tched out below us: these were interesting spots, round
which the mind assembled living objects, and they shone as bright as
mirrors in the forlorn waste. We passed neither tree nor shrub for
miles--I include the whole space from Glen Coe--yet we saw perpetually
traces of a long decayed forest, pieces of black mouldering wood.

Through such a country as this we had travelled perhaps seven and a half
miles this morning, when, after descending a hill, we turned to the
right, and saw an unexpected sight in the moorland hollow into which we
were entering, a small lake bounded on the opposite side by a grove of
Scotch firs, two or three cottages at the head of it, and a lot of
cultivated ground with scattered hay-cocks. The road along which we were
going, after having made a curve considerably above the tarn, was seen
winding through the trees on the other side, a beautiful object, and,
luckily for us, a drove of cattle happened to be passing there at the
very time, a stream coursing the road, with off-stragglers to the borders
of the lake, and under the trees on the sloping ground.

In conning over our many wanderings I shall never forget the gentle
pleasure with which we greeted the lake of Inveroran and its few grey
cottages: we suffered our horse to slacken his pace, having now no need
of the comfort of quick motion, though we were glad to think that one of
those cottages might be the public-house where we were to breakfast. A
forest--now, as it appeared, dwindled into the small grove bordering the
lake--had, not many years ago, spread to that side of the vale where we
were: large stumps of trees which had been cut down were yet remaining
undecayed, and there were some single trees left alive, as if by their
battered black boughs to tell us of the storms that visit the valley
which looked now so sober and peaceful. When we arrived at the huts, one
of them proved to be the inn, a thatched house without a sign-board. We
were kindly received, had a fire lighted in the parlour, and were in such
good humour that we seemed to have a thousand comforts about us; but we
had need of a little patience in addition to this good humour before
breakfast was brought, and at last it proved a disappointment: the butter
not eatable, the barley-cakes fusty, the oat-bread so hard I could not
chew it, and there were only four eggs in the house, which they had
boiled as hard as stones.

Before we had finished breakfast two foot-traveller