harp
cones and perpendicular cliffs foreshortened so as to form one grand
feature only of the extensive landscape, though composing a crescent
nearly 30 miles in extent: this range being but a branch from the still
more lofty masses of Mount William which crowned the whole. Towards the
coast there was less haze than usual, for I could distinguish Lady Julia
Percy's Isle which I had looked for in vain from Mount Napier, a point
twenty-four miles nearer to it. Here I could also trace the course of the
stream we had crossed that morning from its sources under the eastern
base of the mountains to a group of lower hills twenty-seven miles
distant to the westward; which hills, named by me Dundas group, formed a
most useful point in my trigonometrical survey.

LAKES.

Several extensive lakes appeared in the lowest parts adjacent; but what
interested me most after I had intersected the various summits was the
appearance of the country to the eastward, through which we were to find
our way home. There I saw a vast extent of open downs and could trace
their undulations to where they joined a range of mountains which,
judging by their outlines, appeared to be of easy access. Our straightest
way homewards passed just under a bluff head about fifty miles distant,
and so far I could easily perceive a most favourable line of route by
avoiding several large reedy lakes. Between that open country and these
lakes on one side and the coast on the other, a low woody ridge extended
eastward; and by first gaining that I hoped we should reach the open
ground in a direction which should enable us to leave all the lakes on
our left.

The largest pieces of water I could see were Lake Linlithgow and its
companion in the open grassy plains between the range and Mount Napier,
as previously discovered from that hill. Several small and very
picturesque lakes, then as smooth as mirrors, adorned the valley
immediately to the westward of the hill I was upon. They were fringed
with luxuriant shrubs so that it was really painful to me to hurry, as I
was then compelled to do, past spots like these, involving in their
unexplored recesses so much of novelty amidst the most romantic scenery.
The rock consisted of a finely-grained sandstone as in other parts of
that mass. The Grampians of the south consist of three ranges covering a
surface which extends latitudinally 54 miles and longitudinally 20 miles.
The extreme eastern and highest summit is Mount Will