she had been here;
but there is no gloom on any place in the whole of this vast wilderness,
and the mountains, as they wax dimmer and dimmer, look as if they were
surrendering themselves to a repose like sleep. Day had no voice here
audible to human ear--but night is murmuring--and gentle though the
murmur be, it filleth the great void, and we imagine that ever and anon
it awakens echoes. And now it is darker than we thought, for lo! one
soft-burning star! And we see that there are many stars; but not theirs
the light that begins again to reveal object after object as gradually
as they had disappeared; the moon is about to rise--is rising--has
arisen--has taken her place high in heaven; and as the glorious world
again expands around us, faintly tinged, clearly illumined, softly
shadowed, and deeply begloomed, we say within our hearts,

"How beautiful is night!"

There are many such table-lands as the one we have now been imagining,
and it requires but a slight acquaintance with the country to conjecture
rightly where they lie. Independently of the panoramas they display,
they are in themselves always impressive; perhaps a bare level that
shows but bleached bent, and scatterings of stones, with here and there
an unaccountable rock; or hundreds of fairy greensward knolls, fringed
with tiny forests of fern that have almost displaced the heather; or a
wild withered moor or moss intersected with pits dug not by men's hands;
and, strange to see! a huge log lying half exposed, and as if blackened
by fire. High as such places are, on one of them a young gorcock was
stricken down by a hawk close to our feet. Indeed, hawks seem to haunt
such places, and we have rarely crossed one of them, without either
seeing the creature's stealthy flight, or hearing, whether he be alarmed
or preying, his ever-angry cry.

From a few such stations, you get an insight into the configuration of
the whole Western Highlands. By the dip of the mountains, you discover
at a glance all the openings in the panorama around you into other
regions. Follow your fancies fearlessly wherever they may lead; and if
the blue aerial haze that hangs over a pass winding eastward, tempt you
from your line of march due north, forthwith descend in that direction,
and haply an omen will confirm you--an eagle rising on the left, and
sailing away before you into that very spot of sky.

No man, however well read, should travel by book. In books you find
descriptions