The slope rising like a gigantic wave from a sea 



Mountain f m0 ors, rising and falling; against the azure 

 walls, but miraculously suspended there, a 

 changeless vision, an eternal phantom : to go 

 up into solitary passes, where even the June 

 sunshine is hardly come ere it is gone, where 

 the corbie screams, and the stag tramples the 

 cranberry scrub and sniffs the wind blowing 

 from beyond the scarlet-fruited rowan leaning 

 from an ancient fallen crag : to see slope 

 sinking into enveloping slope, and height up- 

 lifted to uplifting heights, and crags gathered 

 confusedly to serene and immutable summits : 

 to come at last upon these vast foreheads, and 

 look down upon the lost world of green glens 

 and dusky forests and many waters, to look 

 down, as it were, from eternity into time . . . 

 this indeed is to know the mountain charm, 

 this is enchantment. 



For the mountain-lover it would be hard to 

 choose any pre-eminent season. The highland 

 beauty appeals through each of the months, 

 and from day to day. But, for all the glory 

 of purple heather and dim amethystine slopes, 

 it is perhaps not the early autumnal mountain 

 charm, so loved of every one, that ranks first 

 in one's heart. For myself I think midwinter, 

 June, and the St. Martin's Summer of late 

 October, or early November, more intimately 



18 



