60 AN ANGLER'S RAMBLES 



Taken from the southern side, Corryarick presents a stiffish 

 climb, and the road so called, with its everlasting zigzags or 

 traverses, instead of facilitating one's approach to the summit, 

 only adds to his fatigue, and excites the wish to quit its protec- 

 tion an experiment which I would not recommend the hardiest 

 pedestrian to venture on when the weather is at all doubtful, the 

 hazards, in the shape of swamps and precipices, being numerous 

 throughout the district. 



Of the dreary nature of the Corryarick ascent, some concep- 

 tion may be formed from the circumstance, that in the whole line 

 of march from Garviemore, on Speyside, to within two miles of 

 Fort Augustus, there is not a dwelling of any kind to be met 

 with. When I passed over it, the only human being that 

 crossed my path was a goat-herd a miserably-clad, wild-look- 

 ing object, the expression of whose features was that of confirmed 

 idiocy, blended to some extent with cunning. It was at a turn 

 of the road close to the highest point of elevation that he pre- 

 sented himself, and it really seemed, so sudden was his appear- 

 ance, and so singular his conduct and attire, that, like one of the 

 Gnomes we read of in Swedish tale, he had started out of the 

 bowels of the earth. All I could elicit from him, in reply to 

 some interrogatory put by me, as to the distance from Fort 

 Augustus, was an 'Ugh! ugh!' or Gaelic monosyllable corre- 

 sponding to this Indian guttural, accompanied by violent gestures, 

 not one of them a whit more intelligible. 



I arrived at Fort Augustus an hour or two before sunset, and 

 as well as I can recollect, for my journal fails to relate the cir- 

 cumstance, threw an unsuccessful line over the stream which 

 connects Loch Ness with Loch Oich, usually called the Oich 

 River. This link in the great chain is frequently made the 

 halting-place of salmon in their way to tie Garry. It contains 

 two or three good rod casts, but, like the Ness itself, is not to be 

 relied on ; and, since the opening of the Caledonian Canal, has 



