I can never forget my experience of a week ago to-day. I was up at an early hour. The sky was cloudless and the morn calm and quiet. Across the lake stood Ben Lomond in its giant-like proportions. Its brow, grey with eternal snow, looked so inviting that I determined to ascend and sniff the mountain breeze. A friend, where I spent the night, and who knew the difficulties in the way, tried to dissuade me from my purpose; but when I take the bit between my teeth there is no bridle that can stop me. Johnson, who by this time had thoroughly recovered from his maiden effort at climbing mountains, and who is as fleet as a hart and spirited as a gazelle, agreed to accompany me. So, ere the warbler had finished his morning song, and while the dew was yet sparkling bright on the heath, we set out for that towering peak, “where snow and sunshine alone have dared to tread.” For sixpence, a farmer’s lad rowed us across the loch, landing us at the foot of the mountain whose rocky cliffs and thunder-riven sides we were to climb. Seven hours’ toil brought us to the objective point, and rewarded us with one of the finest, wildest, and most romantic views to be had anywhere this side that deep and yawning gulf which separates time from eternity. I found myself surrounded by a thousand peaks, crags and cliffs, whose heads were white with the accumulated snows of fifty winters, they being of different heights, and of every conceivable shape, size and angle—all having been caused, apparently, by the upheaval of some mighty volcanic eruption of the under world. These iron-belted mountain sides are honey-combed with deep and dark dens, dangerous pits and caves, which once furnished shelter and security to those savage and lawless clans whose sole occupation was arms, and who, under cover of night, often swooped down upon the barns, flocks and herds of the Lowlanders like eagles upon their prey. When once hidden away in those dark recesses, it would take an hundred-eyed devil to discover their whereabouts; and, if discovered, it would require an iron-handed Hercules to rout and discomfit them.