CHAPTER XIX. 



Winter — Auroral Displays in the West Highlands always indicative of a coining Storm — 

 / Comus Corajr— Wonderful RaTens— Edgar Allan Poe. 



Snow continues to accumulate on the mountain summits [Decem- 

 ber 1870], which, all around, from Ben Nevis to Ben Cruachan, 

 and from the peaks of Glen-Arkaig to Benmore in Mull, now 

 present so many Sierra Nevadas, while you are conscious at last, 

 and to an extent that admits of no possible mistake on the subject, 

 that the wind, which, whether it blows adown the glen or across 

 the sea, has a chill and penetrating edge to it, is neither the breeze 

 of autumn nor the zephyr of summer, but the breath of winter 

 itself — the hoary-headed and icicle-bearded season, that, with all 

 its drawbacks, has its uses in the general economy as well as its 

 gentler confrhres in the annual. With the exception of one or two 

 pet days, the weather of the past fortnight has been stormy and 

 wild, with heavy falls of rain on the lowlands, and sleet and snow 

 among the mountains. In no one season since we first became a 

 student of the heavens, now more than a quarter of a century ago, 

 have we had so many splendid exhibitions of aurora borealis as 

 the last three weeks have presented us with in a series of tableaiix 

 vivants, which, while they charmed and delighted the intelligent 

 observer, made the vulgar gape in astonishment and alarm. In 

 every instance these auroral displays have invariably been followed 

 within twelve hours by heavy gales of wind and much rain, and 

 so constantly have we noticed this sequence throughout the observa- 

 tions of many years, that there is perhaps no meteorological pre- 



