land--to Glencoe, we
find a marked difference between them. The scene of the great tragedy,
grand and impressive as it is, has no such narrow walled defiles. The
mountains are high, but they are of the sugar-loaf shape--abrupt, but
never one mass of precipice from top to bottom. Cairn Toul resembles
these hills, though it is considerably more precipitous: but Brae Riach
is as unlike them as a tower is distinct from a dome. In this narrow
glen we could tell of sunsets and sunrises, not accompanied by such
disagreeable associations as those we have recorded in Glen Avon.
Picture the very hottest day of a hot year. The journey in the wide
burning glen up from the Linn of Dee has been accomplished only with the
aid of sundry plunges in the deep, cold pools, which the stream has
filled with water fresh from the inner chambers of the mountains. The
moment we enter the narrow part of the glen, though the sun is still
pretty far up in the heavens, we are in twilight gloom. We have no
notice of his leaving the earth, save the gradual darkening of all
things around us. Then the moon is up, but we have no further
consciousness of his presence, save that the sharp peak of Cairn Toul
shows its outline more clearly even than by daylight; and a lovely roof
of light-blue, faintly studded with stars, contrasts with the dark sides
of our rocky chamber. In such a time, when one has mounted so far above
the level of the waters that they only make a distant murmur--when there
is not a breath of wind stirring any thing--it is strange with how many
mysterious voices the mountain yet speaks. Sometimes there is a
monotonous and continuous rumble as if some huge stone, many miles off,
were loosened from its position, and tumbling from rock to rock. Then
comes a loud distinct report as if a rock had been split; and faint
echoes of strange wailings touch the ear, as if this solemn desert were
frequented at night by animals as little known to the inhabitants of our
island as the uncouth wilds in which they live. But let not the wanderer
indulge in thoughts of this description beyond the bounds of a pleasant
imaginativeness. Let him take it for granted, that neither cayman nor
rattlesnake will disturb his rest; and having pitched on a dry spot, let
him pluck a large quantity of heather, making up a portion of it in
bundles, and setting them on end closely packed together with the flower
uppermost, while he reserves the rest to heap over himself. It is