Could it be some awkward squad sent to be drilled on this remote spot that it might escape the observation of the sarcastic public? Such were the theories as suddenly rejected as they were suggested. It was vain to speculate. No solution we could devise made the slightest approach to probability; and our only prospect of speedy relief was in pushing rapidly forward. A very short sentence from the good-humoured looking young fellow who received our first breathless and perplexed inquiry, solved the mystery,--"did you never hear of the Ordnance Survey?" Yes, indeed, we had heard of it; but our impression of it was as of something like a mathematical line, with neither breadth nor thickness; but here it was in substantial operation. The party were occupied in erecting a sort of dwelling for themselves--half tent, half hut. Though in fatigue dresses, and far from being very trim, it was easy to see that they were not common soldiers. They belong, we believe, to the educated corps of sappers and miners; and a short conversation with them showed that the reputation of intelligence and civility long enjoyed by that distinguished body has not been unjustly earned. Though not blind to the magnificence of the panorama of mountain, lake, and distant far-stretching forest-land that lay beneath our feet as we conversed, they did not conceal their consciousness that the prospect of passing some months on such a spot was not particularly cheering to round-cheeked comfortable Englishmen, accustomed at Sandhurst and Addiscombe to comforts even superior to those of the Saut Market. The air was unexceptionably pure and abundant--yet the Bedford level might have been preferable as a permanent residence. Many were the reflections that occurred to us of the feelings of a set of men thus cut off from the earth, down on which they looked, like so many Jacks on a huge bean-stalk. What a place to encounter the first burst of the November storm in, beneath the frail covering of a tent! How did their friends address letters to them? Would a cover addressed "Mr Abel Thompson of the Royal engineers, Top of Ben Nevis," be a document to which the post-office would pay any more regard than to a letter addressed to one of the fixed stars? Could they ask a friend to step up to dinner, or exchange courtesies with the garrison of Fort William, into whose windows they might peep with their telescopes?