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›must have been much amused by a ཐཱ,༣༣ little.... incident. Having risen high Dona dry-stone wall, dividing the Holm and Kilravoch estates, he had no sooner touched the foundation, than the sods on the top of it became, as thit were, alive with mice, all forcing their way out, to escape as fast as they could from the inundation that threat*ened their citadel. The old castle of Kilravoch seemed to stand in a sea, but the Nairn could make no imbpression on its walls, so, out of spite, the carried off above two acres of a thriving wood of deciduous trees. A little farther down, he carried away about one-third of the fifty arable acres belonging to the farm hof Rosefield, or destroyed them beyond all power of redemption, by deposits of gravel and stones. The drops and grass were utterly ruined a number of extensive works annihilated the lime-beds of manure стой ки swept away, together with the whole corn of last year; and the whole farm, now in a state of chaos, lies at the mercy of every partial rise of the river. The crop ruined on the estate of Kilravoch, is estimated at L.500, and the actual damage done to the property, has been calculated by the factor at L.2400. Lord Cawdor's loss of soil, and other injury done to his estate along this part of the Nairn, may be set down at L.2000, and that of Mr Macintosh of Geddes, at L.1200. The inundation here spread far over the rich plain on the right bank, flooding some of the farm-houses that were 500 yards from the usual margin of the river, and ruining the crops to an extent that defies calculation.

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All this was pretty well, and ought, we think, to have satisfied the Nairn. But after quitting the above extensive arable plain, he got into another, and attacked Fir-hall. The offices were substantially built, on the summit of a bank about 30 feet high, and at the distance of about 30 horizontal yards from the edge of the river. The Nairn attacked the base of this bank with great strength and science, and cut it entirely back, until he had undermined the buildings. Then down came the thrashing-mill and the gable of a lofty barn. Not satisfied with this signal display of skilful prowess, he swept away great part of a very thriving plantation of wellgrown timber-trees from behind the

offices. Arrived at the burgh of Nairn, he immediately attacked the washing-green, and made off with a couple of acres. The three arches of the bridge of Nairn, aggregate breadth 120 feet, stood fast; but one of two stone bulwarks below the bridge, appertaining to the pierworks, eleven feet high, and very strong, was levelled and scattered. The flood of the 27th did far greater damage, for the piers on the right bank of the harbour gave way, and one arch of the bridge, 30 feet span, was ruined, and the whole fabric shaken. It was very remarkable that a fishing-hut, about 12 feet long, standing on a beach in the middle of the river, constructed of four posts, with beams stretched between then at top and bottom, and covered, roof and all, with outside planks, stood unmoved in the midst of the waters of both floods uninjured, except that it swayed a little from the perpendicular; while the bridge, the pier, a vessel that had bulged, nay, the very rocks, were all yielding to the furious force of the deluge. No building of stone and lime could have stood in the same place; and its preservation, Sir Thomas rightly says, is worthy of record, as a valuable fact, to prove how much power posts and planks will resist in such a situation. It stands, says he, as a useful instructor to the burghers of Nairn, for the restoration of their harbour, the damage done to which is calculated at L.2500. And here we conclude our abstract of the achievements of the Nairn. His hands were not died in human blood. On the evening of the 3d of August, a schooner-rigged vessel was lost in attempting to run into Nairn harbour before the wind, and the crew perished; but the river had no hand in that catastrophe, and it is but fair play to give the devil his due.

