The Land of the Hills and the Glens 



irises with which the shores of the loch are covered at this 

 season of early summer. 



Lying as it does well into the Atlantic, Ben More 

 attracts to itself many clouds. When lona and the Ross 

 of -Mull are flooded with summer sunlight, I have time 

 after time seen dark storm-clouds hanging low on the hill, 

 and heavy rain frequently falls here when in the glens 

 below the day has been one of the finest. How often, 

 when all the rest of the sky was of a deep blue, have I 

 watched tiny clouds gathering on the hill and being carried 

 on the arms of the breeze past the cairn. Often these infant 

 clouds as they touched the hill would imperceptibly gather 

 strength, so that soon the whole hill-top would be shrouded 

 in thin filmy mist on which the sunlight played as it strove to 

 dispel the vapours. 



In the season of winter the great storms of rain which 

 at that time visit the Hebridean Islands fall on Ben More 

 in the form of snow, and it is then that the gloomy 

 corries on the north-east side of the hill are filled with drifted 

 snow hurried thither on the gusts of the south-westerly 

 gale. 



And when the mists lift a little, so that the hill-top is 

 clear, the snow can be seen whirled in great clouds past the 

 cairn in the arms of the storm. 



One day of March, when much snow had quietly fallen 

 on the hills overnight, without warning a gale from the 

 west sprang up shortly after midday. On the summit of 

 Ben More the air was bright and clear, but behind the 

 hill lay banks of dark storm clouds. Across the hill-top 

 thick blinding clouds of snow were being carried, and so 

 great was the force of the wind that, instead of drifting 

 into the come below, the snow, as it was swept over the 

 narrow summit, was caught right up into the clouds, so that 

 it could be seen trailing into the sky, outlined in the form of 

 a long white cloud against the blackness of the storm behind 

 it, and gradually merging into the hurrying mists. 



