OF SUTHERLAND AND CAITHNESS. 
33 
prairie, reminding one of an Arctic tundra more than any other 
part of Scotland we can recall to memory. 
The marvellously broken and sinuous nature of the whole 
western land, and markedly of Assynt and Edderachyllis, affords 
many natural basins and resting-places for sheets of water of 
varying depths and areas. 
Of inland valleys perhaps the most remarkable and the finest 
in aspect is the long narrow G-len Canisp, studded throughout its 
lower reaches with lovely smiling lakes and rivulets, but receding 
in darker grandeur towards the hills. The Pass of Stronchrubie 
and the approach to Loch Assynt by the base of the gigantic lime- 
stone cliffs, — where the holly-fern and the wall-rue flourish, and 
where great stems of ivy and holly find clinging-room and root- 
hold in their buttresses, — is also well worthy of the admiration of 
the traveller. The great pass also, by the lakes of the Eeay Forest, 
between the head-waters of Loch Shin and the mouth of the river 
Laxford, is wild and grand in the extreme. Nor can we omit 
mention of the " Melancholy Strath of Dionard," ten long dark- 
shadowed miles of valley between the shooting-lodge of Gualin and 
the Kyle of Durness. When we first witnessed this dreary valley, 
and the snake-like course of its native stream — the Dionard or 
Grudie — we could not recall a weirder, wilder scene in Scotland, 
not even in the great moor of Eannoch in Perthshire, or the in- 
terminable moors of the eastern division of the county. 
Inland Lochs and Eivers. 
The parish of Assynt alone is said to hold over 300 lochs of 
various sizes. Edderachyllis is not far behind, but Durness is 
less honeycombed. These gems, set in the dark moorland or 
high on the shoulder of one of the monarchs of mountains, glisten 
and dance in the joy of summer sunshine, or fade and gleam more 
darkly in the winter rain and snow-drift. The variety of lovely 
scenery which is presented by the ever-shifting panorama of light 
and shade on mountain, mere, and river, during a drive on a fine 
day through Assynt and Edderachyllis, can scarcely be excelled by 
c 
