the life. Every one has heard of its dogs
and monks, and its travellers rescued from the
snow-storms. “Pictures of it used “to jememe ous
wonder in the days of childhood ; descriptions of
it in almost every Swiss tourist’s book have inte-
rested us in maturer years; while not a few of us
have made a pilgrimage to the spot, and thus given
to the romantic dreams and fancies of early life a
local habitation and a name. Still, trite and worn-
out as the subject may appear, it is impossible by
any amount of familiarity to divest it of its undying

‘CHAP. VI.]| JVTEREST OF THE REGION. 957

charm ; and those who have visited the scene, so far
from their interest in it being exhausted, have only
been made more enthusiastic in its favour, and
more anxious to compare or contrast their own
experience with that of every new traveller who
writes upon it. To the botanist especially the
region is exceedingly interesting. In ascending
the pass he has an opportunity of noticing the
various types of vegetation that occur in the dif-
ferent zones of altitude, from the plants of Southern
Europe in the valleys to the Arctic flora below the
line of perpetual snow. There are few places where
so great a variety of Scandinavian forms may be
gathered as on this crest of the Pennine Alps,
growing among forms that are peculiar to the
locality. Even the unscientific traveller is struck
with their extreme luxuriance and beauty. They
form an essential feature in the landscape, which
the most careless will notice and remember with
pleasure long afterwards, associating the beds of
lovely Alpine plants with the fresh, bracing air,
the bright rejoicing waters, and the noble prospects
of the mountain heights.

_ About the beginning of August, two years ago,
I had the pleasure of visiting this celebrated spot
in company with two friends. We set out early in
the morning in a char-a-banc, or native droskey,
drawn by a mule from the “ Hétel Grande-Maison-
Porte,” at Martigny, the Roman Octodurus, and
the seat of the ancient bishops of Valais. This is a
low, damp, uninteresting place, much infested with
} , e

258 HOLIDAVS ON HIGH LANDS. | CHAP.
a small, black gnat, whose sting is very painful,
bred in the marshes of the Rhone. Being a capital
centre of excursions to Lago Maggiore over the ©
Simplon, to Aosta and Turin over the St. Bernard
pass, and to Chamouni by the Téte-Noire, or the
Col de Balme, it is exceedingly gay and animated
every evening during the summer, owing to the
arrival of tourists, and desolate and deserted every
morning, owing to their departure. The sun was
shining with almost tropical heat, rapidly ripening
the walnuts along the avenues of the town, and the
grapes hanging in rich profusion on the trellises
of the houses; the sky was without a cloud, and
everything promised a delightful trip. Passing
through a small unsavoury village called Martigny
le Bourg, our route crossed the Dranse by a sub-
stantial bridge; and at a little distance beyond
a guide-post indicated to the right the way to
Chamouni, and to the left to St. Bernard. . The
entrance by the pass of the Dranse is magnificent,
reminding us, though on a grander scale, of the
mouth of Glenlyon in Perthshire. Lofty slopes,
and precipices richly wooded, approached from
both sides so closely that there was hardly room —
left for the passage of the powerful stream, which, |
turbid with glacier mud, roared and foamed over |
enormous blocks of stone. The road, without para- |
pet or railing, overhung the river, and in one place
was carried through a tunnel called the Gadlerie|
Monaye, upwards of two hundred feet long, cut out |
of the solid rock. We passed through scattered

4
7
y

)

j

way. CAREFUL CULTIVATION. 259

villages sweetly embosomed among walnut and
chesnut trees, but presenting many saddening
signs of the poverty and wretchedness of the
inhabitants. An unusually large proportion of the
people were afflicted with goitres, and here and
there we saw sitting on the thresholds of their
dirty chalets loathsome cretins, basking in the sun,
whose short, shambling ‘figures and unnaturally
large round heads and leering faces afflicted us
amid the beauty of nature around like a nightmare.
The ground was everywhere most carefully culti-
vated. Every particle of soil among the rocks,
however scanty or steep, was terraced up with
walls, and made to yield grass, corn, or potatoes.
High up on the brink of precipices that seemed
almost inaccessible, bright green spots indicated
the laborious care of the peasantry ; and to these,
as soon as the winter snows disappeared, sheep
were carried up. every year, one by one on men’s
backs, and left there till the end of summer, when

they were carried down, considerably fattened, in |
the same picturesque fashion. The lower meadows
by the roadside were exceedingly beautiful, of the
most vivid green, covered with myriads of purple
crocuses and scarlet vetches, and murmurous with
the hum of innumerable grasshoppers. Gay butter-
flies, and insects of golden and crimson hues, never
seen in this country, flitted past in the warm sun-
shine ; and the fragrance of the Arolla pines filled
all thie air with a highly stimulating aromatic balm.
‘As it was the festal day of the “ Assumption of the

2

260 HOLIDAVS ON HIGH LANDS: 7 “Toaae
Virgin,’ one of the grandest fétes of the Roman
Catholic Church, groups of peasants,—the men
dressed in the brown cotton blouses peculiar to the
district, and the women wearing a curious head-
dress consisting of a broad tinselled ribbon plaited
and set on edge round a cap, each carrying her
_prayer-book in her hand, wrapped in a white
_ pocket-handkerchief,—passed us on their way to
the chapel at Martigny. On all sides we noticed
exceedingly distinct traces of two great natural
phenomena which had overwhelmed the district,
separated from each other by thousands of years.
Almost every exposed rock was polished and
striated by ancient glaciers; and the granite
boulders, which they had brought down with them,
were seen perched upon the schist and limestone
precipices hundreds of feet above the river. The
whole valley from St. Bernard to Martigny, with
its tributary glens, must have been the channel of
a vast system of glaciers descending from the crest
of the Pennine Alps during the glacial epoch, when
all the glaciers of Europe and Asia were far more ~
extensive than they are now. The other pheno-
menon to which allusion has been made was also >
caused by glacier action, but of a different kind.
In one of the narrow side gorges of the valley, |
called the Val de Bagne, there is a glacier known |
as the Glacier de Getroz, which hangs suspended |
over a cliff five hundred feet high. The end of this |
glacier is continually breaking off, and falling over |
the precipice into the bottom of the gorge, where ||

VI.] INUNDATION OF DRANSE. 261

the fragments of ice accumulate and form enormous
heaps. Inthe year 1818 these fallen masses had
been piled up to an unparalleled extent, and choked
up the narrow, vault-like outlet of the gorge.
Behind this icy dam the water of the east branch
of the Dranse increased, until at length a lake was
formed, nearly a mile long, a quarter of a mile wide,
and about two hundred feet deep. The inhabitants
of the valley watched anxiously the gradual rise of
the waters, knowing that when the warm season
should come the icy bank would melt, and the
reservoir be at once discharged. Many of them ~
fled in the spring, with their goods and cattle, to
the higher pasturages. A tunnel, seven hundred
feet long, was cut into the ice, which gradually let
off a considerable part of the water without any
damage. Buta hot June sun and the warmth of
the water so gnawed into the ice that on the after-
noon of the 16th of the month the barrier burst all
at once, and a prodigious mass of water, upwards
of five hundred and thirty millions of cubic feet,
rushed down the valley with fearful fury, carrying
everything before it, and marking its course all the
way to the lake of Geneva, fifty miles distant, with
gigantic ruins. Many lives were lost, and property
to nearly the value of a million sterling was
| assis To prevent a repetition of this awful

alamity, for a similar event occurred in 1595, and
the same cause is still in operation, spring water is
ed by means of a long wooden trough to the dam
ice formed by the falling fragments of the

:

262. HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. {cuap.

glacier; and the warmth of this water cuts like a
saw the ice as soon as deposited, and thus cleaves
a passage for the river and prevents its waters from
accumulating. The autograph of this tremendous
inundation was written, like the mystic “ Mene; |
mene,” of Belshazzar’s palace, in the huge stones in
the bed of the river, and in the gravelly and stony
spots far up the sides of the valley, mingling with
the relics of ancient glacier action, but easily
Sea Elie from them. .

