. Its water is quite luminous, and of great depth,
especially along its northern side. It abounds in trout of a black
colour and slender shape, differing much in appearance from the trout
found in the limpid stream of the Avon which issues from it. At the west
end of the lake is the famous Clach Dhian or Shelter Stone. This stone
is an immense block of granite, which seems to have fallen from a
projecting rock above it, rising to the height of several hundred feet,
and forming the broad shoulder of Ben Muich Dhui. The stone rests on two
other blocks imbedded in a mass of rubbish, and thus forms a cave
sufficient to contain twelve or fifteen men. Here the visitor to the
scenery of Loch Avon takes up his abode for the night, and makes himself
as comfortable as he can where 'the Queen of the Storm sits,' and at a
distance of fifteen or twenty miles from all human abode."[8]

At the eastern end of the lake, we stop to take a glance at the whole
scene. Right before us stands the broad top and the mural precipices of
Ben Avon, severing us from the north-western world. On the right, the
scarcely less craggy sides of Ben-y-Bourd and Ben Bainac wall up the
waters of the lake. The other side is conspicuous by a sharp peak of Ben
Muich Dhui--the same which we already mentioned as seeming to hang (and
it certainly does so seem from this point) over the edge of the water.
We never saw the sun shining on Loch Avon; we suspect its waters, so
beautifully transparent in themselves, are seldom visited by even a
midsummer gleam. Hence arises a prevailing and striking feature of the
scene--the abundant snows that fill the hollows in the banks, and
sometimes, even in midsummer, cover the slopes of the mountains.

We incline to the belief that tourists in general would consider Loch
Avon the finest feature of the whole group of scenery which we have
undertaken to describe. For our own part we must admit that we prefer
the source of the Dee, to which the reader shall be presently
introduced, as more peculiar and original. Loch Avon is like a fragment
of the Alps imported and set down in Scotland. Our recollections of it
invariably become intertwined and confused with the features of the
scenery of the upper passes. The resemblance was particularly marked on
the first of August 1836: it was a late season, and every portion of the
mountains that did not consist of perpendicular rock appeared to be
covered with snow. The peak of Ben Muich Dhui s