The upward journey is a thing not to be forgotten, for the foliage is wonderful, and every step we take almost reveals some new beauty. The watercourses, swollen with rains that have come rushing down the green and rocky slopes, are broadening and deepening. There is plenty of life also in the woods and on the moor. The grouse are not at all in evidence, and we miss their whirr and cry so pleasant to hear. But the robins sing where there are branches on which they can perch, and the rabbits are running races among the ferns. When what seems the summit has been attained, the view will be found to be very fine to the north; but it will also be found that there is still a higher height a little farther back, over softer ground, from which an all-round prospect can be had. “Kaim” is applied to any ridge of ground, either moundish or mountainous, with enough of sharpness and zigzag in its outline to give it some resemblance to a cock’s comb, and is frequently so used in Scotland; but there can be none of those hills so called which can possibly boast of a finer outlook than this one above Fairlie, which seems to be the meeting-place of all the hills that rise in the parishes of Kilbirnie, Lochwinnoch, and Dalry, and which hem in the parish of Largs so curiously from all the cultivated land to the north, east, and south-east as to have produced the proverbial expression, “Out of the world, into Largs.” In a north-easterly direction may be seen the thriving town of Beith, and the high ground behind it, forming part of the watershed between the basin of the Clyde and the river systems of Ayrshire. Due east is the valley of the Garnock, the beauty of which is somewhat marred by a variety of coal and iron works, whose bings of shale and other refuse are considerably higher than any Dutch hills that we have seen. But they are suggestive of the spirit of the age, industry and enterprise, and of the great change that has come over the district since it was the abode of princes. For Dalry, it should be remembered, means “the king’s field” or “vale,” and those holms on the river’s side were at one time the king’s domain. Not far over from where we stand is old Blair House, whose family charter dates from William the Lion; and on the estate of Blair, on a precipitous bank of limestone, in a romantic glen, there is to be seen one of the greatest curiosities in Ayrshire, a cave 40 feet above the bed of the stream, and covered by 30 feet of rock and earth. In former times people believed it to be tenanted by elves, aerial genii, and hence the name it now goes by, “Elf Ho.” It was frequently occupied in later times by a nobler class of tenants, the Covenanters, in the time of Charles II. This would make an excursion by itself. And in visiting it we would have awakened in our hearts feelings of veneration and pride for those who fought the battle of religious freedom for us. It is only by visiting such dens of the