s. Glen Dessary, with its beautiful pastures, opens on the
loch, and leads to Loch Nevish on the coast of Knoidart--Glen Paean to
Oben-a-Cave on Loch Morer, Glen Canagorie into Glenfinnan and Loch
Shiel; and Glen Kingie to Glengarry and Loch Quoich. There is a choice!
We chose Glen Kingie, and after a long climb found a torrent that took
us down to Glengarry before sunset. It is a loch little known, and in
grandeur not equal to Loch Arkaig; but at the close of such a day's
journey, the mind, elevated by the long contemplation of the great
objects of nature, cannot fail to feel aright, whatever it may be, the
spirit of the scene, that seems to usher in the grateful hour of rest.
It is surpassing fair--and having lain all night long on its gentle
banks, sleeping or waking we know not, we have never remembered it since
but as the Land of Dreams.

Which is the dreariest, most desolate, and dismal of the Highland Lochs?
We should say Loch Ericht. It lies in a prodigious wilderness, with
which perhaps no man alive is conversant, and in which you may travel
for days without seeing even any symptoms of human life. We speak of the
regions comprehended between the Forest of Atholl and Ben-nevis, the
Moor of Rannoch and Glen Spean. There are many lochs--and Loch Ericht is
their griesly Queen. Herdsmen, shepherds, hunters, fowlers, anglers,
traverse its borders, but few have been far in the interior, and we
never knew anybody who had crossed it from south to north, from east to
west. We have ourselves seen more of it, perhaps, than any other
Lowlander; and had traversed many of its vast glens and moors, before we
found our way to the southern solitude of Loch Ericht. We came into the
western gloom of Ben Auler from Loch Ouchan, and up and down for hours
dismal but not dangerous precipices that opened out into what might
almost be called passes--but we had frequently to go back, for they were
blind--contrived to clamber to the edge of one of the mountains that
rose from the water a few miles down the loch. All was vast, shapeless,
savage, black, and wrathfully grim; for it was one of those days that
keep frowning and lowering, yet will not thunder; such as one conceives
of on the eve of an earthquake. At first the sight was dreadful, but
there was no reason for dread; imagination remains not longer than she
chooses the slave of her own eyes, and we soon began to enjoy the gloom,
and to feel how congenial it was in nature with the cha