he Caldron Linn; and in one
of these the guides will have the audacity to tell you that a
bacchanalian party once made grog by tossing in a few ankers of brandy,
and that they consumed the whole on the premises.

We must now tell our pilgrim how he is to find his way by the more
direct route from Loch Avon to Braemar, and we may at the same time
afford a hint to the reader who desires to proceed towards the lake
without crossing Ben Muich Dhui. Near where the stream of the Avon
issues, it is necessary to turn to the right, and to keep rather
ascending than descending. In a few miles the brow of the hill shuts us
out from the wintry wild, and in a hollow are seen two small lakes
called the Dhu Lochan, with nothing about them to attract notice but
their dreariness and their blackness. The course of a burn which feeds
them marks the way to the water-shier between the Spey and the Dee,
whence a slight descent leads down to Glen Derrie, the position of which
has been already described.

We now propose another excursion--our last on the present occasion--to
the sources of the Dee. We place our wanderer again at the Linn of Dee.
As he proceeds up the stream, the banks become flatter, and the valleys
wider and less interesting, until after some miles--we really cannot say
how many--the river turns somewhat northwards, and the banks become more
close and rocky. At this spot there is a fine waterfall, which, in the
midst of a desert, has contrived to surround itself with a not
unbecoming clump of trees. The waters are divided into two; the
Geusachan burn joining the stream from the west. At last the conical
peak of Cairn Toul appears over-topping all the surrounding heights; and
then, a rent intervening, we approach and soon walk under the great
mural precipice of Brae Riach, which we have already surveyed to so much
advantage from the top of Ben Muich Dhui. We are here in the spot which
to us, of all this group of scenery, appears to be the most remarkable,
as being so unlike any other part of Scotland, or any place we have seen
elsewhere. The narrowness of the glen and the height of its walled sides
are felt in the constrained attitude in which we look up on either side
to the top, as if we were surveying some object of interest in a tenth
story window of our own High Street. This same narrowness imparts a
sensation as if one could not breathe freely. If we compare this defile
to another of the grandest mountain passes in Scot