Page:A Companion and Useful Guide to the Beauties of Scotland.djvu/272

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254
A DESCRIPTION OF

had been, and would be again the first hard shower.

When I went to Fort William it was a fine day, consequently the greatest number of these torrents were quiet. It was the next day, on my return, when it rained hard, that I was so delighted with these beautiful dashers. Having two days of different weather between Fort Augustus and Fort William, I saw on one day that charming defile, sublime, bright, soft, and smiling: on the other, terrific, gloomy, and dripping. Mr. M'Donell's house at Invergary is sweetly situated, fronting Loch Oich, and close on the side of the river Gary, issuing from a lovely glen, amongst mountains pointed and jagged, with their bases richly clad with wood. A few acres of verdure are seen adjacent to the house, ornamented, as far as I could see, by fine trees, in a picturesque, natural style; and not far from the house, on a bold projecting piece of rock, is the ruin of a castle; whose broken walls, turrets, and fragments, are seen imperfectly through beautiful trees, shrubs, twining ivy, and coarse grass. In front of the ruin is the soft reflecting lake, and at its back the lofty range of mountains called