Passing through Sembranchier, a picturesque
village, with the ruins of an enormous castle of the
Emperor Sigismund on a hill in its vicinity, and
Orsiéres, situated at the junction of the valleys of
Ferret and Entremont, distinguished by a very
ancient tower rising high above its curious houses,
the road ascended by a series of well-executed zig-
zags through a rich and highly-cultivated country
to Liddes. Deep down among wild rocks the
Dranse pursued its turbulent course unseen, reveal-
ing its presence only by an all-pervading murmur
in the air. The view extended over an undulating
upland landscape of green fields, diversified by
wooden frames for drying the corn, somewhat like ©
the curious structures for drying hay to be seen on
Norwegian mountain farms. The huge summit of
Mont Velan, 12,000 feet high, formed the most |
conspicuous object on the horizon before us, its —
dark rocks contrasting finely with its dazzling
snows and the rich fields of deep blue sky above it.
A cool breeze blew down upon us from the snowy —

ot , . SE. PIERRE, 263
heights, and was inexpressibly refreshing after the
stifling heat of the valley. About four o’clock in
the afternoon we came to a strange old village,
called St. Pierre,—the last on the route,—situated
on a kind of plateau, about 5,000 feet above the
level of the sea. It was a very dirty, miserable
place ; and we were victimized by the innkeeper of
the Hotel au Dejeuner de Napoleéon, having been
charged fifteen francs for a blue scraggy chicken,
not much larger than a sparrow, a plate of potatoes
fried in rancid grease, and a bottle of Beaujolais
Wine as sour as vinegar. A remarkably quaint old
church, built in the tenth century, still exists in the
village. A tablet with a Latin inscription by
Bishop Hugo of Geneva, the founder of the church,
commemorates a victory obtained by the inhabi-
tants over the Saracens, who had ravaged the
district with fire and sword. A Roman milestone
is also built into the wall of the enclosure near the
tower. In modern times the place is chiefly
interesting as being one of the resting-places of
Napoleon in his passage over the Alps, and the
birthplace of his famous guide. A little beyond it
there is a deep gorge with a splendid, full-bodied
waterfall, which we visited. The sides of the pools
and the sloping banks were fringed with clusters of
tall monkshood, whose blue flowers mingled with
the snowy foam of the water; while the large
yellow flowers of the Swiss foxglove (Dzgztals
grandiflora) peeped out with a very brilliant
effect among the bushes. Across the gorge, a

264 HOLIDAVS ON HIGH LANDS. {cuar. -

frail bridge, with an arched gateway, constructed
by Charlemagne, gave access to the main road,
which led through the forest of St. Pierre in the
Defilé de Charreire, and was cut in many places
out of the solid rock. Below us, at the foot of
perpendicular precipices several hundred feet in
depth, the Dranse, still a powerful stream, formed
innumerable foaming cascades. There was no wall
or abutment to protect us. The off-hand wheel of
the conveyance was always within a foot of the
edge. I was sitting on the side nearest the precipice,
and often could have easily let fall a stone from
my hand right down into the river. The least false
movement on the part of the driver would inevit-
ably have hurled us over to destruction. And yet
we went safely and pleasantly along at full speed,
our hearts now and then, when we came to a more
trying place than usual, perhaps a little higher than
their normal position. It was in this defile of Char- —
reire that Napoleon encountered his most formidable
difficulties. The old road was declared by Mares-
cat, chief of the engineers, as “barely passable for
artillery.” ‘It is possible! let us start then!” was
the heroic reply of his master. It was a favourite
maxim with him that wherever two men could set
foot an army had the means of passing; and he
acted upon this maxim on this occasion. As it was
about the end of May, the snows were melting fast,
and thus greatly increased the dangers and diffi-
culties of the route. “The artillery carriages were
taken to pieces and packed on mules; the ammu-

ez
m7

mr CANTINE DE PROZ. 265

nition was also thus transported ; whilst the guns
themselves, placed on the trunks of trees hollowed
out, were dragged up by main strength,—a hundred
soldiers being attached to each cannon, for which
laborious undertaking they received the sum of
1,200 francs. At the Hospice each soldier partook
of the hospitality of the brethren.”

In about an hour anda half we came toa dolita ry
inn, called the Cantine de Proz, kept by a man of
the name of Dorset, who is very civil to travellers.
No other dwelling was in sight. A number of
diminutive cows wandered about on the short
smooth turf, bright with the lovely Alpine clover ;
the sweet tinkling of their bells, combined with the
monotonous sighing of the infant Dranse, giving us
a lonely and far-away feeling, as if we had reached
the end of the world. A corner of the Glacier de
Menouve, of dazzling whiteness, appeared in sight,
far up among stern precipitous rocks, of a peculiarly
bald and weather-worn appearance. Above the
cantine, a little plain, called the Plan de Proz, about
5,500 feet above the sea, sloped up, seamed in
every direction with grey watercourses, but gemmed
with innumerable brilliant clusters of the snowy
gentian, Leaving our conveyance at the inn, and
taking with us the mule and the driver as a guide,
we set off on foot across the plain, to the entrance
of a kind of gorge, called the Defile de Marengo,
which is exceedingly steep and difficult of ascent.
‘A considerable stream, confined within narrow
‘bounds, roars and foams within a few feet of the

E

~

266 HOLIDA VS ON HIGH LANDS. [CHAP |

pathway, so that in wet weather its swollen waters

must render the defile impassable. Among the
rocks, wherever any particles of soil lodged, rich
cushions of moss spread themselves, wild auriculas

nestled in the crevices, and large patches of crow-

berry and blaeberry bushes crept over the boulders.
These blaeberry bushes fringed the pathway up to

within a short distance of the Hospice ; and nowhere —

in Scotland have we seen the fruit so plentiful or

so large and luxurious. Basketfuls could be gathered

in a few minutes without diverging more than a
yard or two from our course; and yet it seems
never to be touched. The sides of the stream were
decked with the large woolly leaves and. brown

flowers of the Alpine 7usszlago, which takes the
place at this elevation of the common butter-bur,
whose. enormous umbrella-like leaves form such a

picturesque adornment of lowland rivulets. After
an hour’s stiff ascent, we came to two ruinous-
looking chalets, built of loose stones, one of which
served as a place of refuge for cattle, while the
other was the old morgue, now used as a shelter-

place for travellers, where they wait, if overtaken |
by storms, till the servants of the monastery come —

down with a dog to their rescue, which they do

every morning when the weather is unusually —

severe. They bring with them on such occasions —
wine and provisions to restore the exhausted and |
half-frozen traveller; and guided by the faithful |

|
-|

dogs, who alone know the way,—thirty feet of snow
being not unfrequently accumulated in the worst

aa

vi THE VALLEY OF DEATH. » 267

*

parts of the pass,—they are all brought safely to
the hospitable shelter of the convent. From this
point the defile receives the ominous name of the
Valiey of Death; and the track is marked by tall,
black poles, and here and there by a cross, marking
the scene of some tragic event. Within a short
distance of the Hospice, an iron cross commemo-_
‘rates the death of one of the monks who perished
on that spot by an avalanche in November 1845.
Between these grim memorials of those to whom
the place had been indeed the valley of the shadow
of death we toiled up the rough and arduous
path, panting and perspiring, greatly aided. by
our alpenstocks. For my own part, I thought
the way would never end. I turned corner after
corner of the defile, but still no trace of human
habitation. My knees were about to give way
with fatigue, the rarity of the air was making
itself known to me in thirst and headache, my
pulse had advanced from 60 beats at Martigny
to 83 at this elevation, and I would gladly have
rested awhile. But the shades of night were falling
fast, so the banner with the strange device had
still to be unfurled. I had in my own experience
during this ascent a more vivid conception than I
could otherwise have realized of the feverish longing
which the lost wanderer in the snow has for a place
of refuge and rest. If I, a mere summer tourist,
bent upon reaching the Hospice only to gratify a
love of adventure, and to realize a romantic sensa-
tion, had such a desire, how much more ardent

