Page:A Companion and Useful Guide to the Beauties of Scotland.djvu/310

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292
A DESCRIPTION OF

of flat moor, several small lakes, and the winding Gauer flowing from one of them: but beyond the waste, as far as my eye could reach, wonderful mountain beside mountain gratified my never satiated sight for such objects. To the north-west Ben Nivis is seen, with its towering head above the rest of the Bens. Due west, at the end of the Moor, the tremendous mountains in Glen Coe, and about King's house, rise in every sort of form, thence sweeping away to join the ridge on the south-west side of the Black Mount, having its tops lost in the sky; and those tops, what could be seen of them (from the motion of the clouds), varied in shape every instant. The sovereigns of Glen Orchy, with the sharp pointed tops of Cruchan Ben, hanging over Loch Awe, shut up the view to the south-west; and the near Rannoch mountains, bound the sight on the south; the soft round top of Schiehallion, looks down on its neighbours to the east; and the glittering bare crags hanging over Loch Ericht, close the scene to the north.

As I had looked at the head of Loch Ericht, when at Dalwhinie, I was desirous of seeing the southern end of it, near Rannoch. Eight miles was the distance named; but I am sure it is four-