strong and pure, from the Little Cairngorm,
called the Derry, crossed our path, and the
glen was divided by a huge, bare barrier of
upland, into two great divisions, Glen-Derry
and Glen-Lui-Beg, through the latter of
which lay our course. We were now in a
valley of a different character from any I had
trodden before; about half a mile broad;
walled by the bare and steep foundations of
the mountains; with a floor to the eye level
as a carpet, and covered with luxuriant grass,
frequently gay with white and yellow flowers,
or purpled with wide beds of deep-blue hare-
bells and wild hyacinths, which, swept about
by a strong wind, rose to defy it. But
the strangest feature of the region is, the
frequent apparition of huge dead pines,
skeletons of trees which must have been dead
for centuries,—bleached like human bones in
the sun,— sometimes lifting up a single bare
stem, sometimes stretching out two vast
ghostly arms,—sometimes upholding a delicate
tracery of boughs, like the florid masonry of
a cathedral's open spire,— sometimes twisted
into shapes which the eye, seeking in vain for
some living thing, interprets into forms of
horse, or sheep, or resting pilgrim. But no
living creature is there; nor roof for shelter;
no sound of cow, or sheep, or watch-dog
breaks the silence; for we are amidst the
ruins of the great Caledonian Forest, in a
region which being devoted to a deer-park,
uncropped and unmown, is wholly desolate,
except when a herd of its lordly tenants
flashes across it. No animals of chase, or
warren, are encouraged to nestle there; it is
dedicated only to one sovereign sport; and
when, as on this day, unvisited by deer-
stalkers, is left in its luxuriant magnificence,
like a small prairie, alone. For a time the
scene was diversified—perhaps saddened—by
an occasional living pine among the blasted
trees, as if waving its dark, boughs in honour
of the dead, like funeral plumes; but onward
these melancholy vestiges of life disappeared,
and there was nothing but the rich grass, the
bare mountains, the bright stream, and now
and then an uprooted trunk that bridged
it. Before we had advanced thus far into the
desert, the paths, though generally clad with
grass and flowers, became too frequently
indented with the furrows of the winter's
torrents, which gaped in dry beds of stone,
for the convenient use of the horses; and,
therefore, we left them tethered to stones
with good circles of herbage to amuse them,
and proceeded on foot to the left corner of the
valley; which now, opening as we proceeded,
between the Little Cairngorm and Ben-Anan,
showed us the foot of Ben Muich Dhui, shelving
steeply before us.

We now began the real work of climbing
directly towards the sharp ridge, with a
strong brook on our right. The torrents
pour down the ribs of those mountains too
precipitously to admit of their nourishing
those lines and patches of vegetation which
often adorn the mountain rivulets of the
west; not that the declivity is steeper, but
that it is more unbroken; hence we saw no
shrub, though grass mingled with the stones,
and the tract—being that leading to Speyside—
showed signs of human tread. Thus
far the weather had been fair; but the wind
now became so boisterous that it was difficult
to stand against it, and (which was worse)
rolled vast masses of cloud round the summit of
my hopes; so that the guide expressed his fear
that we should not be repaid for further labour.
But the chances of openings of the mist on the
heights, more glorious than the vastest panorama,
impelled me to persevere; and we
turned from the hills to the left to ascend a
stony wilderness, which disclosed two black
tarns imbedded in the basin at the top of the
ridge, and its steep sides upholding large
tracts of snow. In this desolation, little heaps
of stones, piled by the Sappers and Miners
when they surveyed the district, were
welcome vestiges of human work, and alone
assuaged the toil of proceeding, after the
tarns and their valley disappeared, as we slowly
paced on through dense cloud to the conical
wilderness of blocks of stone which form the
summit. This I found indicated by a lofty
cairn, which the Earl of Fife, the lord of the
mountain, built upon it in celebration of its
supposed triumph over Ben Nevis, or perhaps
to make unfair assurance of its overtopping
its rival; else I should scarcely have known
the summit, on the approach; though, when
attained, the gentle sweep of stones on all
sides downward made it obvious. That was
all I saw; and a pitiless pelting of a hail
shower, urged by tremendous wind, did not
allow me to wait longer than to celebrate my
elevation by a small quantity of whiskey, in
which my guide and I drank to each other
with that true brotherhood which mountain
solitude makes palpable.

On the descent, however, as I hoped, I
had glimpses which amply repaid the labour
of climbing and the pelting of the hail. The
clouds first opening showed me, far below,
the Dee, just escaped from the barriers which
surround its source, gliding on through flowery
meadows in the brightest sunshine—a minute
only—as much apart from my region of
stones as if it were a vision of another world.
Anon, the clouds which filled the great avenue
leading to Aviemore uplifted their lower
curtain, so as to show a long sunlit valley below
a canopy of cloud, at the end of which a piece of
Inverness-shire sparkled in emerald green, and
the lone hostelry of Aviemore flashed a dazzling
speck of white. As I descended, the Great
Cairngorm stood revealed from its root, close
to that of Ben Muich Dhui, to its summit a
huge sugar-loaf, as if gently heaved up from
earth towards the sky; and between it and
Ben Anan opened the dark bed of Loch Aven—
its water invisible, but its position, deep set in
the bosom of the hills, grandly indicated, so
that it might well be conceived black, tree-