The Highland glen

THE HIGHLAND GLEN.
THE PROFITS WILL BE GIVEN FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE SUFFERING HIGHLANDERS.
BY MATILDA WRENCH.
LONDON: B. WERTHEIM, ALDINE CHAMBERS, PATERNOSTER-ROW. M DCCC XLVII.
MACINTOSH, PRINTER, GREAT NEW-STREET LONDON.
THE HIGHLAND GLEN.
Reader, have you ever visited the western Highlands of Argyleshire? If you have, you will doubtless retain many a pleasant memory of the wild glens and the fair lakes, and the picturesque and magnificent mountains that make up the lovely scenery of these regions of the beautiful. If you have not, trust yourself for a few brief minutes to our guidance, while we strive to recal the impressions of one day, out of many happy days, passed in a Highland village there, not very long ago.
After many a vigorous stroke, and many a long pull, that caused the beads of dew to stand thick upon the brows of our almost-exhausted boatmen, who with all their efforts could scarcely keep their course among the eddies of opposing currents, we at length saw the water of the fall, flowing into the lake, and gazing on it in admiration, like a silver line upon a field of ultramarine, soon after landed.
I will not stop to tell of sketching and climbing, and of boggy swamps that threatened to impede our way to the most desirable points of view. I will only say that we were thoroughly exhausted with fatigue and hunger, when, after some hours spent in exploring, we turned our steps towards a “house of refreshment” which our boatmen had pointed out. They had promised to announce our approach, and accordingly we found the table spread with freshly-made oat-cake, still hot and crisp, a large bowl of rich cream, fresh butter, a bottle of whisky, and a drinking-horn.
The “house of refreshment” was, however, nothing more than a rough Highland hut, situated at the foot of the old road up the glen, if road that could be called which was formed of a succession of vast ledges of rock from three to five feet high; such as it is, it is the only opening among the mountains that, bare and rugged, rise abruptly on all sides, and it is bordered by a narrow track, down which the drovers still conduct their flocks and herds, unless when it is flooded by the mountain torrents, that rush thundering through the glen, and discharge themselves through a chasm in the rock to the left of the hut, forming one of the small streams that feed the lake. A huge, shapeless mass of rock rises just opposite this rustic shelter, and must serve to break the violence of the blasts that sweep the glen, though it also hides the romantic beauties of its entrance.