Memorials of John Geddes

memorials of ]otot 0«<W«.
rougher uplands with the softer plains, where the moun-
tains guarding the infant stream have sunk down to hills
less stern and commanding, allowing a fringe of birches
and hazels to soften their shaggy sides, while every now
and then numerous affluents called " burns " come gurgling
in through the hollows that stretch away into the recesses
of the diverging glens.
In the north side of this parish, near the dividing line
separating the Counties of Aberdeen and Banff, rises the
hill of Talnamonth, otherwise Altnamonth, a good mile
and a half from the stream of the Deveron, and command-
ing an extensive coast view, with a possible glimpse in a
clear day of the Moray Firth. It was on the southern
slope of this hill that there lay a bank of land, a sort of
island among muirs and mosses, called Bodylair, consisting
of two farms, West and East Bodylair, each with its little
cluster of farm-houses, the two holdings being separated
mainly by the county road leading from Deveronside to
Fiddich vale over the grim and forbidding pass known as
Corsmaul.* The land on these farms, and especially on
East Bodylair, was in general poor, ill-drained, and un-
productive, lying as it did close to the upper limit of
* Corsmaul in Gaelic is believed to mean the "meall" or lumpish hill,
with a "cross" upon it, the cross having been in old time a landmark for
guidance of travellers.