0100,0100,0100Sid,
I am sure that you are right in terms of the custom of adding a
stone...I have asked around here and have not found anyone
who knows of this custom in the Highlands although it is
customary to add a stone to cairns on summits. I doubt very
much if there were dispersed graves in the manner suggested
by Verne. I should have mentioned that there is an old chapel
on the roadside and I am sure that this is where people would
have been buried. It is now sadly a café ( with hardly any
residents there would be little need for a place of worship) but
I imagine it would have had a graveyard....I will check next
time. Also the hamlet of Balquidder is nearby and has an
extensive graveyard (including the grave of Verne's hero Rob
Roy MacGregor).Much of the area traversed by Verne is
snowbound in winter and therefore would have been
inaccessible to relatives of the defunct and highly eroded by
the snow melt in late spring and therefore not really suitable
for a grave.However, the beauty of studying Verne "on the
ground" is that for every enigma one hopes to have solved
another one pops up!
Ian.