Of marches past

KEEP walking up the burn-you'll find them eventually,' said my friend.

- JOE GIBBS

The day was hot and still and the climb gradual, but relentless. I stooped over the burn and wetted my head with cool water. The glen gently curved, a series of ridges running down into it. Behind each I expected to find my objective. Instead, behind each lay disappointment and a further climb. I was ascending Gleann na Ciche-lyrically, Glen of the Nipple-which runs southerly from the west end of Loch Affric.

Among the hills above it there is naturally a peak of 'The Nipple', but also the evocative 'Peak of the Hound Keepers' and 'Big House of the Hunt'. The poetry of Highland toponymics is quite inexhaustible. At the glen's extremity is Choire a Chait-Corrie of the Cat -the ridge of which is the watershed line between what was once MacRae and Mackenzie land in Kintail and Chisholm in Glen Affric.