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rived. At the sight of a being so totally different in every respect from those she had been accustomed to see, she stood aghast; the milk-pail was made to kiss the ground so hastily, that its contents were irretrievably lost; and she, regardless of consequences, placed her arms a-kimbo, and, with one steady vacant stare, eyed me from top to toe. So profound was her apathy, that all the shouts of mine host of the hut could not rouse her; it was his wish that she should put up my mare, and as words were of no avail, he took the liberty of

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lending his loving wife a loundering kick.' This, of course, had the desired effect; my mare and myself were both housed. I found myself in a small room, the floor, walls, and ceiling of which were all composed of a brown mud. One chair and one table were all its furniture; and the light made its way through a small square window, from which I had a most delightful view, across the lake, of one of. the finest amphitheatres of rocks and mountains I ever saw, piled on each other, as far as the eye could reach; the heads of some of them made hoary

by snow lately fallen. The lake here appeared to be not more than two miles broad; its placid surface exhibited a beautiful reflection of the opposite scenery, now and then, with the addition of a solitary seafowl on the watch for its prey. I made a hasty meal of potatoes, butter and salt, being all the provision even money could procure, and set out, with my guide, for the fall. The road still continued by the margin of the lake, although at an immense height above its level, it being shelved out of the mountains which form the boundaries of the lake; I found we ascended regularly, without many of those abrupt descents, which had occurred incessantly before my arrival at the hut, and the road wound into the thickest woods. My guide informed me that I was now very near the fall. My expectation was raised to the utmost, when, on his taking me up to a low wall, I looked over, and saw, at an immense distance, in the very bowels of the earth, a river rushing in loud uproar over huge fragments of rocks, which by some violent cause had been separated from their parent

mountain, and precipitated in one rude clash to seek repose in this dark abyss. I enquired of my guide whether the water had already fallen, or was hastening to its fate? He replied, that it had fallen once, but had not yet arrived at the great fall. My surprise was very great to find the water at such a depth in the earth before it fell, and my imagination was at a loss to form the least conjecture of the scene I was about to witness. Walking a little further, he told me to look through a fissure which. appeared in the side of the rock, close to the road : I did, and my eye sought in vain to measure the depth of an abyss that appeared to be interminable; my ears were instantly assailed by the tumultuous roar of many waters, which seemed to be endeavouring, heedless of their fate, to find a passage through the very centre of the earth; and the affrighted spray, as if determined to seek an asylum in air, was rising in thick convulsive columns from the opening in the rocks. All this time we had been on the road which winds above the fall, and leads to Fort Augustus over the Morvern

hills of Ossian, whence the river, which takes these dreadful transitions, has its source. My guide now desired me to follow him down the side of the abyss, with the utmost caution, for, if I got the least slip, all the powers on earth could not save me; and the ground was extremely wet and slippery, on account of the incessant falling of the spray, which rises many hundred feet into the air. Self-preservation dictated a strict attention to his orders, and down we proceeded; he first. By the assistance of roots of trees, weeds, moss, and stones, we got about sixty or seventy feet down, to the first landing, where we stood to gain a little breath. Here, for the first time, I caught a glimpse of the whole body of water, falling through a narrow fissure of a rock above the eye, in one uninterrupted, unbroken, impetuous dash into the depth below. From this station my guide pointed to a green projection, at a great distance below our feet, from which we were to have our full view, and lower than which I could not go, except by ropes. We again proceeded, but slowly, on account of stones frequently giving way,

and which I could perceive roll from rock to rock, till they were lost in the surge below: they served to give me a faint idea of the sublimity of such a death, and I stood, for a while, indulging my reflections, till my stupid guide bawled out, fearing I should miss his road. After some little trouble we reached the intended station. I can hardly describe the first sensations this unrivalled scene inspired; but, for some minutes, I was perfectly dumb with amazement; the grandeur, sublimity, and beauty of the scenery excelled even the warmest conceptions my imagination had formed of it. 'Smooth to the shelving brink a copious flood

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• Rolls fair and placid; where collected all,

In one impetuous torrent, down the steep

It thundering shoots, and shakes the country round,

• At first, an azure sheet, it rushes broad;

Then, whitening, by degrees, as prone it falls,
And from the loud resounding rocks below

• Dash'd in a cloud of foam, it sends aloft
A hoary mist, and forms a ceaseless shower.
Nor can the torpid wave here find repose;
• But raging still amid the shaggy rocks,
Now flashes o'er the scatter'd fragments, now
Aslant the hollowed channel rapid darts;

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