Burnside. 107 



The water falls into a huge basin, worn by its ceaseless 

 action through many ages, from which it pursues its rapid 

 course down a rough, rock-strewn bed again, on either side of 

 which the black rocks, dark and sombre, rise precipitously. 

 On the left bank of the burn they soon cease, and slope down 

 to the little knoll on which we stand ; but on the right bank 

 they fall back, a tangled mass of undergrowth at their base 

 forming an almost impassable thicket, above which birch 

 trees and mountain ash still rear their graceful heads and 

 still temper the sternness of the rocks beyond. Then they 

 suddenly close in again, and just below us the burn enters 

 another rock-strewn canon, on its way to the foot of the 

 mountain. 



Truly the whole scene is very beautiful in its wild gran- 

 deur, its beauty heightened by the foaming, bubbling cata- 

 ract into which the sudden fall and steep descent have 

 changed the playful burn. The water rushes over its rocky 

 bed, thundering in its course, down this wild bracken- 

 covered ravine, and to our thoughts pictures of the long, long 

 ago present themselves, which were not even suggested by 

 the ruggedness and grandeur of the mountain summit. 



How vividly does the naturalist instinct rise up within us 

 here ! How decidedly is all that is best in us brought upper- 

 most in our minds as we stand on this altar step of Nature ! 

 What pleasure we feel, in spite of our ignorance of even 

 the meanest things around us! And as we think of the 

 grasping, striving world, where such pleasure is unknown, 

 we feel the truth of the poet's words , 



" All Nature is but art, unknown to thee ! 

 All chance, direction, which thou canst not see ! 

 All discord, harmony not understood, 