268 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [cHae.

must be the longing of the poor traveller, overtaken
by the dreadful. ourmente, blinded and benumbed
by the furious drift, to whom reaching the Hospice
3s a matter’ of life and death! At astiear the
very summit of the pass, I saw the Hospice loom-
ing above me, its windows glittering in the setting
sun. Fatigue and weariness all forgotten, I eagerly
clambered up the remaining part of the ascent,
along a paved road overhanging a precipice, and in
a few minutes stood beside the open door. At first
I could hardly realize the fact that the convent,
about which I: had read so much, whiten fad
so often seen in pictures and pictured in dreams,
was actually before me. It had a very familiar look,
appearing exactly as I had imagined. I did not
approach it in the orthodox fashion,—exhausted
and half-frozen amid the blinding drifts of a snow-
storm, and dragged in on a dog’s back! On the
contrary, the evening was calm and summer-like ;
the surrounding peaks retained the last crimson
blush of the exquisitely beautiful abend-gluhen, or
after-glow of sunset; the little lake beside the
_ convent mirrored the building on its tranquil bosom ;
the snow had retreated from the low grounds, and
only lingered on. the lesser heights in the form of
hardened patches wedged in the shady recesses of
the rocks.. I could not have seen the place under
more favourable auspices; and yet, nevertheless,
the scene was inexpressibly forlorn and melancholy.
There was an air of utter solitude and dreariness
about it which I have never seen equalled, and

THE BUILDING. : 269

VI. |

which oppressed me witha nameless sadness. There
was no colour in the landscape,—no cheerful green,
or warm brown, or shining gold, such as relieves
even the most sterile moorland scenery in this
country. Everything was grey and cold —the
building. was grey, the rocks were grey, the lake
was grey, the vegetation was grey, the sky was
grey ; and when the evening glow vanished, the
lofty peaks around assumed a livid ghastly hue,
which even the sparkling of their snowy drapery in
the first beams of the moon could not enliven. Not
a tree, not a shrub, not even a heather bush, was in
sight. It seemed as if Nature, in this remote and
elevated region, were dead, and that I was gazing
upon its shrouded corpse in a chamber draperied
with the garments of woe.
The Monastery itself is a remarkably plain build-
_ ing, destitute of all architectural pretensions. It is
in fact a huge barn, built entirely for use and not
for elegance. It consists of two parts—one fitted
| up as a chapel, and the other containing the cells
_ of the monks, and rooms for the accommodation of
| travellers, divided from each other by whitewashed
| wooden partitions. It is built in the strongest
_manner,—the walls being very thick, and the win-
eo numerous, small, and doubly-glazed, so as
most effectually to withstand the fearful storms of
winter. There is a small separate building on the
_ other side of the path, called the Hétel de St. Louis,
_which is used as a granary, and as a sleeping-place
for beggars and tramps. It also provides a refuge

|

ra la pe re odes ee

270 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. {cuap.

in the case of fire, from which the Hospice has
frequently suffered severely, being on two occasions
nearly burnt to the ground. Ladies were formerly
entertained in this building, as it was deemed out
of place to bring them into the Monastery. But
these’ scruples have now been overcome, and ladies
are freely admitted to all parts of the place, and
allowed to sleep in the ordinary rooms. The monks
of the present day have not the same dread of the
fair sex which their patron saint is said to have
cherished. Indeed, the good fathers are particularly
delicate and profuse in their attentions to ladies,
giving to them the best places at table, and serving
them with the choicest viands. In fact, the com-
pany of ladies is one of the best letters of introduc-
tion that a party can bring with them ; for though
the monks are proverbially kind and attentive to all
persons without distinction, and especially conside-
rate, from a sympathetic feeling, towards bachelors,
yet if they have a warmer place than another in
their hearts, it is reserved for lady travellers; and
who would blame them for it? |

’ The St. Bernard Hospice is the highest per-
manent habitation in Europe, being 8,200 feet
above the level of the sea, or nearly twice the
height .of Ben Nevis. There are, indeed, several
chalets in the Alps that are still higher, but
- they are tenanted only during the three summer
months, when the people employ themselves in
tending goats and manufacturing cheeses from
their milk. . About the end of September they

—
“

vid SEVERITY OF CLIMATE. 271

are deserted, and the shepherds descend to the
valleys. The severity of the climate at the Hos-
pice is so great, that the snow never leaves the
level ground for nine months in the year. Snow
showers are almost always falling, even in the
mildest weather ; and there are scarcely three suc-
cessive days in the whole twelve months free from
blinding mists and biting sleet. The mean tem-
perature is 30° Fahr., exactly that of the South
Cape of Spitzbergen. In summer it never exceeds
48°, even on the hottest day; and in winter, parti-
-eularly in February, the thermometer not unfre-
quently falls 40° below zero,—a degree of cold
of which we in this country can form no con-
ception. What greatly increases the severity of the
| climate is the fact that the Hospice is situated in a
gorge pierced nearly from north-east to south-west,
‘in the general direction of the Alps, and conse-
quently in the course of the prevailing winds; so
that, even in the height of July, the least breath of
the bise, or north wind, sweeping over the lofty
snow region, always brings with it a degree of cold
| extremely uncomfortable. The effect of this bitter
| Arctic climate upon the monks, as might be ex-
‘pected, is extremely disastrous. The strongest
constitution soon gives way under it. Headaches,
pains in the chest and liver, are sadly common.
Even the dogs themselves, hardy though they are,
soon become rheumatic and die. Seven years is
}the longest span of their life, and the breed is with
the utmost difficulty kept up. All the monks are

ewe ¥

é
eT

272 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. _foxar.
young men, none of them having the grey hair, and
long venerable beard, and feeble stooping gait,
which are usually associated with the monastic
fraternity. In fact, the intensity of the climate pre-
vents any one from reaching old age. The prior,
M. Joseph de l’Eglise, has been longer in the con-
vent than any other monk, having spent there con-
siderably more than the half of his life. But though
only forty-six years of age, he looked a withered,
pinched old man, suffering constantly and acutely
from the disorders of the place, yet bearing his ill-
nesses in patient uncomplaining silence, and going
about his work as though nothing were the matter
with him. The monks begin their noviciate, which
usually lasts about fourteen years, at the age of
’ eighteen ; but few of them live to complete it. The
first year of residence is the least trying, as the
stock of health and energy they have brought with
them enables them successfully to resist the devital-
izing influence of the monotonous life and the
severe climate; but every succeeding year they
become less and‘less able to bear the cold and pri-
vations, and they go about the convent the ghosts.
of their former selves, blue and thin and shivering.
Before they have succumbed, they go down to the
‘sick establishments in the milder climate of Mar-
tigny or Aosta, or they serve as parish priests in the.
different valleys around. But, in many cases, this
remedy comes too late. They perish at their posts,
literally starved to death. The annals of the con-
vent contain many sad records of such devotion;

i cn

vi] WELCOME. | 273

and they thrill the heart with sympathy and
admiration.

