164 NOTES Ol' AN 



vehicle, you take the new one as a matter of course; but if 

 you are a pedestrian, and " free to choose," by all means take 

 the old one. The old road is generally the nearer line be- 

 tween one place and another, and embraces the most abrupt 

 and finest points of view. The new road is as level as 

 possible, avoiding or cutting through hills, filling up valleys, 

 and utterly regardless or abhorrent of every thing picturesque 

 and romantic. This remark has no reference to the present 

 road, which was cut where there had never been a road 

 thought of before, and was grand and varied in the highest 

 degree; but it has redoubled reference to a choice between 

 a mountain track and any road at all, which may have some- 

 thing to do with our history presently. 



Land and water, lake and mountain, arc so strangely inter- 

 mingled in this wild country, the sea-bays penetrate so deep, 

 and are so completely land-locked, that on leaving behind one 

 shore and gaining a farther elevation, it is impossible to con- 

 jecture whether you will next drop down upon an arm of the 

 sea, or a fresh-water lake. They are to be met with here 

 within half a mile of each other. Keil-loch is one of the 

 largest and most solitary of the latter. Huge masses of naked 

 rock, strewn about and piled in the wildest disorder, form its 

 mountain boundaries, perfectly inaccessible, except by the 

 road you enter. Though totally destitute of any thing like 

 foliage to relieve the dreary nakedness of its shores, — except 

 here and there a stunted birch, rooting itself with difficulty 

 in some fissure of the rock, — they were not without their 

 beauty. Never saw I such varied, such surpassing heaths. 

 One solitary cottage we met with in this desolate region, and 

 entered to ascertain if it could furnish a drop of milk, and to 

 inquire the distance. It was not of the very worst order, 

 having two apartments, — was glazed, and possessed a little 

 crockery inside. It was tenanted by a woman and her two 

 grown up daughters. One of them was squatted by the turf 

 fire, and moved not on our entrance. The other, under her 

 mother's directions, with much alacrity, and even politeness of 

 manner, supplied us with bowls of delicious goat's milk. We 

 doubt whether the girls understood our English, from their 

 not joining in it ; but, if so, it is the only instance we met with. 

 For, though they currently converse together in Irish, and 

 universally break out into that language when earnest or angry, 



