all kinds of chimney-piece ornaments, rings,
ear-rings, etc. Several specimens of his work, which must have cost him
a vast deal of trouble, I thought very beautiful. It was in this
neighborhood that the celebrated Ferguson spent so much of his time. The
globular stones on the gate of Durn are still to be seen, on which he
mapped out the figuring of the terrestrial and celestial globes. I was
told it was forbidden ground to approach the premises of Durn; but I
could not resist the temptation of visiting the spot where the young
philosopher had shown such early proofs of his genius; and I accordingly
paid the forfeit of an _impertinent_, for the gentleman who resides
there caught the prowler, and in genteel terms bade her go about her
business, and never return. How ungracious! She was doing no harm."

The morning arose as gloomily as the evening had fallen; and I walked on
in the rain to Cullen, fully disposed to sympathize by the way with the
"hardy Byron,"--he of the "Narrative,"--who, from his ill-luck in
weather, went among his sailors by the name of "Foul-weather Jack." In
the sandy bay of Cullen, where the road, after inflecting inland for
some five or six miles, comes again upon the sea, I found the surf
charging home in long white lines six waves deep,--

"Each stepping where his comrade stood,
The instant that he fell."

The appearance was such as to impart no inadequate idea of the vast
attritive power of ocean in wearing down the land. When pausing for a
little abreast of the fishing village, partially sheltered by an old
boat, to mark the fierce turmoil, it suddenly occurred to me,--as the
tempest weltered around reef and skerry, and roared wildly, mile after
mile, along the beach,--that the day and night were now just equal, and
that it was the customary equinoctial storm that had broken out to
accompany me on my journey. And so, calculating on a few days more of
it, instead of waiting on in the hope of a fair afternoon to examine the
outlier of Old Red which occurs in the neighborhood of Cullen, I was
content to see at a distance its mural-sided cliffs rising like broken
walls through the flat sand; and, taking the road for Fochabers, with
the intention of leaving exploration till fairer weather set in, I
resolved on posting straight on, to join my relatives on the opposite
side of the Frith. The deep-red color of the boulder-clay, as exhibited
by the way-side, in the water-courses and the water,--for