und in every
direction, and giving it the aspect of the burial-place of a race of
giants. Now and then we passed a hut or two, with neither window nor
chimney, and the smoke of the peat fire rolling out at the door. But
there were not six of these dwellings in a dozen miles; and anything so
bleak and wild, and mighty in its loneliness, as the whole country, it
is impossible to conceive. Glencoe itself is perfectly _terrible_. The
pass is an awful place. It is shut in on each side by enormous rocks
from which great torrents come rushing down in all directions. In
amongst these rocks on one side of the pass (the left as we came) there
are scores of glens, high up, which form such haunts as you might
imagine yourself wandering in, in the very height and madness of a
fever. They will live in my dreams for years--I was going to say as long
as I live, and I seriously think so. The very recollection of them makes
me shudder. . . . Well, I will not bore you with my impressions of these
tremendous wilds, but they really are fearful in their grandeur and
amazing solitude. Wales is a mere toy compared with them."

The further mention of his guide's whimsical ways may stand, for it
cannot now be the possible occasion of pain or annoyance, or of
anything but very innocent laughter:

"We are now in a bare white house on the banks of Loch Leven, but in a
comfortably-furnished room on the top of the house,--that is, on the
first floor,--with the rain pattering against the window as though it
were December, the wind howling dismally, a cold damp mist on everything
without, a blazing fire within half way up the chimney, and a most
infernal Piper practicing under the window for a competition of pipers
which is to come off shortly. . . . The store of anecdotes of Fletcher with
which we shall return will last a long time. It seems that the F.'s are
an extensive clan, and that his father was a Highlander. Accordingly,
wherever he goes, he finds out some cotter or small farmer who is his
cousin. I wish you could see him walking into his cousins' curds and
cream, and into their dairies generally! Yesterday morning, between
eight and nine, I was sitting writing at the open window, when the
postman came to the inn (which at Loch Earn Head is the post-office) for
the letters. He is going away, when Fletcher, who has been writing
somewhere below-stairs, rushes out, and cries, 'Halloa there! Is that
the Post?' 'Yes!' somebody answers. 'Call him ba