HIGHLAND SCENE. 199 



How long we might have gazed on this brilliant spectacle 

 is questionable. Hennessey, less romantic than we, reminded 

 us that it was time to. occupy the defile, by which the deer, if 

 found, and driven from the lowlands, would pass within our 

 range. Thus recalled, we looked at the immediate vicinage 

 of the cairn. It was a wilderness of moss and bog, and 

 granite, barren beyond description, and connected with the 

 upper levels of the Alpine ridge, which extended for miles at 

 either side, by a narrow chain of rock, which seemed more 

 like the topping of a parapet than the apex of a line of hills. 

 Indeed, a more desolate region could not be well imagined ; 

 no sign of vegetation appeared, if scathed lichens, and parched 

 and withered flag- grass be excepted. The mountain cattle 

 were rarely seen upon these heights, and the footmarks upon 

 the softer surface were those of the deer and goats. . Hen- 

 nessey discovered the tracks of a herd of the larger species, 

 which, from his acute observations, had evidently crossed the 

 ridge since sunrise, and must, from their numerous traces, 

 have amounted to at least a dozen. 



While we still cast a " longing lingering look" at a scene, 

 which, I lament to say, I shall most probably never be per- 

 mitted to view again a boy rose from the valley towards the 

 south, and hastened at full speed to join us. His communi- 

 cation was soon made, and, like the shepherd's at the cabin, 

 pantomime rather than speech conveyed its import. His 

 tidings were momentous ; the deer had moved from the place 

 in which they had been first discovered, and were now 

 within one thousand yards of the place where we were 

 resting. Hennessey and the gossoon* advanced in double 

 quick, and where the ridge is steepest between the highlands 

 and the valley, we observed them make a sudden halt, and 

 creep gingerly forward, to what seemed the brow of a pre- 

 cipice. We followed more leisurely, and adopting a similar 

 method of approach, stole silently on, and looked over the 

 chasm. 



The precipice we were on forms the extremity of a long 

 but narrow ravine, which gradually rising from the lowlands, 

 divides the basis of Carrig-a-binnoigh and Meelroe. It 

 was a perpendicular rock of fearful height. At either side 

 the valley was flanked by the sides of the opposite hills ; and 



* Anglice, boy. 



