rnly course towards the west, a
magnificent rounded precipice, which, like the continuous ranges, may be
about 1200 feet in height, rises immediately out of the water; and a few
narrow and inclined verdant stripes alone preserve it from exhibiting a
perfectly mural character. To this noble rock succeeds, along the rest
of the lake, a beautiful, lofty, and nearly vertical hill-side, clothed
with birch, intermingled with hanging mossy banks, shaded over with the
deeper-tinted bracken. The eastern side of the plain, and the adjoining
portion of the lake, are lined by mountains corresponding in height with
those opposed to them; but their lower extremities are, to a
considerable extent, strewed with broken fragments of rock, to which
succeeds an uninterrupted zone of birch and alder, which is again
overtopped in its turn by naked cliffs. An elevated terrace occupies the
remainder of this side of the lake; above the wooded face of which is
seen a sloping expanse of mingled heath and herbage. About half a mile
from the south end, Mr Fraser of Lovat, the proprietor, has erected a
shooting-lodge; viewed from which, or from either end, or from the top
of the platform on the north-east side of the lake, fancy could scarcely
picture a more attractive and fairy landscape than is unfolded by this
sequestered vale, to which Dr Johnson's description of the 'Happy
Valley' not inaptly applies. The milch cows, to the number of several
hundreds, are generally kept here from the beginning of June to the
middle of August, when they are replaced by the yeld cattle. The river
sweeps to the northward from Loch Killean through richly birch-clad
hills, which rise in swelling slopes from its banks. A large tarn which
immediately joins it from the east is crossed at its mouth by a rustic
bridge, from which a single footpath conducts across the brow of the
hill to Whitebridge, a small public-house or inn, four miles distant."

There is a loch of a very different character from Killean, almost as
little known (one view of it is given in the book), equal to anything in
the Highlands, only two miles distant from Loch Lochy, in the Great
Glen--Loch Arkaig. We first visited it many years since, having been
induced to do so by a passage in John Stoddart's "Remarks on the Local
Scenery and Manners of Scotland;" and it was then a very noble oak and
pine forest loch. The axe went to work and kept steadily at it; and a
great change was wrought; but it is stil