hough after your eye loses
some of the forms of the Swiss and Italian lakes, and of the shores
of Italy, you will think better of these. The Highlands are
remarkable for their surprises, rather than for their grandeur, as we
shall presently see. As to the latter, it is an affair of feet and
inches, and is capable of arithmetical demonstration. We have often
been on lakes, beneath beetling cliffs of from three to six thousand
feet in height; whereas, here, the greatest elevation is materially
less than two. But, Sir George Templemore, and you, Miss Effingham,
do me the favour to combine your cunning, and tell me whence this
stream cometh, and whither we are to go?"

The boat had now approached a point where the river was narrowed to a
width not much exceeding a quarter of a mile, and in the direction in
which it was steering, the water seemed to become still more
contracted until they were lost in a sort of bay, that appeared to be
closed by high hills, through which, however, there were traces of
something like a passage.

"The land in that direction looks as if it had a ravine-like
entrance," said the baronet; "and yet it is scarcely possible that a
stream like this can flow there!"

"If the Hudson truly passes through those mountains," said Eve, "I
will concede all in its favour that you can ask, Grace."

"Where else can it pass?" demanded Grace, exultingly.

"Sure enough--I see no other place, and that seems insufficient."

The two strangers to the river now looked curiously around them, in
every direction. Behind them was a broad and lake-like basin, through
which they had just passed; on the left, a barrier of precipitous
hills, the elevation of which was scarcely less than a thousand feet;
on their right, a high but broken country, studded with villas, farm-
houses, and hamlets; and in their front the deep but equivocal bay
mentioned.

"I see no escape!" cried the baronet, gaily, "unless indeed, it be by
returning."

A sudden and broad sheer of the boat caused him to turn to the left,
and then they whirled round an angle of the precipice, and found
themselves in a reach of the river, between steep declivities,
running at right angles to their former course.

"This is one of the surprises of which I spoke," said John Effingham,
"and which render the highlands so _unique_; for, while the Rhine is
very sinuous, it has nothing like this."

The other travellers agreed in extolling this and many similar
fe