So shall thy wondering sight at once survey Vales, lakes, woods, mountains, islands, rocks, and sea; Through north and south, through west and eastern land- High o'er the rest displays superior state, All these, and more, shalt thou transported see, And had I been thus advised, I should have been more cautious not "To trust at first a quick adventurous pace." I was too ambitious-too confident of my own powers-and for my urgency, had wellnigh been obliged to return without reaching the top. At last, however, we came to a bank of snow-in August-which might serve for water with food, and there refreshed and ate our lunch with most voracious appetite. Then took a sweet nap in the face of the sun. Next, rising, we pushed our way, and soon attained the loftiest summit of Britain's Isle. The day was fine: it could not have been more so; and the scene there brought under the eye cannot be better described than as above: "Vales, lakes, woods, mountains, islands, rocks, and sea, Vast lumpy groups-while Ben, who often shrouds His lofty summit in a veil of clouds, High o'er the rest displays superior state." And although it cannot be said of Ben Nevis as Byron said of Mont Blanc, "Mont Blanc is the monarch of mountains! On a throne of rocks, in a robe of clouds, Around his waist are forests braced, The avalanche in his hand ;" Yet is it true, that Ben Nevis is sole monarch of these realms; that he wears for ever a diadem of snow; and that he clothes himself with the clouds, whenever any are afloat on which to lay his hands. From the top of Ben Nevis, the whole of Scotland, all the Hebrides, and a vast extent of open sea, are under the eye. One is astonished to find what a world of hills and lochs the said North Britain is; and their shapes are so broken, so irregular, so fantastic; some of them as perfect cones, apparently, as could have been laid out by trigonometry. Whether these are volcanic formations, I am not geologist enough to decide. I can only say, that directly at the foot of Ben Nevis is a conical hill 1,500 feet high, with an apparent sealed crater on the top, the entire margin of which, being some 300 feet in circumference, is composed of stone in various degrees of vitrification-some of it is pure glass. It all has the appearance of having been thoroughly exposed to the emission of volcanic heats. There are other phenomena of this description in different parts of Scotland, commonly called vitrified forts; but the reason here implied is by no means satisfactory. In ascending Ben Nevis, at the height of about 1,800 feet, all vegetation disappears, except as an occasional oasis of a few feet square presents itself to the eye. Laborious as is the toil of ascent, the vision realized there in a clear day is a rich reward. But how vexatious to those who, after hav ing gained the summit, find themselves enveloped in a cloud, as is not unfrequently the case, and then are obliged to de scend without a glance at the world below. The northern side of nearly all these hills is broken and precipitous. The southern is ordinarily an accessible declivity. The whole northern line of Ben Nevis is a perpendicular cliff, or crag, of amazing and giddy altitude-in some places a thousand, in some fifteen hundred, and in others two thousand feet, indented all along by means of projecting points. The amusement of tossing stones down these chasms, to hear their fall and boundings in the lower and distant regions, is no small temptation to linger on the awful brow; especially when one person can stand on a precipice opposite to another, and follow with his eye the stone projected by his fellow, until it is lodged in its final resting-place. FINGAL'S CAVE Is a rare beauty, I may say wonder of nature, in the Island of Staffa, on the west of Scotland. "The entrance to this great cave, which is about 117 feet high and 53 wide, resembles a Gothic arch. The stupendous columns which bound the interior sides of the cave are perpendicular, and being frequently broken and grouped in a variety of ways, produce a highly picturesque effect. The roof, in some places, is formed of rock, and in others of the broken ends of pillars, from the interstices of which have exuded stalactites, producing a variety of beautiful teints, with a fine effect-the whole resembling mosaic-work. As the sea never ebbs entirely out, the only floor of this cave is the beautiful green water, reflecting from its bosom those beautiful green teints, which vary and harmonize with the darkest hues of the rock. The appearance of Fingal's Cave most strongly excites the wonder and admiration of the beholder, and overpowers by the magnificence of the scene. The broken range of columns, forming the exterior causeway, is continued on each side within the cave. This irregular pavement is most perfect on the eastern side, and admits of access nearly to the extremity of the cave. The entrance to the cave is a defined object, and gives relief to the view, while the eye seeks repose in the vast recess. "The average diameter of the basaltic columns is about two feet, but they often extend to four. Their figures are different, and the number of their sides vary from three to nine; but the prevalent forms are the pentagon and hexagon. This island is extremely interesting in a geological point of view, and different theorists have endeavoured to account for the phenomenon of basaltes, and other columnar rocks. According to the Huttonian system, they have been protruded from below in a ductile state, having either been fused, or rendered soft by being near to other bodies, such as granite in a state of fusion, and acquired their prismatic forms in the process of cooling. According to the Wernerian theory, they are crystallized deposites of matter, held in solution by the chaotic fluid. "It is a singular fact, that this island, though one of the greatest curiosities of nature, should have remained until little more than the last half century, unnoticed, and almost unknown." Iona, or Ilcolm kill, is supposed to have been once a religious retreat of the Druids. It was assumed by St. Columba in 565, according to Bede, and