WINTER IN THE NORTH 315 



pinnacles and buttresses, eddying over the abyss in 

 the drift of the vapours, like a flight of storm- 

 pigeons. Plunging the eye far down into the pro- 

 found, there is nothing but those circling specks 

 for it to rest upon, between the slab on which your 

 shooting-boots are slipping and the slopes of heather 

 some couple of thousand feet below. As for the glories 

 of the prospect, you may turn your face as you will. 

 All around stretches a seemingly limitless extent of 

 trackless moor, forest, and sheep- farm, where hill and 

 valley, till they confound themselves in the snowy 

 distance, are veined by the black blotches or silvery 

 lines that mark the lakes or the rivers and burns. 