_ We mounted the stair in front of the door
of the Hospice, and entered, preceded by our
euide. In the wall of the vestibule we noticed a
large black marble tablet, bearing the following
inscription in gilt letters: “ Napoleoni I. Francorum
Imperatori, semper augusto Reipublice Valesiane
restauratori, semper optimo A‘gyptiaco, bis Italico,
semper invicto, in monte Jovis et Sempronii semper
memorando respublica Valesise grata, 2 Dec. 1804.”
At the top of a short flight of steps, our guide rang
a large bell twice, and immediately a door opened
and a polite and gentlemanly monk appeared,
dressed in a long black coat with white facings,
and with a high dark cap, similarly decorated,
‘upon hishead. He welcomed us with much polite-
ness, and beckoning us to follow him, conducted
us through a long vaulted corridor, dimly lighted
‘by a solitary lamp, where the clang of an iron gate
‘shutting behind us, and the sound of our own
footsteps on the stone floor, produced a hollow
reverberation. He brought us into a narrow room,
with one deeply-recessed window at the end, con-
taining three beds simply draped with dark crimson
curtains, and all the materials for a comfortable
toilet. There are about eighty beds for travellers
of better condition in the monastery, and accom-
modation for between two and three hundred
persons of all classes at one time. Speedily re-
Bving our travel- stains, we rejoined our host in

eal

Q7A HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS [ CHAP.

the corridor, who showed us into the general
reception room, where we found lights and a
smouldering wood fire upon the hearth. The
walls of the room, lined with pine wainscot, were
hung with engravings and paintings, the gifts of
srateful travellers; while in one corner was a
piano, presented by the Prince of Wales shortly
after his visit to the Hospice. Two. long tables
occupied the sides, covered with French newspapers.
and periodicals, among which we noticed several
recent numbers of Galignani and the J/lustrated
London News. We went instinctively at once to
the fire, but found it monopolized by a party of
Italians and Germans, who showed no disposition to
admit us within the magic circle. We elbowed our
way in, however, and had the satisfaction of crouch-
ing over the smouldering logs with the rest, and
admiring the beautifully-carved marble mantelpiece.
One of the monks very considerately came in with
an armful of wood and a pair of bellows, and, reple-
nishing the fire, speedily produced a cheerful blaze,
which thawed us all into good-humour and genial
chattiness... We felt the cold execedmpix rae
thermometer in one of the windows of the room
registering six degrees below the freezing point.
At Martigny, in the morning, the thermometer
indicated about eighty degrees in the shade; so.
that in less than twelve hours we had passed from
a tropical heat sufficient to blister the skin exposed
to it to an Arctic cold capable of benumbing it
with frost-bites. The rooms of the convent are

/

er rr a
Pyi} SCARCITY OF FUEL. 275
SS a rr eer a
heated-all the year round; and at what an expense
and trouble it may be judged, when the fact is
mentioned, that every particle of the fuel consumed
is brought on the backs of mules over the Col de
_ Fenetre, a continuous ascent of nine thousand feet,
from the convent forest in the valley of Ferret,
twelve miles distant. Water, too, boils at this
elevation at about 187° F ahr., or twenty-five degrees
Sooner than the normal point; and in consequence
Of this it takes five hours to cook a piece of meat,
which would have taken only three hours to get
-Teady down in the valleys, and a most inordinate
quantity of fuel is consumed in the kitchen during
the process. The most essential element of life in
‘this terrible climate is yet, sad to say, too rare and
precious to be used in sufficient quantity. What
would not the poor monks give for a roaring

:

blazing coal fire, such as cheers in almost limitless
‘Measure our homes on the winter nights, when
they sit shivering over the dim glimmer of a wood
fire carefully doled out in ounces |!
.- Having arrived too late for supper, which is
usually served at six, the dinner hour being at
noon, an impromptu meal was provided for us
and the other travellers who were in the same
position. Though hastily got up, the cooking of
it would have done credit to the best hotel in
Martigny. It consisted of excellent soup, roast
chamois, and boiled rice and milk, with prunes.
bottle of very superior red wine, which was said
o be a present from the King of Sardinia, was put
| Lie

:

a

276 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. {cuap.
beside each person; and a small dessert of nuts
and dried fruits wound up the entertainment.
The Clavandier presided, and by his courteous
manners made every one feel perfectly at home.
The conversation was carried on exclusively in
French, which is the only language spoken by the
fathers. Coming in contact during the summer
months with travellers from all parts of the world,
and devoting the long winter to hard study, in
which they are helped by the superior, who is a
man of great learning, the monks are exceedingly
intelligent, and well acquainted with the leading
events of the day, in which they take a deep in-
terest. Some of them are proficients in music;
others display a taste for natural history ; and
they all combine various accomplishments with
their special study of theology and the patristic
literature. They are also very liberal in their
views, having none of the bigotry and ,intolerance
which we usually associate with the monastic
order, and which is so conspicuous in the cures
of the Papal Swiss cantons. A_ striking ex-
ample of this was related to us at the time.
A week before our arrival, an Episcopalian clergy-
man, happening to be staying with a party of
Englishmen in the Hospice on a Sunday, asked
permission of the superior to conduct a religious |
service with his countrymen in the refectory.
This was not only granted with the utmost cor-
diality, but the chapel itself was offered to him
for the purpose, which offer, however, he declined |

vie] - PROVISIONS OF HOSPICE. 277

in the same spirit in which it was made, unwilling
to trespass to that extent upon their catholicity.
Conversing pleasantly on various subjects with
our host and the guests around, we did ample
justice to the good cheer. Fridays and Saturdays,
we understood, were fast days; but though the
brethren fasted, no restriction was put during
those days upon the diet of travellers—the table
being always simply but amply furnished. The
task of purveying for the Hospice, which falls to
the Clavandier, is by no means an easy one, when
it is considered that upwards of sixteen thousand
travellers, with appetites greatly sharpened by the
keen air, are entertained every year; and not a
single scrap of anything that can be eaten grows
on the St. Bernard itself. All the provisions,
which must consist of articles that will keep, are
brought from Aosta, and stored in the magazines
of the convent. During the months of June, July,
and August, when the paths are open, about
twenty horses and mules are employed every day
in carrying in food and fuel for the long winter.
‘The country people also bring up gifts of cheese,
butter, and potatoes, in gratitude for the kind
services of the monks. Several cows are kept in
the convent pastures on the Italian side, and their
milk affords a grateful addition to the food of the
monks. During winter they have no fresh meat
at all, being obliged to subsist upon salt beef and
‘mutton, usually killed and preserved in September ;
and what is still worse, they have no vegetables,

Uh,

278 HOLIDAY S*ON ‘HIGH LAV S [ CHAP.

all attempts at gardening in the place having
proved abortive; so that not nak ane

is added to their sufferings.

After an hour or two’s chat stowed the fire,
and a very cursory but most interesting inspec-
tion of the pile of visitors’ books, which contain
many celebrated names, and a great deal that
is curious and admirable in the way of com-
ment upon the place, our host bade us all good-
night, and I too was very glad to retire <A
bright moon shone in through the curtainless
window of my bedroom, and lay in bars on the
bare floor. Outside the view was most romantic,
the moonshine investing everything, snowy peaks,
jagged rocks, and the bare terraces around, with
lights and shadows of the strangest kind. <A pale
blue sky, spiritual almost in its purity and trans-
parency, in which the stars glimmered with a cold
clear splendour, bent over the wild spot; and the
loneliness and silence were unlike in their depth
and utterness anything I had ever before ex-

perienced. Snatching, like Gray’s schoolboy, a
few minutes of fearful joy from the contemplation

of the weird scene, worn-out nature summoned me_
to bed. There was a perfect pile of blankets and

a heavy down quilt above me, under which I lay
squeezed like a cheese in a cheese-press, but 4] |
utterly failed to get warm. Sleep would not be,
wooed. I lay and watched the shadows on. the
floor, and thought of many unutterable things, and |
wondered at the strange vicissitudes of life, which)

