Monday, August 24th.—I am this morning en route for Inverness, five-and-twenty miles, which we may, or may not, accomplish. We have now to cross the very loftiest spurs of the Grampian range.
We are now 800 feet above the level of the sea. We have to rise to 1,300, and then descend to Inverness. Were it all one rise, and all one descent, it would simplify matters considerably, but it is hill and dale, and just at the moment when you are congratulating yourself on being as high as you have to go, behold, the road takes a dip into a glen, and all the climbing has to be repeated on the other side.
My last Sunday among the mountains! Yes! And a quiet and peaceful one it was; and right pleasant are the memories I bear away with me from Carrbridge; of the sweet little village itself, and the pleasant natural people whom I met; of the old romantic bridge; of the hills, clad in dark waving pine-trees; of the great deer forests; of moorlands clad in purple heather; of the far-off range of lofty mountains—among them, Cairngorm—their sides covered with snow, a veritable Sierra Nevada; of the still night and the glorious moonlight, and of the murmuring river that sang me to sleep, with a lullaby sweeter even than the sound of waves breaking on a pebbly beach.
We are off at 8:15 am, and the climb begins. After a mile of hard toil, we find ourselves in the centre of a heather-clad moor. Before and around us hills o’er hills successive rise, and mountain over mountain. Their heads are buried in the clouds. This gives to the scene a kind of gloomy grandeur.
A deep ravine, a stream in the midst, roaring over its pebbly bed.
A dark forest beyond.
Six miles more to climb ere we reach our highest altitude.
Three miles of scenery bleaker and wilder than any we have yet come to.
A dark and gloomy peat moss, with the roots of ancient forest trees appearing here and there.