The view from this remarkable group of mountains—the most remarkable by far in the island—differs much from any other with which I am acquainted. The impressions at first are all very confused, and some time is required to resolve into distinct pictures the wondrous panorama before you. We have stood upon Skiddaw, where everything is clear, distinct, and palpable in distance and form; on Ben Lomond, where the far-stretch of perspective over lakes, rivers, and plains, is like a first lesson in painting; on Ben Lawers, where the eye sweeps rapidly over well known, familiar objects, spots of wood, glen, and mansion; on Ben Nevis, where you fancy yourself in mid-air, every object is so separate and apart, and so disposed the whole you are looking on, that the view is all _downward_ upon the picture. But here, these dark giant masses crowd as it were against you. There is a struggle for the post of elevation. You are highest, no doubt of that; but so jealous all are these proud somber peaks, that every one seems to overlook, though yet actually beneath, the broad ample table-head of the center of the group. Sometimes one is tempted to leap across the narrow dells of separation, and at once master the geology of the district, so near seems every hill-top as almost to be touched. But as you approach their several positions, expanding valleys, deep fathomless chasms, and the channels of noble rivers, bar farther approach, and attest the wide, independent domains of each. They are monarchs every one of them—Brae-Riach, Cairn-Toul, Cairn-Gorm, Ben-Avon, Ben-y-Bourd—each holds his own regal court, over tarn, lake, and stream; torrents, cataracts, and all the appurtenances of the boldest mountain scenery. After one has time to gather up his thoughts and perceptions, the scene resolves itself, still indeed as of one whole, but of distinct component parts. In the far distance you attempt in vain to number the peaks that everywhere rise against the sky line; but more closely around, five or six summits are seen to spring from a single root; a common circumference marks out the limits of the group; and, by no unreasonable liberty with the imagination, you easily replace the old materials into the vacant interstices, before the water had begun its work of abrasion, or the earthquake coming to its assistance shivered their solid rounded forms into these hideous, precipitous gorges and chasms. The great hills here stand, every one of them, upward of four thousand feet above the level of the sea; and when entire, one aggregated whole, as possibly they originally were, the center mass may have towered thousands more into the overhanging firmament. The scene is utterly unmatched, as it cannot be described, by any other in Great Britain: and make your ascent when you may, there are sights and objects to be met with at every step, in every salient dell, that will cause you evermore to rejoice you commenced your travels among the Aiguilles of Ben-Muich-Dhui.