|

ies

|

VI.] . WALK BESIDE LAKE. 279

so often place us unexpectedly in situations that
were the ideals of our youth. About five o’clock
in the morning, just as the grey dawn was steal-
ing in, I was thoroughly roused from a dozing,
semi-torpid state, into which I had sunk, by the
ringing of the convent bell for matins ; and shortly
afterwards the rich tones of an organ, mellowed
by the distance, pealed from the chapel with
an indescribably romantic effect. I arose and
dressed with chattering teeth, and then went out
into the raw air. I walked beside the small,
desolate-looking lake beside the Hospice, where
never fish leaped up, and on which no boat has
ever sailed. Being the highest sheet of water in
Europe, fed by the melting of the snows, it is
frequently frozen all the summer; and when
thawed, it lies “ like a spot of ink amid the snow.”
Passing a pillar at the end of the lake, and a
curious heraldic stone beside a spring, I had
crossed the boundary between Switzerland and
Piedmont, and was now in Italy. Climbing up
the bare rocks to a kind of esplanade, near a tall
cross inserted in a massive pedestal of chlorite-
schist, and bearing the inscription, “Deo Optimo
Maximo,” which guides the traveller from the
Italian side of the pass to the convent, I sat
down and surveyed the scene. The snowy dome
of Mont Velan filled up the western horizon. On
my left the gorge was shut in by the rugged range
-of Mont Mort, Mont Chenaletta, and the Pic de
Dronaz. Below me I could see, through the

280 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. {cuab. |

writhing mist, glimpses of the green corrie, called |
“La Vacherie,” where the cattle of the Hospice’ |
grazed under the care of a few peasants, whose
wretched chalets were the only habitations : while
beyond, to the southward, rose up a strange Sinai-
like group of reddish serrated rocks, entirely
destitute of vegetation, with wreaths of dark cloud
floating across their faces, or clinging to their
ledges, and greatly increasing their savage gloom.
An air of utter desolation and loneliness pervaded
the whole scene. No sounds broke the stillness,
save such as were wonderfully congenial with the
spirit of the place, the sighing of the wind as it
ruffled the surface of the lake, the occasional tinkle
of the cow-bells far below, the deep baying of the
St. Bernard dogs, or the murmur of a torrent far
off, that came faint and continuous as music heard
in ocean shells. _

I had ample evidence around —if my drip-
ping nose and icy hands did not convince me—
of the extreme. severity of the climatege7) a
vegetation was exclusively hyperborean, exactly
similar in type to that which flourishes around
the grim shores of Baffin’s Bay. I had gathered
the same species on the summits of the highest
Scottish mountains, and afterwards on the Dovre-
fjeld in Norway. The reindeer moss of Lap-
land .whitened the ground here and tienes
terspersed with a sulphur-coloured lichen which
erows sparingly on the tops of the Cairngorm
range. Large patches of black Tripe de Roche—

VI.) BEOKRASOF THE PASS. 281

the lichen which Sir John Franklin and his party,
in the Polar regions, were once, in the absence of
all other food, compelled to eat, along with the
remains of their old shoes and leather belts—
clung to the stones, looking like fragments of
charred parchment; while an immense quantity
of other well-known Arctic lichens and mosses
covered the level surface of each exposed rock,
as with a crisp shaggy mantle, that crunched
under the foot. There were no tufts of grass, no
ereen thing whatever. Tiny grey saxifrages,
covered with white flowers, grew in thick clumps,
as if crowding together for warmth, along with
brilliant little patches of gentian, whose depth
-and tenderness of blue were indescribable, and
tufts of Aretias and Silenes, starred with a pro-
fusion of the most exquisite rosy flowers, as
though the crimson glow of sunset had settled
permanently upon them. The Alpine forget-me-
| not, only found in this country on the summits of
the Breadalbane mountains, cheered me with its
bright blue eyes everywhere; while the “Alpine
: lady’s mantle” spread its grey satiny leaves, along
with the Arctic willow, the favourite food of the
nos, over the stony knolls, as if in pity for
‘their nakedness. I found a few specimens of
the beautiful lilac Soldanella alpina, and also
several tufts of the glacier ranunculus, on a kind
-of moraine at the foot of a hardened snow-wreath.
The ranunculus was higher up, and grew on the
[Roose débris, without a particle of verdure around

; .

282 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. _ [cuap.

it. Itseemed like the last effort of expiring nature
to fringe the limit of eternal snow with life. Its
foliage and flowers had a peculiarly wan and woe-
begone look. Its appeal was so sorrowful, as it
looked up at me, with its bleached colourless
petals, faintly tinged with a hectic flush, that I
could not help sympathising with it, as though it
were a sensitive creature. But the flower that
touched me most was our own beloved “Scottish
blue-bell.” I was surprised and delighted be-
yond measure to see it hanging its rich peal of
bells in myriads from the crevices of the rocks
around, swaying with every breeze. It tolled in
fairy tones the music of “Home, sweet home.”
It was like meeting a friend in a far country.
It was the old familiar blue-bell, but it was
changed in some respects. Its blossom was far
larger, and of a deep purple tinge, instead of the
clear pale blue colour which it has in this country.
It afforded a striking example of the changes
which the same plant undergoes when placed
in different circumstances. J] could face ts: |
altered features modifications to suit a higher
altitude anda severer climate. In the Alps all
the plants have blossoms remarkably large in pro-
portion to their foliage, and their colours are
unusually intensified, in order that they may get
all the advantage of the brief but ardent sunshine,
so as to ripen their seed as rapidly as possible.
And this unprincipled little blue-bell in the vicinity
of the Monastery had exchanged the clear blue

meee) | SCOTTISH BLUE-BELL. 283

of the Scottish Covenanter for the purple and fine
linen of the Romish hierarchy, and was just like
many others, animals as well as plants, doing in
Rome as they do in Rome! In this desolate,
nature-forsaken spot, where an eternal winter
reigns, the presence of these beautiful Alpine
flowers, doing their best to make the place cheery,
brought a peculiar indescribable feeling of spring
to my heart, reminded me irresistibly of the season
which is so sad amid all its beauty and promise
—the first trembling out of the dark—the first
thrill of life that comes to the waiting earth—and
then the first timid peering forth of green on hedge
and bank; and, like Coleridge’s “Ancient Mariner,”
I said: |
“Oh, happy living things! no tongue
Their beauty might declare ;

A spring of love gushed from my heart,
And I blessed them unaware.”

It is impossible to gaze on the St. Bernard pass
without feelings of the deepest interest. It stands
as a link in the chain that connects ancient and
modern history—departed dynasties and systems
of religion with modern governments and fresh
creeds; and in this part the continuity has never
been broken. Bare and bleak as is the spot, it is a
palimpsest crowded with relics of different epochs
and civilizations, the one covering but not oblite-
rating the other. Every step you take you set
your foot upon “some reverend history.” Thought,
like the electric spark, rapidly traverses the
thousand historical links of the chain of memory.

284 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. ~~ [CHAP.

