oftened by what appears to be masses of tall
shrubs, or single shrubs almost like trees. And they are trees, which on
the level plain would look even stately; but as they ascend ledge above
ledge the walls of that awful chasm, it takes the eye time to see them
as they really are, while on our first discernment of their character,
serenely standing among the tumult, they are felt on such sites to be
sublime.

"Between the Falls and the Strath of Stratherrik," says the Book we were
about to quote, "a space of three or four miles, the river Foyers flows
through a series of low rocky hills clothed with birch. They present
various quiet glades and open spaces, where little patches of cultivated
ground are encircled by wooded hillocks, whose surface is pleasingly
diversified by nodding trees, bare rocks, empurpled heath, and bracken
bearing herbage." It was the excessive loveliness of some of the scenery
there that suggested to us the thought of going to look what kind of a
stream the Foyers was above the Fall. We went, and in the quiet of a
summer evening, found it

"Was even the gentlest of all gentle things."

But here is the promised description of it. "Before pursuing our way
westward, we would wish to direct the traveller's attention to a
sequestered spot of peculiar beauty on the river Foyers. This is a
secluded vale, called Killean, which, besides its natural
attractions--and these are many--is distinguished as one of the few
places where the old practice of resorting to the 'shieling' for summer
grazing of cattle is still observed. It is encompassed on all sides by
steep mountains; but at the north end there is a small lake, about a
mile and a half in length, and from one-third to half a mile in breadth.
The remainder of the bottom of the glen is a perfectly level tract, of
the same width with the lake, and about two miles and a half in length,
covered with the richest herbage, and traversed by a small meandering
river flowing through it into the lake. The surface of this flat is
bedecked with the little huts or bothies which afford temporary
accommodation to the herdsmen and others in charge of the cattle. This
portion of the glen is bordered on the west by continuous hills rising
abruptly in a uniformly steep acclivity, and passing above into a
perpendicular range of precipices, the whole covered with a scanty
verdure sprouted with heath. At a bend of the lake near its middle,
where it inclines from a northe