SKY. GENERAL DESCRIPTION. 269 



blance to each other, than from the peculiarity of their 

 outlines. 



There is little throughout all this range of the in- 

 terior country to attract the attention of the painter. 

 If the distant outline is often grand or picturesque, the 

 want of objects in the middle ground leaves the landscape 

 barren, naked, and meagre : the artist searches in vain 

 amid the wearisome repetition of brown, smooth, undu- 

 lating moor, for the dark wood, the bushy ravine, the 

 rocky torrent, or the intricacy of broken hills, to con- 

 trast with the distance and to fill his picture. The 

 beautiful columnar range of great Brishmeal, above 

 Talisker, is almost the only object throughout the whole 

 tract capable of soliciting his attention. 



The general character now given is that of the whole 

 country as far as the line that joins Portree to Loch 

 Snizort; a tract as uninteresting to the geologist as to 

 the painter, since it presents him nothing but a perpetual 

 recurrence of trap rocks in their most common forms. 



The north-eastern portion of the island, comprising the 

 district of Trotternish, offers more variety and interest. 

 A long ridge, commencing at Portree, stretches away to 

 the point of Aird ; being elevated towards the middle into 

 mountainous eminences, which, rising by a gradual accli- 

 vity from the west, terminate to the eastward in a rapid 

 descent ; often displaying precipitous faces of great extent, 

 attended by circumstances of considerable grandeur and 

 picturesque beauty. The greatest altitude of this ridge 

 may be estimated at 2000 feet, and the highest point, 

 the Storr, is at the same time the most picturesque. 

 Here, the summit of the mountain is cut down in a ver- 

 tical face, four or five hundred feet in height ; while 

 the steep declivity below is covered with huge masses 

 of detached rock, the more durable remains of the cliffs 

 above, now separated from that precipice of which they 

 once formed a part. These are combined in a variety of 



