ards. As we
proceed, the trees gradually become more scarce, the rocky barrier is
left behind us, and we are in a long grassy glen shut out from the
world. This is Glen Lui. A better introduction to the savage scenery
beyond, for the sake of contrast, there could not be. Every thing here
is peace and softness. Banks lofty, but round and smooth, intervene to
hide the summits of the mountains. The stream is not stagnant, but it
flows on with a gentle current, sometimes through sedge or between
grassy banks; elsewhere edged by a beach of the finest yellow sand. The
water is beautifully transparent, and even where it is deepest you may
count the shining pebbles below. A few weeping birches here and there
hang their graceful disconsolate ringlets almost into the stream; the
grass is as smooth as a shaven lawn, and much softer; and where a few
stones protrude through it, they are covered with a cushion of
many-coloured mosses. But with all its softness and beauty, the extreme
loneliness of the scene fills the mind with a sense of awe. It surely
must have been in such a spot that Wordsworth stood, or of such a scene
that he dreamed, when he gave that picture of perfect rest which he
professed to apply to a far different spot, Glen Almon--a rough, rocky
glen, with a turbulent brook running through it, where there never was
or can be silence:

"A convent--even a hermit's cell
Would break the silence of this dell--
It is not quiet--is not ease,
But something deeper far than these.
The separation that is here
Is of the grave, and of austere
And happy feelings of the dead."

Nor in Glen Lui can one feel inclined to join in the charge of mysticism
which has been raised against this last simile. Its echoes in the heart
at once associate themselves with a few strange, mysterious, round
mounds, of the smoothest turf, and of the most regular, oval, or
circular construction, which rise here and there from the flat floor of
the valley. It needs no archaeological inquiry to tell us what they are:
we feel that they cover and have covered--who call tell how many hundred
years?--the remains of some ancient people, with whom history cannot
make us acquainted, and who have not even the benefit of tradition; for
how can there be traditions in places where no human beings dwell?

"A noble race, but they are gone!
With their old forests wide and deep;
And we have fed our flocks upon