made a seat of religious establishments for Christianity. A cathedral built in the latter end of the eleventh century is still in keeping there; but most of the ancient edifices are in ruins. “Iona was the usual cemetery of the Scottish kings. King Duncan's body was 66 6 carried to Colm's kill, The sacred storehouse of his ancestors, "So great was the reputation of Iona, as a receptacle of the renowned and royal dead, it is said, that besides many kings of Scotland, four kings of Ireland, eight Norwegian kings, and one king of France, repose there. There, it is affirmed, the lords of the Isles were all buried. "Iona was the principal asylum of learning during the dark period of the middle ages. From this sequestered spot a feeble and doubtful light shone upon benighted Europe; and the vestiges of the edifices to be seen here, connected as they are with the very early periods of Scottish history, impart a venerable character to the present aspects of the island." BEN LOMOND-LOCH LOMOND-LOCH KATRINE-AND THE TROSACHS. We proceeded down the Clyde from Glasgow 12 miles, and there, under the rock and castle of Dunbarton, we turned into the channel and sweet vale of Leven, and passing in a coach the birthplace of Dr. Smollet, and many other remarkable things, soon found ourselves in a steamer, whose home for the season is Loch Lomond. At the lower end of this lake, its shore and the adjacent country are comparatively low, and not a little picturesque, as well as highly cultivated and tastefully improved. Here are castles and gentlemen's seats, &c. more than are convenient to name and describe. In a little time we began to move among the islands, some large and some small, some high and others low. Soon the mountains in the distance began to approach us, and already Ben Lomond's broad base and towering summit were before us. In fifteen miles we were shooting over the waves which laved his feet, and looked directly up to heaven to gaze upon his hoary locks, so often bathed in the clouds. We bowed to him, not he to us, although he was evidently moved at our coming, and continually showed us some new form, some changing feature. Ben Lomond is 3,262 feet high, rising immediately, and almost precipitously, from the margin of the lake. Those who can make it convenient stop to ascend it. But it occu pies a day, and well rewards the toil. As I had been upon Ben Nevis, I did not desire to undertake a second labour of the kind so soon. Ben Lomond seems to be stationed here to introduce the stranger to his own family. For immediately on passing his awful and majestic form, the most rugged and loftiest hills of Scotland line the lake, and wall it in, and shut it up to every thing but heaven. Nothing of the kind could be more imposing, more wild, more picturesque, with here and there a soft, sweet bed, lying at their feet, and at the mouth of a glen, which opens up the steep ascent, to separate one mountain of rocks from another. Imagination has been tasked to give names to these shapeless forms, and in some instances it requires no fancy to find the types of things familiar. There is a cobbler, for instance, perched upon one of the loftiest summits, for ever bending to his task, and never done. Whether he works at night is not easily proved, as his seat is inaccessible. And he is not without society, for his wife sits directly before him, with her face turned to his face, and there they hold their fellowship from age to age. It appears moreover, that his wife has turned Roman Catholic, and become a nun, for she has evidently taken the veil. exact likeness of such a character could not be drawn. A more We sailed to the head of Loch Lomond, passing Rob Roy's Cave, the lake being nearly forty miles long; and there, after gazing a while upon the hills piled on hills, we turned, and five miles below the termination, myself, with a dozen others, left the boat for Loch Katrine; and some on foot, and some on poneys, we scaled the mountains, and climbed over rocks five miles or more, till we came to the house of the Lady's Lake, or of the lake which made the famed retreat of" The Lady of the Lake." And I will venture to say, that never did any tartaned troop of the Clanalpine, or any of the Douglas line, or even Roderick Dhu himself, experience a more winged or swifter flight over this ten-mile water bosom than we. Our light and bounding bark was trimly built, a Highlander was at the helm, another at the sails, and two others yet in waiting, and all jabbering Galic -the wind was fair and brisk, and though well loaded, we seemed scarcely to touch the tops of the waves : "Like heath-bird, when the hawks pursue, Our barge across Loch Katrine flew." We brushed by the scenes on the right and left, which seemed to retreat as fast as we advanced, until on the wings of an hour, with no little fear of dipping, we came where, "High on the south huge Benvenue Down to the lake his masses threw ; Crags, knolls, and mounds confusedly hurl'd, making what are called" The Trosachs"—that is, the bristled territory; and where the lake, "still and deep, C Affording scarce such breadth of brim As served the wild duck's brood to swim." And no one who had been here would say, that poetic license had need to steal its privilege, for want of the sweetest of the sweet, the wildest of the wild, the roughest of the rugged, the most sombre of the dark, the veriest jumbling together of all things, which might well make even crazy Martin, the strangest designer of strange things, more crazy still; and of what, having seen, should bring him to his sober wits again, and leave him to say, "I have done now-there is nothing more." I too have done, except to say, that we ascended the bold and rocky steep of the little island, mantled with every sort of tree and shrub, native of these regions; and there, in that deep, and dark, and solemn retreat, we found the rustic grotto, and the relics of ancient armour, and the skins of wild beasts covering the walls and the ceiling, and rustic chairs, and forms, and tables, just as the poet describes; not that he had seen them, but that, by giving the picture, others |