MEMOIR OF TENNANT. 
15 
iiTegular, either broken into frequent precipices, or 
towering into rounded summits, clotlied with trees, 
not so close but to admit a sight of the sky between 
them. The wild animals which possessed tliis wild 
scene were stags and roes, black game, and grouse : 
on the summits white hares and ptarmigans.” He 
seems equally struck with the scenery round Inver- 
cauld. “ The views from the skirts of the plain 
near Invercauld, are very great. The hills that im- 
mediately bound it are clothed with trees, particu- 
larly with birch, whose long and pendent boughs, 
waving a vast height above the head, surpass the 
beauties of the weeping willow. The southern ex- 
tremity is pre-eminently magnificent : the mountains 
form a vast theatre, the bosom of which is covered 
with extensive forests of pines — above, the trees 
grow scarcer and scarcer, and then seem only to 
sprinkle the surface — after which, vegetation ceases, 
and naked summits of surprising height succeed, 
many of them topped with perpetual snow; — and, 
as a fine contrast to the scene, the great cataract of 
Garvalbourn, which seems at a distance to divide 
the whole, foams, amidst the dark forest, rushing 
from rock to rock to a vast distance.” Thus could 
he seize the characters of the scenes he visited, the 
sudden effects of light and shade on the mountain 
lochs, with their rugged precipices and tangled thic- 
kets, or the dark and deep, yet rich tints of a bound- 
less waste, in storms of wind and rain. 
This Tour is also illustrated with views of the 