The FINDHORN is in all respects a superior being to the Nairn; nor will any one who has seen Relugas-the residence our worthy authorwonder at the enthusiasm with which he writes about this noble river. The Findhorn is born in a marish on the summit of a mountain in the midst of the Monadh-leadh group-and pursues a rejoicing course of about ninety miles through a district of country of not less than sixty, and of all the rivers of Scotland, there i

not one perhaps that possesses so ex® and watercourses of its carding and quisitely varied a character. Many meal-mills, injured the houses and a long day and short night have we machinery, and left all in a state of lain and lingered among his banks silent, melancholy, and motionless and braes—in many of his pellucid ruin. Near its junction, the side pools have we dived and darted "like of a wooded hill 100 feet high, a wild goose at play”—and not few slid down at once and covered the are the silver-shiners, fish and trout, great public road with débris and that we have seduced by fly-fascina- with large trees, many of them tion from the stream to the sand- in the growing position. The Findbank, while all the scenery round horn now meeting with some opposeemed beautified by the presence of sition from the old bridge of Corry.. the splendid spectacle. Tourists go burgh, commonly called the bridge of blindfolded, hoodwinked, fancy-fet- Freeburn, consisting of three large tered, soul-swindled through the arches, heaved them all up into the Highlands, with some wretched air, like the lid of a chest, and leaguide-book in their hand,* playing at ving nothing but the ruins of the two cross purposes with the glens, and land-abutments, rolled on to other hide-and-seek with the woods, and triumphs. The beautiful valley, or blind-man's buff with the mountains. plain, below Freeburn, in olden time, Let them use their seven senses, and no doubt, a lake, resumed that chafinding its source, take some river racter. The river changed its course in for their guide, and walk in music to several places, scarifying many acres, the sea.

Why, the Findhorn will and carrying some away from the shew them more of the spirit of High- farm of Invereig. The eight-mile long, land scenery, in three days, than they and everywhere extremely narrow will ever see all their life-long, in glen, called the Streens, felt the fury their present leading-strings along of the flood-the spouts of rain haroads civil and military; the Spey too ving converted every dry scar on the is a pleasant and instructive tellow- mountain-faces into a torrent, which traveller, and the Dee a positive Poet, soon cut it into a ravine, and covered who embues the dullest wight with acres with huge stones and heaps of some of his own imagination. gravel, to the depth of many feet. In

But let us view the Findhorn in some places, where the hillside was flood. After leaving its bleak parent formerly quite entire, it was torn hill, it runs through a deep ravine in open, and fragments of detached the primitive rocks, whence it enters rocks, eight or ten tons in weight, a beautiful pastoral glen and valley, were thrown down into the glen. bounded by steep and high moun- Coming to Lord Cawdor's property, tains, with occasional rocky faces, but the flood carried away the garden of generally covered with a rich and va- the house of Cuilliachan, and the luable herbage. In those regions the crop on twenty acres of land—injufood was without parallel, and did ring more or less the whole farm. Inall the harm it was possible for water deed, all the small farms hereabouts to do-sweeping away, for example, were nearly ruined by the annihilathe great wool-house of Laggan, and tion of half their arable lands. Easter the whole shearing of wool of heaven Tchirfogrein,“ the place hid from knows how many thousand sheep. the sun," stood 100 horizontal yards Lower down he sadly injured the from, and twelve feet above, the estates of Dalmigarie, Killochie, and usual surface of the river. The two Balnespeik-scattering the corn and brothers, who farmed it, seeing the potatoes of many poor families—and house surrounded three feet deep, by cutting off parts of fields dimi- carried their sister and bed-ridden nishing greatly the value of entire old niother to the side of a hill, from farms. The little burn of Aultan- which they soon saw their dwellingeachgra, which here joins the Find- house and other dwellings disappear horn, filled up and ruined the dams in the flood. Next morning, one end

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No allusion here to that very useful volume “ The Scottish Tourist,” manifestly compiled by an intelligent editor, and published by the respectable firm of Stirling and Kenney, Edinburgh; Whittaker and Co., and James Duncan, London ; nor to “ The Picture of Scotland,” by that ingenious and amusing writer, Robert Chambers, of a cowhouse alone remained—the pected that there was a bridge there at whole crop was gone—so were six all. Grouped with some cottages and acres of arable land, and all the rest some other trees, at a point about 150 was ruined by deep deposits of sand yards above the bridge, grew one of the and gravel. The poor tenants remo

