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long, and then along the haugh, the river never more than one to two hundred yards distant, and often close to the railway. The comparatively open country and broad river bottom have disappeared, and we are in a narrow strath, with a high wooded bank on the opposite side of the river. This extends in a long serpentine sweep for upwards of two miles to the House of Laggan, which forms a prominent object as we approach Carron. Laggan is a brick building, the colour of which contrasts broadly with the green of the surrounding foliage.

At the Burn of Carron we leave the property of the Earl of Fife and enter upon Carron, "a name which is closely associated in the minds of Strathspey men with traditions and stirring adventures of the district. A little way up this burn may be seen the cave in which the famous James-au-Thuim, or James of the Hill, a Grant of Carron, hid himself when pursued by his enemies, in the days when country lairds decided their feuds by fire and sword. James, it is said, committed a homicide, which was the cause of a deadly feud between him and the Grants of Ballindalloch. Finding Ballindalloch irreconcilable, James became desperate, and went to Pitchaish to burn his enemy out from cover. He reduced the whole place to ashes, as also Tulchan, but the young Laird of Ballindalloch would not come out to fight. The Earl of Moray interfered, and to 'gar ae deevil ding anither,' made a paction with three broken men of the clan Mackintosh, who undertood to bring James Grant of Carron to him dead or alive. They overtook him at Auchnahyle, above Tomintoul, killed four of his men, and wounded him with arrows in eleven parts of his body. He was taken, his six surviving followers were hanged, and he himself was sent to Edinburgh Castle as a prisoner. He remained there two years, at the end of which he made his escape by ropes conveyed to him by his wife in a cask of butter. This occurred in 1632. James returned to Speyside, and did not forget the Laird of Ballindalloch, for he enticed him out of his house one night at Pitchaish, and,

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seizing him, carried him over moss and muir to a limekiln at Elgin, in which he kept him a prisoner for three weeks, under treatment not quite so liberal and lenient as that which prisoners now-adays enjoy. Ballindalloch was denied the necessaries of life, but he succeeded in making his escape to Innes House, where he was kindly entertained. James-au-Thuim's caves are said to have been frequented by Macpherson, the famous freebooter, who was a Dick Turpin in his way, passing by the poor and robbing the rich, and generously giving to the needy from his booty. This generosity, however, did not prevent him being hanged at Banff in the year 1700."

Here is Carron___Distillery (Mr. M'Kenzie). Carron House, embosomed in woods, is within a few hundred yards of the railway, which, about a quarter of a mile above it, crosses to the northwest bank of the Spey.

The bridge of Carron consists of three arches, the centre one of 150 feet span, and the two side ones of 25 feet each. The centre arch is of iron, and its spring is about 20 feet, and its centre 40 above the bed of the river. The side arches are of brick, with granite rings. The scenery around is both grand and beautiful. The banks are high and wooded. The river deep and swift. The ravine being narrow and sinuous, the river looks as if springing from under the wooded cliffs. On a bright spring day the ground under the trees is carpeted with primroses, violets, and many other early flowers. The bridge carries a public road as well as the railway.

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Here, while looking at romantic scenery, we are reminded of great events. Malcolm III. encamped near this spot before he fought the Danes at Mortlach, between Dell Chapel and Tam-o-Brock. Not far from us a dyke is still to be traced that Malcolm's army is said to have raised in a night. The king and queen slept on a spot of ground called to this day the Queen's Haughan old name indeed, when it is more than eight centuries and a half since the Spey here had the honour of being visited by a king and queen of Scotland.

The well-known song, "Roy's wife of Aldivalloch," was written by a Mrs. Grant of Carron. Her own name was Grant. She was born about 1745, near Aberlour-was first married to her cousin, Mr. Grant of Carron, about 1763, then to Dr. Murray, a physician in Bath. She died in Bath in 1814.

