tly upon them, and leave room perhaps between for a little
shallow loch. Often they have not any visible water at all, only a few
springs and rivulets, and you wonder to see them so very green; there is
no herbage like theirs; and to such spots of old, and sometimes yet,
the kine are led in summer, and there the lonely family live in their
shieling till the harvest moon.

We have all along used the same word, and called the places we have
spoken of--glens. A fine observer--the Editor of Gilpin's Forest
Scenery--has said: "The gradation from extreme width downwards should be
thus arranged,--strath, vale, dale, valley, glen, dell, ravine, chasm.
In the strath, vale, and dale, we may expect to find the large,
majestic, gently flowing river, or even the deeper or smaller lake. In
the glen, if the river be large, it flows more rapidly, and with greater
variety. In the dell the stream is smaller. In the ravine, we find the
mountain torrent and the waterfall. In the chasm, we find the roaring
cataract, or the rill, bursting from its haunted fountain. The chasm
discharges its small tribute into the ravine, while the ravine is
tributary to the dell, and thence to the glen; and the glen to the
dale."

These distinctions are admirably expressed, and perfectly true to
nature; yet we doubt if it would be possible to preserve them in
describing a country, and assuredly they are very often indeed confused
by common use in the naming of places. We have said nothing about
Straths--nor shall we try to describe one--but suggest to your own
imagination--as specimens--Strath-Spey, Strath-Tay, Strath-Earn. The
dominion claimed by each of those rivers, within the mountain ranges
that environ their courses, is a strath; and three noble straths they
are, from source to sea.

And now we are brought to speak of the Highland Rivers, Streams, and
Torrents; but we shall let them rush or flow, murmur or thunder in your
own ears, for you cannot fail to imagine what the waters must be in a
land of such glens and such mountains. The chief rivers possess all the
attributes essential to greatness--width--depth--clearness--rapidity--in
one word power. And some of them have long courses--rising in the
central heights, and winding round many a huge projection, against which
in flood we have seen them dashing like the sea. Highland droughts are
not of long duration; the supplies are seldom withheld at once by all
the tributaries; and one wild night among t