You feel as if in the crowded valley in the vision
of Mirza. All the nations of the earth—Druids,
Celts, Romans, Saracens, French, Italians—seem
to pass in solemn file, a dim and ghostly band,
before your fancy’s eye. Names that have left an im-
perishable wake behind them—Cesar,Charlemagne,
Canute, Francis I., Napoleon Buonaparte—have
‘traversed that pass. Europe, Africa, and Asia
have poured their wild hordes through that narrow
defile. The spot on which the convent is erected
was held sacred and oracular from time immemorial.
Like the Tarpeian rock and the site of ancient
Rome, like the stern solitudes of Sinai and Horeb,
it had a veligio loct and a consecrated shrine from
the remotest antiquity. The weird, wild aspect of
the place gave it an air of terror, and naturally
associated it with the presence of some mysterious
supernatural being. On a little piece of level
sround near the lake, called the Place de Jupiter,
on which the ruinous foundations of an ancient
Roman temple may still be seen, a rude altar,
built of rough blocks of stone, was erected three
thousand years ago, and sacrifices offered on it to
Pen, the god of the mountains, from whom the
whole great central chain of Switzerland received
the name of Pennine Alps. The custom of build-
ing cairns on the highest points of our own hills
is supposed to have been derived from the worship
of this divinity, which seems at one time to have
spread over the whole of Europe. The names of
many of the Highland mountains bear significant

vi.] PRIMITIVE INHABITANTS. 255

traces of it. Ben Nevis means “ Hill of heaven,”
and Ben Ledi signifies “ Hill of God,” having near
the summit some large upright stones, which in all
probability formed a shrine of the god Pen, whose
_ Gaelic equivalent, as Beinn or Ben, has been be-
stowed on every conspicuous summit. Who the
primitive people were that first erected the rude
altars on the St. Bernard pass to their tutelary
deity, we know not. They may have been allied
_to those strange Lacustrines who studded the lakes
of Switzerland and Italy with their groups of
_ dwellings, at the time that Abraham was journeying
to Canaan, and whose relics, recently discovered,
are exciting so much interest among archeologists.
: They were no doubt Celtic tribes ; but, as Niebuhr
says, “the narrow limits of history embrace only
the period of their decline as a nation.” The few
fragments that are left of their language, like the
waves of the ancient ocean, have a mysterious
| murmur of their own, which we can never clearly
understand. |
| For hundreds of years this unknown people
| worshipped their god, and held possession of their
territories undisturbed; but the day came when
they were compelled to yield to a foreign invader,
| who fabricated his weapons of iron, and wielded
| them with a stronger arm. Rome had established
ja universal supremacy, and sent its conquering
legions over the whole of Europe. The stupendous
barrier of the Alps offered no obstruction. Through
its passes and valleys, led on by Cesar Augustus

\

286 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [cuar.
So
in person, they poured like an irresistible torrent,
washing away all traces of the former peoples.
They demolished the old Druidic altar on the
summit of the St. Bernard, and erected on its site
a temple dedicated to Jupiter Penninus, while the
whole range was called Mons Jovis, a name, under
the corrupt form of Mont Joux, which it retained
until comparatively recent times. After this the
pass became one of the principal highways from
Rome to the rich and fertile territories beyond
the Alps. A substantial Roman road, well paved,
was constructed with infinite pains and skill over
the mountain, the remains of which may still be
seen near the plain of Jupiter. It was used for
centuries; and Roman consul and private soldier
alike paused at the simple shrine of Jupiter Pen-—
ninus, and left their offerings there, in gratitude for
the protection afforded them. A large number of
Roman coins, bronze medals, and fragments of
votive brass tablets has been found on this spot,
and are now deposited in the small museum of the
convent adjoining the refectory. In the fifth cen-
tury, the barbarian hordes of Goths under Alaric,
of Huns under Attila, and of Vandals under
Genseric, swept over the pass to subdue Italy and
take possession of Rome. From that time, no
event of importance, with the exception of the
passage of the Lombards in 547, occurred in con-
nexion with this spot, until Bernhard, who is
supposed by some to have given his name to the
pass, uncle of Charlemagne, marched a large army

vi. ] WISTORICAL:- ASSOCIATIONS. 287

over it in 773, in his famous expedition against
Astolphus, the last Lombard sovereign but one.
Charlemagne himself afterwards recrossed it at the
head of his victorious troops, after conquering
Didier, the last sovereign of Upper Italy. Then
came Bernard de Menthon, in the year 962, and,
abolishing the last remains of Pagan worship,
founded the Hospice which has received his name,
and erected the first Christian altar. After this
period, as Mr. King, in his delightful book, “The
Ttalian Valleys of the Alps,” informs us, the Sara-
cens ravaged the convent, and destroyed its records
by fire, and were in turn attacked and repulsed by
‘the Normans. Humbert “the white-handed” led
‘over the pass an army in 1034, to join Conrad in
the conquest of Burgundy ; and a part of the army
iof Frederic Barbarossa crossed in 1166, under the
‘command of Berthold de Zahringen. “Pilgrims
‘bound to Rome frequented it, travelling in large
\caravans for mutual protection from the brigands
Estio infested it after the Saracen invasion ; and we
find our own King Canute, himself a pilgrim to the
tomb of St. Peter's, by his representations to the
‘Pope and the Emperor Adolphus on behalf of his
English pilgrim subjects, obtaining the extirpation
of those lawless bands, and the free and safe use of
the pass.” The present building was erected about
ithe year 1680, its predecessor having been burnt to
ithe ground. It is impossible to enumerate within
jour narrow limits all the remarkable historical
events which are connected with this place, from

rs

988 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. {cuap.

the February of the year 59, when Cecina, the
Roman general, marched over it with the cohorts
recalled from Britain, through a snow-storm in
February, to the spring of the year 1800, when
Napoleon crossed it with an army of 80,000 men
and 58 field-pieces on his way to the famous battle-
field of Marengo. There are few spots in the
world that have witnessed so many changes and re-
volutions, few spots which have been trodden by
so many human feet; and I do not envy the man
who can gaze upon the narrow path that skirts the
lake from the Hospice calm and unmoved, when
he thinks of the myriads of his fellow-creatures,
from the greatest names in all history down to the
lowest and most obscure, who, age after age, have
disturbed the stern Silence of these rocks, and who
have now all alike gone down into undistinguishable
dust. Methinks the history of this little footpath
is a commentary upon the nothingness of human
pride, more impressive than all that poetry has
ever sung or philosophy taught!

A little way beyond the Hospice, on a slightly
rising ground, is a low building of one storey, built
in the rudest manner, and with the roughest mate-
rials. It is covered witha grey-slated roof; and in
the wall of the gable which fronts you there is a
narrow iron grating, through which the light shines
into the interior, You look in, and never till your
dying day will you forget the ghastly spectacle
that then meets your eye. It haunted me like a
dreadful nightmare long afterwards. This is the

22 .

wi THE MORGUE. 289
famous Morgue, or dead-house, of which all the
world has heard, and which every one visiting the
convent, whose nerves are sufficiently strong, makes
a special point of seeing. I could almost have
wished, however, that my curiosity had been less
keen ; for it is not pleasant to hang up in the
gallery of one’s memory a picture like that. And
yet it does one good to see it. It softens the heart
with pity ; it conveys, in a more solemn form than
we are accustomed to read it,the lesson of mortality ;
and it gives us a better idea than we could other-
wise have formed of the dangers and sufferings
which have often to be encountered in the winter
passage of these mountains, and the noble work
which the monks of St. Bernard perform. It was
indeed a Golgotha, forcibly reminding me of Eze-
kiel’s vision of the valley of dry bones. Skulls,
ribs, vertebre, and other fragments of humanity,
with the flesh long ago wasted away from them,
blanched by sun and frost, lay here and there in
heaps on the floor. As my eye got accustomed to
the obscurity of the place, I noticed beyond this
mass of miscellaneous bones, separated by a low
wall which did not obstruct the view, an extraordi-
nary group of figures. These were the bodies
found entire of those who had perished in the
winters’ snow-storms. Some were lying prostrate,
others were leaning against the rough wall, the dim,
uncertain light imparting to their faces a strange
and awful expression of life. Three figures espe-
cially attracted and riveted my attention. In the
| U

290 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. {cuap.