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A little after crossing to the N. W. side of the river we reach the station. On the opposite side, that which we have left, is an extensive flat plain clothed with wood, called the Muir of Carron, and it is backed by Carron Hill, or the Drum of Carron, well wooded. 'Every part of this broad, long muir has been water-washed. It is one mass of water-worn pebbles, mixed with boulders which the river has brought down before she hid herself from her work at the foot of the 'Drum,' which is here covered with wood as far as we can see. We are here perhaps about three miles or so from the turnpike road leading from Craigellachie up Speyside, and no other spot on the railway is nearly so far from it. This is the breadth of the 'Drum' of Carron; its length is perhaps twice three miles, and its greatest elevation above the Spey some six or eight hundred feet. There are some excellent farms on the Benrinnes side of it. On the top there is a great expanse of moss of unknown depth-once a wood, like many other mosses in the district."

To our right, looking up the river, we have a gradually rising slope, with a small farm here and there, until the higher elevation is reached on the Braes of Knockando.

On to the next station of Black's Boat the river pursues a very tortuous course, and the railway is sometimes near it, and sometimes considerably removed from it. At Dalmoonack the traveller looks down forty feet to the Spey, and has a fine view of bold scenery looking up the river. There are quarries of very fine granite on this spot, out of which the stone for the piers of Carron bridge was obtained.

A little beyond we come to Knockando private station, and near this we cross the Ballintomb burn. Knockando House is a neat substantial house,

dated above the door 1732, with the motto "Honour and virtue." It stands on the property of Wester Elchies, and was once the mansion-house of Knockando. It is rented by Mr. Cattley, who is lessee of extensive shootings and fishings in the neighbourhood.

"A short way beyond the house of Knockando we enter one of the heaviest cuttings on the Strathspey Railway. Here the river forms a long and deep bend to the westward, as if driven from her course by the Drum of Carron, which Benrinnes seems to have thrown down as a buttress to keep Spey from coming too near her base. The Drum in its turn has apparently thrown the river as far from its base as possible, for she washes the foot of steep banks for miles before us. We find ourselves at the Cardoch burn, which of course, like that of Ballintomb, is crossed by a railway bridge, as all the burns here are before entering Spey. The burn comes down through a closely wooded ravine, weeping birches skirting the side of the streamlet. On our left hand a glimpse is obtained of Spey, and mountains, woods, and cultivated lands diversify the prospect; while behind us are wooded braes and the distant Convals yet seen, close in the background. We enter the cutting, and soon find ourselves forty feet above the Spey, and fifty beneath the top of the bank in the face of which the line has been cut. Here the river is rapid, and the never-failing birches line its banks, contrasting beautifully with the deep green of the pines with which Nature has intermingled them. The cutting is long and the slopes very high, and here and there springs of water may be seen at the depth of forty or fifty feet below the top of the bank, which is in many places fringed with trees, and the bank below the line is so thickly wooded as to prevent the river at many points from being seen.

Sweeping round a bend, we reach Knockando burn. It is not usually more than a streamlet, but in the flood of 1829 it was swollen to the size of a river, and carried away a carding mill and a meal mill, besides several cottages on its banks.

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a mile up its course from the railway, are the church, manse, and schools of Knockando.

A little further on we come to the Rock of Tomdow, a place dreaded of the raftsmen. "It is well seen here from the line, and at first sight one would think that the rocks at the bridge of Carron, and at the tunnel at Craigellachie, would be as formidable to floaters as that dreaded Rock of Tomdow. In this, however, appearances are deceptive, for no craft can pass Tomdow without being double-manned from the neighbouring farm of Dalgarvan close by, and the tenant for this assistance receives a tree or plank from every raft according to established usage. The time was when two planks were given. About the middle of last century, the York Buildings Company that bought the woods of Glenmore, and had ironworks at Abernethy, cut the rock at Tomdow to make the floating of timber less dangerous at the spot. Before that time the raftsmen sailed in a curragh before his wood, tied to it, and paddling like an Indian in a hide canoe, resembling in form the lid of a horse-kettle, or the top of a bees' skep cut off and set into the water. To a floater, floating in a primitive ship like this, and a clumsily and flimsily puttogether raft, a Scylla and Charybdis were dangerous indeed, but the Company improved raft-making to such a degree that the floaters could stand on the wood. The new channel, as it has been called, cut by this Company, obviated only a part of the danger, for on the right bank of the river the rock projects out apparently to more than mid stream, and the whole body of the river, striking on an elbow of rock, makes a kind of whirlpool through which the river dashes wildly among large boulders, roaring and foaming in its impetuous course. The scene at Tomdow, in heavy floods, is terrific. It is there that, as a farmer said to us, 'Spey turns up the white o' her een after she gets a drink in Badenoch!'" We now cross another promontory formed by a bend of the river, and pass along a heavy earth cutting. "Here the Spey washes the foot of a

