Page:A Companion and Useful Guide to the Beauties of Scotland.djvu/359

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PART OF SCOTLAND.
341

continual deep channels, full of huge loose stones brought down in hard rains; and no fence or prop, whatever, to support the loose ground of the precipice (to the water), which quaked at every jolt the carriage made. This is a dangerous as well as an unpleasant pass for a chaise; but a glorious scene soon diverted my attention from every thing that was disagreeable: the morning was misty, and the vapours were floating up the mountain's sides, and incessantly covering and uncovering the summits; but just as I came opposite the house of Auch, the sun was shining, and a conical crag glittered above the clouds, like a cap of diamonds set in a huge socket of the softest grey. Not a breath of mist eclipsed its radiant front, under which the white clouds rolled with rapidity. I had not seen any thing like it, and I was quite in raptures with it. As I crossed the torrent under it by a simple bridge, I peeped amongst the high towering and closely jumbled mountains, amongst which the Lyon and the Lochy rivers take their source. Soon after I crossed the torrent at Auch, forming the Kinglash river, rolling to the Orchy, I came in sight of the mill, and the bridge over the Orchy river; and a dreadful looking zig-zag road over a high brown moun-