Scotland/Scots > Black's picturesque tourist of Scotland

CASTLETON
BLAIR-ATHOLL.
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for he has not had a glimpse of them since he first discovered
them an hour ago. His videttes on the distant hills have
hitherto telegraphed no signal of his proximity to deer ; but
now a white handkerchief is raised, the meaning of which cannot
be mistaken. With redoubled caution he crawls breathlessly
along, till the antlers appear ; another moment and he has a
view of the herd they are within distance. He selects a
hart with well tipt, wide spreading horns. Still on the ground,
and resting his rifle on the heather, he takes a cool aim. His
victim—shot through the heart—leaps in the air and dies. The
rest of the herd bound away; a hall from another barrel follows
—the “ smack” is distinctly heard—and the glass tells that
another noble hart must fall, for the herd have paused, and the
hinds are licking his wound. They again seek safety in flight,
but their companion cannot keep pace with them. He has
changed his course; the dogs are slipped and put upon the scent,
and are out of sight in a moment. The stalker follows ; he again
climbs a considerable way up the heights ; he applies the
telescope, but nothing of life can he behold, except his few
followers on the knolls around him. With his ear to the ground
he listens, and amidst the roar of innumerable torrents, faintly
hears the dogs haying the quarry, but sees them not; he moves
on from hill to hill towards the sound, and eventually another
shot makes the hart his own. The deer are then bled and
gralloched, and partially covered with peat; the horns are left
upright, and a handkerchief is tied to them to mark the spot,
that the hill-men may find them at the close of the day. The
interest of all this is enhanced by the majestic scenery of an
immense, trackless, treeless forest—to which domesticated life
is a stranger—where mountain, corrie, cairn, and glen, thrown
promiscuously together, present the grandest of savage land¬
scapes, and as the field of wild adventure, cast into shade what
Mr. Scrope not unaptly designates “ the tame and hedge-bound
country of the South ! ” •
Castleton to BiiAiR-ATHOiiii, by Glen Tilt—30 miles.
The approach to Blair by Glen Tilt is best made from this
side. A guide with a pony can be engaged for the whole
distance for 25s. The river Tarf has to be forded, but in
ordinary summer weather it is not more than fourteen inches