steep bank of great height that rises in some places with a face of rock close to the water's edge, but is generally of clay, sand, and gravel. There was no help for it but to cut a floor for the line along the face of this precipice for nearly a mile. And here comes in the burn of Alderdar, one of the wildest of the many wild burns that run into the Spey. It has scooped out for itself a wide gully in the otherwise unbroken bank of the river, and across this the line has been carried on a viaduct. The burn is scarcely to be seen. We can step across it; it is almost lost among the stones; but though we have a mere streamlet at our feet, an observing eye at once detects the presence of the dry bed of a sometimes terrible torrent of water. The whole bottom of the gully, and it is not a narrow one, is covered with pebbles and boulders, dry and white, with not a green leaf seen among them, and this mass of water-borne stone projects into the Spey, breaking the line of her bed. Looking up the burn, we see one of the many astonishing effects of the flood of 1829. Before that memorable year in our river history, this burn of Alderdar had a fall down a brae some two or three hundred yards up from the Spey, but in one night it cut out that ravine sixty or eighty feet deep, and twice that number of feet in width at the top. No one could believe it to be possible looking at the burn now, but the fact is beyond dispute. The burn swelled until it was as large as the Spey is usually, and carrying thousands of tons of earth and stones along with it, hurled the mass into the mighty flood passing by. Such as have read Sir Thomas Dick Lauder's 'Moray Floods,' will not pass such burns without lookup to the high red braes that now skirt the burn of Alderdar."

And geologists who claim from an after-glimpse of such effects an immense and incalculable age to produce them in, would do well to note what one flood in one night is capable of effecting.

Over this burn the railway is carried on a bridge or viaduct of three spans,

respectively forty, forty, and fifty feet, and the centre piers are some fifty feet in height. This was a difficult work, for the foundations had to be piled. "Nothing but shingle could be found after digging down sixteen feet, at which depth the contractor drove in piles fifteen feet long, and covering the top of these with a platform of wood, he founded his piers. Certainly sixteen feet of masonry and fifteen feet of pile beneath the surface should give a secure foundation."

Beyond this there is another heavy cutting, perhaps the heaviest on the whole line, and presently we reach Black's Boat Station.

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28. Black's Boat. 78 miles from Aberdeen. 42 Carron. This is a station for several farms and small villages which lie back from the railway and river. Since we crossed the Alderdar burn, we have been on the property of Sir George Macpherson Grant, Bart., of Ballindalloch. Leaving the station, we pass to the right the farm of Gortons, and to the left we see a large island formed by a branch of the Spey. This island for long formed a farm of itself, but was almost utterly destroyed by the flood of 1829, and it remains liable to be flooded. On that occasion "the water completely covered the island, and all that appeared above the flood were the tops of the houses and a haystack. James Macpherson, the tenant, saved himself and his people by a boat, and being an expert floater, he rowed with great dexterity to a place of safety. With a daring that astonished every one he returned next day to the island, and relieved his horses and cattle, that had been standing for twenty-four hours up to their backs in water.' The island is called Pitchaish.

Presently we cross the burn of Pitchroy, sometimes called also Allionlie. A little above, on the opposite side, the Avon enters the Spey, and among the woods on that side is Ballindalloch Castle, the seat of the Grants of Ballindalloch.