most beautiful asbes I ever beheld. It ved to the farm of Knochandhu. The had a tall triple stem, supporting a perhouse stood about twenty yards from fect grove of foliage. The largest of its the edge of a haugh, 100 feet high three divisions was 124 feet in circumabove the Findhorn. But the “ ap

ference, the next 7 feet, and the small

This noble tree was pendix flood,” of the 27th, finding est about 7 feet. the base of this lofty bank already covered to a considerable height by the scarified, attacked, undermined, and

water ; but the gardener had no appretumbled it down in enormous masses,

hension for its safety, when all at once it with a noise like volleys of artillery ber of its branches by the very force and

fell with a fearful crash, breaking a num-so that the house, though not hurl- weight with which they struck the sured over, had to be deserted, standing face of the water, and throwing up the as it now did, on the edge of a red, agitated element to a great height. Down raw, perpendicular precipice a hun

it went out of sight, with an enormous dred feet high. Lord Cawdor's loss bank of gravel, torn away and retained is estimated at L.6000--and many by the long and multiplied reticulations poor people were reduced to utter of its roots. As it got rid of a part of want and ruin. The Findhorn then this dead weight, and rapidly approached attacked the old military bridge at the bridge, its branches rose for a moDulsie, which consists of one bold ment, with great majesty, some 40 or 50 and lofty arch of 46 feet, spanning feet above the water, and fell backwards, the yawning chasm. The Findhorn in such a manner as to bring the root attacked him in close column, with forward. In an instant it was sucked all his forces-having risen en masse

into the vortex of the centre arch. The forty feet above his usual level. But branches and smaller limbs were ground though invaded to within three feet to pieces with a noise like thunder, minof his key-stone, the old veteran stood gled with that of the explosions of gunfast, and repulsed the enemy,-or powder. For three or four minutes it rather suffered him to make his stuck, ‘ groaning and bellowing' as if escape along the foundations of his below the lower side of the bridge, shorn

from torture, and then appeared darting piers. The Findhorn was here re

of its mighty honours. When the river inforced by the Drumlochan Burn, subsided, the bridge of Ferness, to the in its ordinary state hardly sufficient astonishment of every one, emerged from to keep a saw-mill going, but now a

the flood, with no other damage than the column of water ten feet deep by loss of a part of its southern wing-walls forty in breadth. Its very branches and road-way, estimated at about L.100, were mighty-and carried away two But the preservation of the arches and bridges of twenty feet span. The the body of the bridge, must ever occaFindhorn, swollen with so many fu- sion it to be regarded as a miracle of rious auxiliaries, now resolved to masonry." sweep away the magnificent bridge The flood now reached the Reof Ferness. It was built of solid lugas property-and here ripped up granite by the Parliamentary Com

an old tragic secret:missioners, consisting of three arches of thirty-six, fifty-five, and thirty

“ At one place, immediately above feet span, and founded on the solid carried past Cumin's Cairn, rising on the

where the public road now runs, it was rock. But Sir Thomas's fine descrip- verge of a steeply inclined bank of 70 or tion of this attack must be given un- 80 feet high. This heap of stones was abridged :

raised over the body of a man of the “ It went on to rise in this way till name of Cumin, who, baving hanged about 7 o'clock, when the haugh on the himself in his barn in the beginning of right bank was covered, and the arches the 18th century, that is to say, about were not only completely filled, but the 100 years before the time I now speak of, water was level with the top of the para- was buried on the march, according

to pet, 27 feet above the ordinary level; the custom observed with suicides. The and, indeed, if a few yards of the para- moment the ditch was opened down the pets towards the left and highest bank face of the bank, it collected the water of had not appeared, no one could have sus every shower of rain ; and, being thereby

us. The Dorback then destroyed the beautiful meal-mill and carding-mill of Dunphail. The whole family, consisting of the miller, a most meritorious and ingenious, and what is far better, religious young man, William Sutherland-a boy his brother —the assistant miller—a lad, and a servant girl, found themselves surrounded by the flood. As they were engaged in family worship, down

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