first to favour this supposition,
for it lay in the line of the upper end of the bay, but it ended by
branching off and striking directly inland. Clearly the ocean was not to
be our terminus.

By ten o'clock we had walked close upon twelve miles, and were compelled
to call a halt for a few minutes to recover our breath, for the last
mile or two we had been breasting the long, wearying slope of the
Wigtown hills.

From the summit of this range, which is nowhere more than a thousand
feet in height, we could see, looking northward, such a scene of
bleakness and desolation as can hardly be matched in any country.

Right away to the horizon stretched the broad expanse of mud and of
water, mingled and mixed together in the wildest chaos, like a portion
of some world in the process of formation. Here and there on the
dun-coloured surface of this great marsh there had burst out patches of
sickly yellow reeds and of livid, greenish scum, which only served
to heighten and intensify the gloomy effect of the dull, melancholy
expanse.

On the side nearest to us some abandoned peat-cuttings showed that
ubiquitous man had been at work there, but beyond these few petty scars
there was no sign anywhere of human life. Not even a crow nor a seagull
flapped its way over that hideous desert.

This is the great Bog of Cree. It is a salt-water marsh formed by an
inroad of the sea, and so intersected is it with dangerous swamps and
treacherous pitfalls of liquid mud, that no man would venture through
it unless he had the guidance of one of the few peasants who retain the
secret of its paths.

As we approached the fringe of rushes which marked its border, a foul,
dank smell rose up from the stagnant wilderness, as from impure water
and decaying vegetation--an earthy, noisome smell which poisoned the
fresh upland air.

So forbidding and gloomy was the aspect of the place that our stout
crofter hesitated, and it was all that we could do to persuade him
to proceed. Our lurcher, however, not being subject to the delicate
impressions of our higher organisation, still ran yelping along with its
nose on the ground and every fibre of its body quivering with excitement
and eagerness.

There was no difficulty about picking our way through the morass, for
wherever the five could go we three could follow.

If we could have had any doubts as to our dog's guidance they would
all have been removed now, for in the soft, black, oozing soil we could