right-hand corner there was a tall spectre fixed in
an upright attitude, with its skeleton arms out-
stretched, as if supplicating for the aid that never
came, and its eyeless sockets glaring as if with
a fearful expression. For years it had stood
thus without any perceptible change. In another
corner there was a figure kneeling upon the
floor, muffled in a thick dark cloak, with a blue
worsted cuff on the left wrist. No statue of the
Laocoon ever told its tale of suffering more elo-
quently than did that shrivelled corpse. He was
an honest and industrious workman, a native of
Martigny. He set out early one December morn-
ing from that town, intending to go over into Italy
in search of employment. He got safely and com-
fortably as far as the Cantine de Proz, where he
halted all night. Next morning he set out through
the defile leading up to the Hospice. The weather
was at first favourable, but he had not proceeded
far when dark clouds speedily covered the sky from
end to end, and the fearful gwxen, which always
rages most violently in the Alpine passes, broke
out in all its fury. He had doubtless fought against
it with all his energy, but in vain. He was found,
not three hundred yards from the convent door,
buried among the deep snow, frozen in the attitude
in which he still appeared, with his knees bent, and
his head thrown back in hopeless exhaustion and
despair. But the saddest of all the sad sights of
the Morgue is the corpse of a woman lying huddled —
up at the foot of the last-mentioned figure, dressed -

——$—$—$___.

vi] § DEAD MOTHER AND CHILD. 291

in dark rags. In her arms she holds a bundle,
which you are told is a baby; and her withered
face bends over it with a fond expression which
death and decay have not been able to obliterate.
The light shines full on her quiet features, which
are no more ruffled by earthly pain. You cannot
fail to see that she had made every effort to pre-
serve the life of the baby to the last moment, for
most of her own scanty clothing is drawn up and
wrapt round its tiny form, leaving her own limbs
exposed to the blast. Oh, sacred mystery of
mother’s love, stronger than pain, more enduring
than death! But alas! in vain was its self-sacri-
ficing tenderness here. The weary feet could no
longer bear the precious burden over the wild,
and sinking in the fatal sleep, the snow drifted over
them, fold by fold, silent and swift, and the place
that knew them once knew them no more for ever :
the wind passed over it, and it was gone. They
found the hapless pair in the following spring, when
the snows had melted away ; and they bore them
tenderly and sadly to this last resting-place. No
one came to claim them. Where the poor woman
came from, what was her name, no one ever knew ;
and in this heart-touching pathos of mystery and
death she awaits the coming of that other and
brighter spring that shall melt even the chill
of the tomb.

It is indeed a strange place, that Morgue! All
its ghastly tenants perished in the same dreadful
_ of the storm-fiend. Side by side
3 U 2

292 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANSS @ Weaae s
they repose, so cold, so lonely, so forsaken; with

no earth to cover them: no token of love from
those who were nearest and dearest; no flower to
bloom over their dust ; not even one green blade of
gtass to draw down the sunshine and the dew of
heaven to their dark charnel-house. Traveller after
traveller from the ends of the earth comes and
looks in with shuddering dread through the erating
on the pitiable sight, and then goes away, perhaps
a sadder and a wiser man. For my own part I
could not resist the tender impulse; which moved
me to gather a small nosegay of gentians and blue-
bells, and throw it in, as an offering of pity, to the
poor deserted and forgotten dead. It is impossible |
to dig a grave in this spot, for the hard rock comes’ |
everywhere to the surface, and but the thinnest
sprinkling of mould rests upon it, hardly sufficient
to maintain the scanty vegetation. This sterile
region refuses even a grave to those who die there! |
So cold and dry is the air, that the corpses in the |
Morgue do not decompose in the same way that |
they do at lower elevations. They wither and |.
collapse into mummies, embalmed by the air, like
the dried bodies preserved in the catacombs of |
-Palermo,—and for years they undergo no change,
—at last falling to pieces, and strewing the ground |
with their fragments. Within the last twelve years |
no less than sixteen persons have perished in the |
snow. Some five or six years ago, two of the |
monks went out with a couple of servants to search |
for a man who was supposed to have lost himself

ae _ ST. BERNARD DOGS. 293
in the mountains. They were scarcely fifty paces
away from the Hospice, when an immense ava-
lanche fell from the side of Mont Chenaletta, and
buried the whole party under eighteen feet of snow.
_ The dreadful catastrophe was seen from the convent
door, but the monks were utterly powerless to render
help. When rescued, the party were all dead.
_ The number of accidents on the St. Bernard pass
has greatly diminished of late years; and now the
services of the monks in winter are principally
_ required to nurse poor travellers exhausted by the
j difficulties of the ascent, or who have been frost-
bitten. Returning from my morning walk, I saw
the famous marons, or St. Bernard dogs, playing
about the convent door. There were five of them,
massively built creatures, of a brown colour,—very
like Newfoundland dogs, only larger and more
powerful. The stock is supposed to have come
originally from the Pyrenees. The services they
have rendered in rescuing travellers are incalculable.
A whole book might easily be filled with interest-
ing adventures of which they were the heroes. In
the Museum at Berne I saw the stuffed body of
the well-known dog “ Barry,” which is said to have
saved the lives of no less than forty persons. The
huge creatures were fond of being caressed ; and
one of them ran after my companion, as he was
going up the hill-side by a wrong path, and pulled
him back by the coat-tail!
After a substantial breakfast, we paid a visit to
the chapel to deposit our alms in the alms-box, for

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294 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. _ [cHAP.

though the monks make no charge for their hos-
pitality, or even give the least hint of a donation,
there is a box placed in the chapel for the benefit
of the poor, and to this fund every traveller should
contribute, at the very least, what the same ac-
commodation would have cost him at an hotel.
It is to be feared, however, that the great majority
contribute nothing at all. Not one of the company
who supped and breakfasted with us approached
the chapel, having skulked away as soon as they
could decently take leave; and yet they were
bedizened with gold chains and jewellery of a costly
description. There was one Scotchman present
who carried out his sound Protestant principles at
the expense of the poor monks. He was a very
thin, wiry man, but he ate an enormous supper and
breakfast. Hedrank a bottle of wine at each meal,
and helped himself most largely to everything on
the table. He took what would have sufficed for
four ordinary men, and, to our intense disgust, he
rubbed down his stomach complacently in the
morning ere departing, and said, in the hearing of
all, that “he had made up his mind to put nothing
inthe alms-box, lest he should countenance Popery!”
The expenses of the establishment are very heavy,
while the funds to meet them have been decreasing.
Formerly the convent was the richest in Europe,
possessing no less than eighty benefices. But
Charles Emmanuel III. of Sardinia, falling into a_
dispute with the Cantons of Switzerland about the
nomination of a provost, sequestrated the posses-—

VIL] _ HOSPICE CHAPEL. 299

sions of the monks, leaving them only a small
estate in the Valais and in the Canton de Vaud.
The French and Italian governments give an annual
subsidy of a thousand pounds, while another thou-
sand is raised by the ‘gifts of travellers, and by
collections made in Switzerland,—Protestants con-
tributing as freely as Roman Catholics. Notwith-
standing their comparative poverty, however, the
monks are still as lavish and hospitable as ever, up
to their utmost means. As it was the feast of
the Assumption of the Virgin, crowds of beggars
and tramps from the neighbouring valleys,—masses
of human degradation and deformity of the most
disgusting character,— were congregated about the
kitchen door, clamorous for alms, while the monks
were busy serving them with bread, cold meat, and
wine. What they could not eat they carried away
in baskets which they had brought for the purpose.
Entering the chapel with our little offering, we
were greatly struck with its magnificence, as con-
trasted with the excessive plainness of the outside,
and the sterility of the spot. It is considered a
very sacred place, for it contains the relics of no
less than three famous saints, viz. St. Bernard, St.
Hyrenzus, and St. Maurice, of the celebrated
Theban legion of Christians. Five massive gilt
altars stood in various parts of the chapel, while
the walls were adorned with frescoes and several
fine paintings and statues. The marble tomb of
Desaix, representing him in relief, wounded and
sinking from his horse into the arms of his aide, Le

296 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [cuap.

