THE FERNS OF SUTHERLAND AND ROSS. 11 



appearance of desolate grandeur; for a short distance the road runs at the 

 foot of bare rocks along the edges of Laxford, that stretches away to 

 the ocean between high steep cliffs; then toils up rising ground, through 

 rocks, broken, twisted, and thrown up at all conceivable angles; then 

 along a height whence a view of the country is got — a real picture of 

 desolation; now down a steep descent; then round a projecting ridge; 

 here along the end of a narrow glen, reaching far away between grey 

 mountains; now along the edge of a loch; now round the shoulder of a 

 hill; then along the face of another; now along the side of a torrent 

 fretting its way among granitic boulders to some kyle, shewing its sparkling 

 waters through some gorge in the hills; now up hill, and out on a 

 heath dreary and lonely; then along past some lochs, amidst bare rocks, 

 whose basins look like the vents of subterranean fires. Mile after mile 

 of this wild desolateness passed away, wearying, and yet not wearying, 

 the eye with looking; the same, and yet not the same; leaving on the 

 mind an indescribable mixture of pleasure and wonder, not unaccompanied 

 with a feeling of sadness, rising at times even to pain. By this time the 

 sun was far down, and 



"Each purple peak, each flinty spire. 

 Was bathed iu floods of living fire," 



with here and there a cloud — now white, no v dark, now red, now fringed 

 with orange — sailing along their sides, or stretching from pinnacle to 

 pinnacle, as if to form a bridge for the spirits of the warrior chiefs who 

 once owned these lands. Before Durness was reached, night had clothed 

 the hills in her sable folds, and the bold coast of the Atlantic Ocean 

 was only seen in the dim distance. 



Next day I set out to see the sights. The country round the townships 

 of Durine and Sango is very rocky, mostly of limestone, and very uneven, 

 dotted in every direction with lochs. Not much is cultivated, and that 

 part very slovenly; for the inhabitants, notwithstanding all that has been 

 done for them by the Duke of Sutherland, are in a blissful state of 

 primitive civilization. The hills towards the south enclose it in the form 

 of a crescent, and on the north is the Atlantic Ocean, with a coast of 

 great wildness. There is an almost endless variety of cliff, precipice, rock, 

 kyle, and bay. Sometimes the rocks rise up like walls; sometimes in 

 black twisted masses; sometimes in overhanging cliffs; sometimes they run 

 out in long, sharp, precipitous ridges, often terminated by an isolated rock, 

 that seems to stand as the guardian of its own ridge; sometimes they 

 gently recede from the sea, and leave a bay of fine white sand, now and 

 then strewn with huge black limestone rocks. Here the sea runs up a 

 narrow gorge, with high, wall-like sides, with tremendous force and terrific 

 roar; there it rushes through a narrow hole, in white foaming circles, 



