loch in this dwarf Highlands of the Brahan district, into which the old Celtic prophet Kenneth Ore, when, like Prospero, he relinquished his art, buried "deep beyond plummet sound" the magic stone in which he was wont to see the distant and the future. And with the loch it contains a narrow, hermit-like dell, bearing but a single row of fields, and these of small size, along its flat bottom, and whose steep gray sides of rustic Conglomerate resemble Cyclopean walls. It, besides, includes among its hills the steep hill of Knock Farril, which, rising bluff and bold immediately over the southern slopes of Strathpeffer, adds so greatly to the beauty of the valley, and bears atop perhaps the finest specimen of the vitrified fort in Scotland; and the bold frontage of cliff presented by the group to the west, over the pleasure grounds of Brahan, is, though on no very large scale, one of the most characteristic of the Conglomerate formation which can be seen anywhere. It is formed of exactly such cliffs as the landscape gardener would make if he could,--cliffs with their rude prominent pebbles breaking the light over every square foot of surface, and furnishing footing, by their innumerable projections, to many a green tuft of moss, and many a sweet little flower. Some of the masses, too, that have rolled down from the precipices among the Brahan woods far below, and stand up, like the ruins of cottages, amid the trees, are of singular beauty,--worth all the imitation-ruins ever erected, and obnoxious to none of the disparaging associations which the mere show and make-believe of the artificial are sure always to awaken.