Brun, was a conspicuous object. “I will give you
the Alps for your monument,” said Napoleon, with
tears in his eyes, to his dying friend: “you shall
rest on their loftiest inhabited point.” The body of
the general was carefully embalmed at Milan, and
afterwards conveyed to the chapel, where it now
reposes. A crowd of peasants, men and women,
were kneeling, during our visit, in the body of the
church, performing their devotions; while three or
four monks, dressed in splendid habiliments of
crimson and gold, were chanting “the solemn-
melodies of a Gregorian mass,” accompanied by
the rich tones of a magnificent organ; and clouds
of fragrant incense rose slowly to the roof.
Anxious to see the geographical bearings of the
convent, we climbed up, with immense expenditure
of breath and perspiration, a lofty precipitous peak
close at hand. We hada most glorious view from
the top, for the atmosphere was perfectly clear, and
the remotest distances plainly visible. In front was
‘“je Mont Blanc,” as the inhabitants proudly call it,
and at this distance of fifteen miles in a straight
line it looked infinitely higher and grander than
when seen from the nearer and more commonly
visited points of view at Chamouni. Far up, miles
seemingly, in the deep blue sky, rose the dazzling —
whiteness of its summit, completely dwarfing all
the other peaks around it. .On our left was the
enormously vast group of Monte Rosa, its ever-
lasting snows tinged with the most delicate crimson —
hues of the rising sun; while between them the —

fj 2=SCts«CC MONT’. CHENNALETTT A. © 297

stupendous obelisk of the Matterhorn, by far the

sharpest and sublimest of the peaks of Europe,
stormed the sky, with a long grey cloud flying at
its summit like a flag of defiance. Around these
three giant mountains crowded a bewildering host
of other summits, most of them above 13,000 feet
high, with enormous glaciers streaming down their
sides, and forming the sources of nearly all the
great rivers of the Continent. My eye and soul
turned away from this awful white realm of death,
with relief, to the brown and green mountains of
Italy, which just peered timidly, as it were, above
‘that fearful horizon in the far south, with an inde-
scribably soft, warm sky brooding over them, as if
in sympathy. That little strip of mellow sky and

naturally-coloured earth was the only bond in all

the wide view that united me to the cosy, lowly
world of my fellow-creatures. On this hill, com-
posed of very friable schistose rock, I gathered a
considerable number of very interesting plants.
peculiar to the Alps. The Arnica montana dis-
played its large yellow composite flowers in the
shady recesses of the rocks ; and, as if to illustrate
the proverb that the antidote is ever beside the
evil, I found its juicy stems very serviceable in
healing a bruise on the leg which I got from a
falling stone when gathering specimens. Another
composite plant, the Chrysanthemum alpinum,
whitened in thousands the slopes of déris. It has
been observed, with Phyteuma pauciflora, beside the
Lys glacier on Monte Rosa, at 11,352 feet. Nothing

/

could exceed the beauty and luxuriance of the
patches of Lixaria alpina, covered with a profusion
of orange and purple labiate blossoms,° which
spread everywhere over the loose soil. No less
striking were the sheets of forget-me-not-like
flowers, blue as the sky itself, produced by the
Lritrichium nanum, growing in the moist sunny
fissures. At the base of the hill on the Italian side,
where there was a slight tinge of grassy verdure,
the yellow star of Bethlehem (Orazthogalum fis-
tulosum) and the WNigritella angustifola struggled
into existence. The former rises an inch or two
above the soil, and produces two or three bril-
liantly-yellow flowers on each stem; while the
compact showy heads of deep blackish crimson
flowers of the latter, springing from very short
and very narrow leaves, diffuse a fine vanilla-like
fragrance. At lower elevations they grow in great
profusion, and form the finest ornaments of the
Alpine pastures. Among the saxifrages which I
observed growing more or less plentifully were the
S. androsacea (of which I could get no specimen
perfect, for the marmot is so fond of it that it
nibbles its stems, leaves, and flowers all round),
the S. bryotdes, Aizoon, biflora, cesta, and muscoides.
A. short distance below the summit there were
several large snow-wreaths. Their perpetual drip

nourished a glowing little colony of the unrivalled
_ Gentiana bavarica, and the compact sheets of the

Androsace glacialis, sprinkled over with bright pink
solitary flowers. In one place there was a curious

—

998 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [cuar.

vrd ALPINE FLORA AND FAUNA. — 2.99

natural conservatory. The under surface of the
snow having been melted by the warmth of the
soil—which in Alpine regions is always markedly
higher than that of the air—was not in contact
with it. A snowy vault was thus formed, glazed
on the top with thin plates of transparent ice; and
here grew a most lovely cushion of the Avetia Hel-

vetica, covered with hundreds of its delicate rosy
- flowers, like a miniature hydrangea blossom. ‘The
dark colour of the soil favoured the absorption of
heat ; and, prisoned in its crystal cave, this little
fairy grew and blossomed securely from the very
heart of winter, the unfavourable circumstances
around all seeming so many ministers of good,
increasing its strength and enhancing its loveliness.
Owing to the high temperature of the soil in the
Alps, plants are enabled to thrive at great alti-
tudes; and even animal life is not unfrequent at
a height of 10,000 feet. I observed at the foot of
the snow-wreaths on this hill numerous burrows of
a kind of mouse called Arvicola nivalis, which is
also found on the top of the Faulhorn, Rothhorn,
and on the Grands Mulets. Under the stones on
the surface of the snow were lively masses of the
small, black glacier flea (Desoria glacialts) ; while
several specimens of that magnificent butterfly,
the Parnassius Apollo, distinguished by its white
almost transparent wings, marked with scarlet and
black-ringed oce//z, sailed past with astonishing
swiftness in the bright sunshine. These were very

satisfactory representatives of the rich animal
<4

300 HOLIDAVS ON HIGH LANDS. [CHAP. VI.

world we had left behind in the valleys. After
a reasonable time spent in the enjoyment of all
these treasures, we turned to depart. Hurriedly
descending, with many a picturesque tumble and
glissade, which did not improve the continuity
of our clothing, we reached the foot of the hill
in safety. Shortly afterwards we bade adieu to
our hospitable entertainers with mingled feelings
of gratification and regret: gratification, because
we had seen so much that was new and interesting
to us, and had been so kindly treated, though
strangers in a strange land; and regret, because
the palmiest days of the Hospice are over, for the
railway tunnel through Mont Cenis, which will soon
be completed, will whirl away travellers direct into
Italy, and few will care to turn aside, on a long
and somewhat difficult journey, to visit the spot.

THE END,

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“ Ably and eloquently written. Itis a thoughtful book, and one
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how all nature, viewed in the ight shed upon it by the last-lit lamps
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Scripture are in this view but samples and condensations of the
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BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE.

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of information in natural science and many interesting facts of
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“ A work unrivalled for its unique and harmonious combination
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‘* Throughout the entire book there is a keen appreciation of
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the useful as types, evidences, and promises of the wisdom and
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a deep acknowledgment of light, love, and wisdom beyond all the
marvels of science or the quibbles of philosophy. It is eloquent, too,
as well as earnest, and none can rise from its perusal untouched by
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* OPINIONS OF THE: PRESS.

** The author of ‘ First Forms of Vegetation’ has fortunately been
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“Two features of this work give it unusual claims upon the reader’s
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has matured its topics, and is at home in their handling and presen-
tation. The volume is not only filled wiih agreeable reading, but
is rich in instructive scientific exposition.””— Dr. YOUMANS, in

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tt, Al, eee

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“It is a collection of Biblical papers of remarkable freshness and
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_ exposition ; both greatly aided by his extensive acquaintance with
| natural science.. The more obvious Bible symbols from nature
| acquire at his hands a fulness, point, and richness like that which the
-microscope gives to familiar objects ; while many that are obscure
_to.the ordinary reader start from his touch flashing with light and
! beauty.” —Professor BLAIKIE, in Sunday Magazine.

7

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