his mere presence, the insupportable
weight of such a solitude.

But we should never have done were we to attempt to sketch, however
slightly, the character of all the different kinds of glens. Some are
sublime in their prodigious depth and vast extent, and would be felt to
be so, even were the mountains that enclose them of no great majesty;
but these are all of the highest order, and sometimes are seen from
below to the very cairns on their summits. Now we walk along a reach,
between astonishing ranges of cliffs, among large heaps of rocks--not a
tree--scarcely a shrub--no herbage--the very heather blasted--all
lifelessness and desolation. The glen gradually grows less and less
horrid, and though its sides are seamed with clefts and chasms, in the
gloom there are places for the sunshine, and there is felt to be even
beauty in the repose. Descends suddenly on either side a steep slope of
hanging wood, and we find ourselves among verdant mounds, and knolls,
and waterfalls. We come then into what seems of old to have been a
forest. Here and there a stately pine survives, but the rest are all
skeletons; and now the glen widens, and widens, yet ceases not to be
profound, for several high mountains enclose a plain on which armies
might encamp, and castellated clouds hang round the heights of the
glorious amphitheatre, while the sky-roof is clear, and as if in its
centre, the refulgent sun. 'Tis the plain called "The Meeting of the
Glens." From the east and the west, the north and the south, they come
like rivers into the sea.

Other glens there are, as long, but not so profound, nor so grandly
composed; yet they too conduct us nobly in among the mountains, and up
their sides, and on even to their very summits. Such are the glens of
Atholl, in the neighbourhood of Ben-y-gloe. From them the heather is not
wholly banished, and the fire has left a green light without quenching
the purple colour native to the hills. We think that we almost remember
the time when those glens were in many places sprinkled with huts, and
all animated with human life. Now they are solitary; and you may walk
from sunrise till sunset without seeing a single soul. For a hundred
thousand acres have there been changed into a forest, for sake of the
pastime, indeed, which was dear of old to chieftains and kings. Vast
herds of red-deer are there, for they herd in thousands--yet may you
wander for days over the boundless waste, nor once be startled by one