_Birk Hall, September 5th_.--The day kept its promise, and was fair to the end. We drove up this glen, which is Glen Muich, to the loch which terminates it, about six miles off. There stands the Queen's hut, with a few fir-trees about it. It deserves its name--a small Highland cottage, with a room on each side the door and two rooms behind; a little plain wooden furniture and a Kidderminster carpet. There are two or three other wooden cottages about for the attendants. Here we lunched--for everybody lunches in this royal region; and then mountain ponies to go up to the Dhu Loch, about 1,200 feet higher--very wild, grand scenery, and a very rough, boggy path, on which Van de Weyer's contortions were very droll. Madame stayed under the royal honeysuckles below. I suppose Hopie and I shall go to Raith on the 15th, if they can take us in. At any rate, we shall leave Kirklands on that day; but our movements cannot be quite fixed till we hear. _Braemar, September 7th_.--Very fortunately I have had magnificent weather just when I wanted it. Clark gave me two good days of shooting on the hill on Wednesday and yesterday; we got about ten brace each day, and I had a famous hard walk. This morning I came on here by the Queen's private road through Balmoral and Invercauld. The scenery is wonderfully beautiful; and, if it were not for my love of the sea, I should admit that Braemar is the finest thing in Scotland. I have been up the glen this afternoon, past Mar Lodge, to the Linn of Dee--a fine cascade through rocks; the water is so clear that you can see the rocks under it, and wild blasted pines growing all round. I was sorry to leave Birk Hall. The Clarks are admirable hosts, and made their house most agreeable.... You will have lamented, as I do, the untimely cutting off of our poor friend, the late Lord High--I mean Ward. [Footnote: See _ante_, vol. i. p. 314.] There seems to be a fatality about Madras. _Somme toute_, the more I see of the chances of life, the more I am persuaded that, as my lot has been cast on such small but easy cushions, I ought to be perfectly content. The Queen came back on Wednesday night in high glee with her lark over the hills to Grantown. [Footnote: The Queen's account of this 'lark over the hills' is in _Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands_ (8vo. 1868), pp. 189-203.] They slept at a very little Highland inn, and were waited on by the maid only. The beds were awful, for they could not stand the feather bed, and, that being thrown aside, nothing soft remained beneath. General Grey found it so hard that he got up and put on his clothes to lie in. However, they were in high glee, and were not found out till they went away in the morning, when the man of the house said, 'Gin I'd known it was the Queen, I'd hae put on my Sunday claiths and waited on her mysel'.' They gave the Highland lassie a 5 L. note, at which she nearly fainted.