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10. Pleasant enough is this stream in summer time, when its deep pools hold fine trout; it now looks icy cold, and we wonder at the taste of a pair of water-ouzels, who stand on the stones bobbing their tails or skim away down the stream, in remaining faithful all the year to such a desolate region.

11. Now, from among the grassy hassocks a flock of teal spring from their cover and rise in the air. We soon are able to place a pair in the game-bag, and also a couple of wild ducks, a moor-hen, and three more snipes.

12. Then we lunched, and from the top of a ridge we saw the wide plain of the "mournful and misty Atlantic" looking as black as ink among the snowy hills on every side. Beneath us, in the warm shelter of the hill-sides, were sloping plantations of larch and holly, cut up by water-channels and dotted everywhere with dark towering heads of pines and strong young spruce-firs.

13. In a little time we were among rabbits and pheasants, and were able to add a hare to the bag as the result of the last shot of a pleasant day.-E. L. Arnold.

LESSON 8.-LAKES.

1. The same disposition of mountains which has produced the Cumbrian lakes in England has provided the Northern and Western Highlands with inland waters of great extent and beauty. The lakes lie in the hollows of narrow glens, shut in by mountain walls; their width is seldom greater than a mile, and, being several miles in length, they have sometimes the appearance of rivers.

2. Enclosed in rocky basins, their waters are pure and transparent, and they are of great depth; masses of forest clothe the sheltered slopes around them and the islets

[graphic][merged small]

rising from their surface; steep cliffs and high mountains form a grand back-ground to the scenery. The Scotch lakes are much visited for their grand scenery, and for fishing.

3. In the Northern Highlands there is scarcely a glen without its lake; every mountain hollow is filled by a spring or stream. The lakes are most numerous in the line of watershed. Loch Shin in the far north is 17 miles in length; and with Dornoch Firth almost cuts the country right across. Loch Maree (Ma-re') is the largest and most beautiful of these northern lakes; its islets are wooded, and the surrounding mountains are high, steep, and grand.

4. The lakes stretching along the bottom of the Great Glen are connected, as already mentioned, by the Caledonian Canal, which was cut to provide a short and safe passage for ships between the Moray Firth and the western sea. Loch Ness, the largest of these lakes, is 22 miles long, and is remarkable for its great depth (800 feet). The beautiful falls of Foyers are near its southern shore.

5. The lakes of the Grampians radiate from the watershed south of Ben Nevis in the same way as the Cumbrian lakes radiate from the centre of the Cumbrian group. Loch Lomond (Lō'-mond), which stretches southward, is the largest and most beautiful lake in Britain. It is 24 miles long, and one to seven miles broad, and has many well-wooded islands. Several lofty mountains, including Ben Lomond, rise from its shores.

6. Near it lies the pretty Loch Katrine (Kat'-rin), which Sir Walter Scott has rendered famous as the scene of his finest poem, the Lady of the Lake. An islet near the east end of the lake is called the Lady's Isle. From this lake Glasgow is supplied with water.

7. Loch Awe, on the western slope, is second to Loch

Loch

Lomond in size, and approaches it in beauty. Ericht (Er'-ikt) stretches to the north and Loch Tay to the east of the group; they discharge their waters by the river Tay.

s. The only Lowland lake worth mentioning is the oval-shaped Loch Leven (Le'-ven). On one of its islands are the ruins of Lochleven Castle, where Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned.

LESSON 9.-LOCH CORUISK.

1. Loch Coruisk is named from a deep corrie or hollow in the mountains of Coolin to the south-west of Skye, which affords a basin for this wonderful sheet of water.

2. It presents a scene as grand and savage as Loch Katrine is sweet and beautiful. It is doubtless an exWe never saw a spot

ample of ancient volcanic action.
in which there is less appearance of vegetation of any
kind. The eye rests on nothing but barren and naked
crag, and the rocks on which we walked by the side of
the loch were as bare as the pavements of Cheapside.
Sir Walter Scott in his poem "The Lord of the Isles"
thus describes the scene-

3. "I've traversed many a mountain strand,
Abroad and in my native land,

And it has been my lot to tread

Where safety more than pleasure led.
Thus many a waste I've wandered o'er,
Climbed many a crag, and many a moor,
But, by my faith,

A scene so rude, so wild as this,

Yet so sublime in barrenness,

Ne'er did my wandering footsteps press,
Where'er I happed to roam."

4. No marvel thus the monarch spake;
For rarely human eye has known
A scene so stern as that dread lake,
With its dark ledge of barren stone.
Seems that primeval earthquake's sway
Hath rent a strange and shattered way
Through the rude bosom of the hill,
And that each naked precipice,
Sable ravine, and dark abyss,
Tells of the outrage still.

5. The wildest glen, but this, can show
Some touch of Nature's genial glow;
On high Benmore green mosses grow,
And heath-bell bud in deep Glencroe,
And copse on Cruchan-Ben;

But here,-above, around, below,
On mountain or in glen,

Nor tree, nor shrub, nor plant, nor flower,
Nor aught of vegetative power,

The weary eye may ken.

6. For all is rocks at random thrown,

7.

Black waves, bare crags, and banks of stone,
As if were here denied

The summer sun, the spring's sweet dew,
That clothe with many a varied hue

The bleakest mountain-side.
And wilder, forward as they wound,
Were the proud cliffs, and lake profound.
Huge terraces of granite black

Afforded rude and cumbered track;

For from the mountain hoar,

Hurled headlong in some night of fear,

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