STORM AND WIND. 117 



yet at a distance, the sounds increasing in loudness as 

 the distance diminished; while far above us, in the 

 clefts of the high cliff which shot up almost perpen- 

 dicularly to a height of 1500 feet, there was a continual 

 roar, loud as that of the ocean in the fiercest storm. 



As we passed along the shores of a secluded loch, the 

 sheltered waters of which are generally smooth and 

 unruffled as a mirror, the effect produced was curious 

 in the extreme. The blasts sometimes poured down 

 from all quarters of the compass at once, and meeting 

 in fierce collision, drove the surface into large waves, 

 and lashing the water up bodily into the air, carried it 

 along like a drenching rain ; then separating, they 

 ploughed up the loch in opposite directions ; or chasing 

 each other across its bosom, left their wake marked by 

 a line of foam. On looking up the mountain-side, I 

 could almost have fancied myself in a most densely 

 populated country, where the hearths of some thou- 

 sands of families' the cottages themselves invisible, 

 were sending up their smoke in so many thin white 

 columns curling heavenwards, an appearance which 

 was produced by the fierce currents of air catching up 

 the waters of many a little burn as they swept athwart 

 its rocky channel. 



After a walk of some five miles, without seeing any- 

 thing in the shape of game, we reached a deep corrie, 

 the usual resort of deer in rough weather ; but though 

 we seated ourselves under shelter of a rock, and 

 scanned every foot of ground before us, we could 

 make out nothing. However, the lowest depths of 

 the place had not yet been penetrated by the sun's 

 rays, and it was possible that something might still be 

 lying in the shade; we therefore descended, and 

 traversed the shores of the loch lying below, keeping 

 a careful look-out as we advanced ; but again we were 



