136 THE BANK ACCOUNTANT. 



winter/ he writes, ' about six years ago, that a dense bank 

 of mist came rolling in between the Sutors like a huge 

 wave, and enveloped the entire frith, and the lower lands 

 by which it is skirted, in one extended mantle of moisture 

 and gloom. I ascended the hill ; on its sides the trees 

 were dank and dripping; and the cloud which, as I 

 advanced, seemed to open only a few yards before me, 

 came closing a few yards behind, but on the summit all 

 was clear, and so different was the state of the atmosphere 

 in this upper region from that which obtained in the fog- 

 below, that a keen frost was binding up the pools, and 

 glazing the sward. The billows of mist seemed break- 

 ing against the sides of the eminence ; the sun, as it 

 hung cold and distant in the south, was throwing its 

 beams athwart the surface of this upper ocean, lighting 

 the slow roll of its waves as they rose and fell to the 

 breeze, and casting its tinge of red on the snowy sum- 

 mits of the lower hills, which presented, now as of old, 

 the appearance of a group of islands. Ben Wyvis and 

 its satellites rose abruptly to the west ; a broad strait 

 separated it from two lesser islands, which, like leviathans, 

 raising, and but barely raising, themselves above the sur- 

 face, heaved their flat backs a little over the line ; the 

 peaks of Ben Vaichard, diminished by distance, were 

 occupying the south ; and far to the north I could descry 

 some of the loftier hills of Sutherland, and the Ord-hill 

 of Caithness. I have since often thought of this singu- 

 lar scene in connection with some of the bolder theories 

 of the geologist. I have conceived of it as an apparition, 

 in these latter days, of the scenery of a darkly remote 

 period, a period when these cold and barren summits 

 were covered with the luxuriant vegetation of a tropical 

 climate, with flowering shrubs, and palms, and huge 

 ferns ; and when every little bay on their shores was en- 