by antiquarians to be one of the finest specimens of the old Scottish baronial castle. "The original building was a square block, flanked by three circular towers, but large additions have been made to it from time to time, and the castle now shows many towers and turrets, crowstepped gables, and dormer windows, and is a massive and imposing as well as light and commodious structure. The central of the three towers is the largest, and in it are the ancient doorway and a spiral staircase, and it is surmounted by a watch-tower called the Cap-house. Immediately above the entrance there is an aperture through which boiling tar or melted lead might be poured upon any enemy who might come too nigh to break the door. Över the doorway is the Macpherson-Grant arms, cut in freestone; and inscribed on the lintel in Old English, "Ye Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in,' with 'Erected 1546' on one side, and Restored 1850' on the other. The door itself is in keeping with the tower to which it enters, and is of oak studded with iron bolts, and opens into a circular lobby, from the roof of which a richly carved pendant hangs; while the ribs of the intersecting arches are supported by corbels on the sides in the shape of wild dragons. From this a double set of doors leads to the vestibule, which here, if not so low, would be one of the finest portions of the building. The roof is supported in the centre by a massive Corinthian pillar, with richly carved base and capital, from which seven broad carved bands radiate to the surrounding walls. A wide staircase flanked with massive oak balustrades leads to the diningroom, which is richly furnished and adorned with family and other paintings. The drawing-room, in the northwest wing of the castle, is lofty, extensive, and decorated with portraits and paintings. Over the chimneypiece of one of the rooms is carved

1546,' the date probably of the oldest portion of the building. The Cap-house is said to have been added to the castle in 1602. Other additions were made Ballindalloch Castle has been said about 1700 and later. There is a tradi

tion about the erection of the castle, which Dr. Longmuir relates thus :"Going down the avenue, we cross a rivulet that rushes from the wooded bank on our right hand, and passing under the road, throws itself headlong into the stream of the 'clear-flowing Avon' on our left. Tracing this rivulet-the 'Castle Stripe '-upwards, we reach some old foundations on the summit of the bank, which are not without their legendary history. It is said that when the laird of Ballindalloch resolved to build himself a castle, he fixed on this spot for its site. The masons in due time were set to work, and in a few days the walls had risen by several courses from the ground. Great was the consternation of the workmen, however, when, on returning to their work one morning, they found that the walls had disappeared. Additional hands were set to work, and the walls soon attained their former height, but the following morning saw nothing but the foundations! All this alternate building and demolition was repeated the third time; then, after due consultation, a guard was set on the walls when once more a day's labour had been bestowed upon them. The stilly midnight arrived, and with it a powerful wind from Benrinnes that grew as it advanced. Amid the howling of the blast as it passed over them, they heard frequent plashes in the Avon below; and as the whirlwind was dying away on the mountains on the opposite side of the Spey, an unearthly laugh was heard over their heads. In the morning the terrified guards found the walls again obliterated. The Laird now resolved to watch himself, along with his faithful henchman. In the course of the day the work made rapid progress under the superintendence of Ballindalloch, and the night beheld him and his attendant, after the watchmen took up their post, plant themselves upon the rising walls of the castle. As the witching hour' of night approached, the wail of the rising tempest was heard it was speedily upon them, and in an instant master and man were both whirled

through the air, and jammed into the branches of a holly bush, whilst they heard the stones of the building plunging into the river below, and the awful laugh of the preceding night was followed by an eldrich voice which thrice repeated, 'Build on the Cow-haugh!' The site was accordingly abandoned, and the work of course commenced on the beautiful haugh which stretches between the Avon and the Spey, a little below their junction; and certainly the position of the castle at the bottom of a wooded bank, instead of its summit, required some such legend to account for a situation so unlike that which was commonly chosen for a building that should at once furnish an outlook for its possessors, and afford as great an obstacle as possible to its assailants."

The gate to Ballindalloch Castle arrests the attention of all who cross the bridge of Avon. Its architecture is in perfect keeping with that of the castle, to the grounds of which it is the principal entrance. The gate fills the space between the end of the parapet wall of the bridge and a steep rock. It is arched above, the arches springing from two Gothic towers; and over the keystone are the family arms, and the motto, "Touch not the cat bot a glove!" i.e. without a glove.

The great floods of 1829 did serious damage at Ballindalloch. "The haugh was exposed to the overflowing of the two rivers, the Spey and Avon. The whole plain from the bridge of Avon to Spey, and from bank to brae on each side, was converted into a lake three feet deep at the castle, whose inmates were prisoners till the flood subsided. Sir Thomas Dick Lauder gives a most graphic description of the scene at Ballindalloch. Avon flowed in a perfect torrent directly towards the castle, tearing up the lawn and uprooting trees, but for a time the garden wall was a protection. At last it gave way, and for twenty-four hours a body of water, twenty-five yards in width, rushed against the ground story of the castle, rushing violently through the vaulted passages of the old mansion. The destruction done by this deluge was ter

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