368 THE SCOTCH FIR, OR PINE. 



waters stealing upon the ear ; curiosity becomes alive, and 

 we hurry forward, with the sound growing upon us, till all 

 at once the roar and the white sheet of a cataract hursts 

 upon our astonished senses, as we find ourselves suddenly 

 and unexpectedly standing on the fearful hank of some 

 deep and rocky ravine, where the river, pouring from ahove, 

 precipitates itself into a profound abyss, where it has to 

 fight its way through countless obstructions, in one con- 

 tinued turmoil of foam, mist, and thunder. The cliffs 

 themselves are shaken, and the Pines quiver while they 

 wildly shoot, with strange and fantastic wreathings, from 

 the crevices in their sides, or where, having gained some 

 small portion^ of nutriment on their summits, they rear 

 themselves up like giants aspiring to scale the gates of 

 heaven. And here, perhaps, a distant mountain-top may 

 appear over the deep green Fir-tops. By and by, after 

 pursuing the windings of the wizard stream for a consider- 

 able way upwards, we are conducted by it into some wide 

 plain, through which it comes broadly flowing and spark- 

 ling among the opposing stones, where the trees of all ages 

 and growths stand singly, or in groups, or in groves, as 

 Nature may have planted them or the deer may have 

 allowed them to rise, where distant herds are seen main- 

 taining their free right of pasture, where, on all sides, 

 the steeps are clothed thick with the portly denizens of 

 the forest, and where the view is bounded by a wider 

 range of those mountains of the Cairngorum group, which 

 are now ascertained to be the highest in Great Britain. 

 And finally, being perhaps led by our wayward fancy to 

 quit this scene, we climb the rough sides of some isolated 

 hill, vainly expecting that the exertion of but a few 

 minutes will carry us to its summit that we see rising 

 above all its woods. And we do reach it but not until 

 we are toilworn and breathless, after scrambling for an 

 hour up the slippery and deceitful ascent. Then what a 

 prospect opens to us, as we seat ourselves on some bare 

 rock ! The forest is seen stretching away in all directions 



