rope can well be dispensed with if the wall has already been climbed three times in one day.

The steep sides of the gap framed a magnificent view in both directions, one across Corrie na Ghrundda to the island-studded sea, and the other, much the finer of the two, over Sgurr Coire an Lochain to Sgurr nan Gillean and the Red Hills. The long, purple-tinged shadows cast by the setting sun lent a weirdness of effect that was in great contrast to the brightness of the scene seaward. Our time was too short for more than a passing glance, however, for the upper side of the gap and the Great Stone Shoot lay between us and our quarters at Loch Lagan.

A short, narrow crack not unlike that on the Napes Needle, but much easier, afforded the most inviting way upward to a small ledge.1 The second man can join the leader here, and could no doubt render him assistance for the next stretch, which is very steep. If the rocks be dry such assistance will scarcely be necessary, and I economised time by climbing without delay to the top. Here I made myself comfortable, and took in the rope hand over hand as my companions climbed quickly upward.

After agreeing unanimously that this gap affords the finest bit of climbing on the main ridge, we traversed off Sgurr Tearlach to the left, along a ledge which brought us to a point a few feet below the top of the Great Stone Shoot. We soon gained its crest, and hurried downward between the two great walls that hem it in. These are very steep

1 The knee of the lower figure in the photograph facing p. 228 is upon this ledge.

for a considerable height, and as we rattled downwards they threw the noise of the screes from side to side in a manner that was almost deafening.

Mr. Colin Phillip has suggested the name Fheadain a'Cloiches (the Chanter of Stones) for this place, and it would seem a most appropriate one. Whether the average Scotchman would be pleased by the inevitable comparison between the music of his beloved pipes and the din of the rattling screes is another matter. Be this as it may, they form the quickest means of gaining the head of Corrie Lagan, and before long we shot out on to the small plateau above the loch. Here we undressed and again celebrated our arrival at the water with a swim, before turning to the more sober occupation of making supper.

A small spirit cooking-stove enabled us, in the short space of ten minutes, to make hot soup and coffee. We feasted right royally in the shelter of one of the great glacier-worn slabs near the shore of the loch, and enjoyed to the full the delights of the "life outside."

And what a thing this outside life is! What a grand rush of content, physical and mental, envelops a man up there among the free expanse of rock, water, and air! There one is not hampered in the half-dark cells men call houses, and the ills of civilisation can be forgotten for a time. Perfect health, the rude, robust, fighting health enjoyed by our early forebears, becomes a real thing. Those who know it-those who have spent nights out on the mountains- have enjoyed right which every man ought to experience once in a while, but which, alas! seldom or never

comes to the great majority of civilised human beings.

We selected a dry patch of grass and thrust ourselves into our sleeping bags until only our heads were outside. Our range of vision included the long sweep of the corrie downward to Loch Brittle, and, far beyond, to the islands dotting the ocean away on the distant horizon.

Pipe after pipe was enjoyed in huge content, while the night came stealing over the face of the water, and the moon peeped round the shoulder of Sgurr Sgumain, illuminating the peaks above us with a weird, uncertain light.

It has been my good fortune to lie on the summit of the Matterhorn and look away across the sea of peaks to Mont Blanc, sixty miles distant; to sit at the old gîte on the Weisshorn, and see the night chase the evening mists up the sides of the Dom and Täschhorn, and to watch the sun rise and flush red over the grand dome of Mont Blanc; but I can recall none of these things, beautiful and memorable as they were, so vividly to mind as that perfect night up in lonely Corrie Lagan.

When our delight in the scene was finally ended I do not know, for the moon glistening on the water, the mystic islands out at sea, and the great black peaks looming overhead merged imperceptibly into the dreamless unconscious sleep of the tired climber.

CHAPTER XIII

THE PRECIPICE OF SRON NA CICHE,

SGURR SGUMAIN

THE great wall of rock which bounds Corrie Lagan on the south-east is the most remarkable and the most interesting, from a climbing point of view, in the whole of the Coolin.

Starting out of the plain between Loch Brittle and the mountains, at an altitude but little above sea-level, is a rough promontory, the crest of which is grass- and scree-covered. This rises abruptly and continues upward unbroken, narrowing as it gains altitude, and with sides quite perpendicular in places, until it culminates in the graceful peak of Sgumain, only slightly more than 200 feet below, and in close proximity to, the highest summit in the island.

The cliffs of Sgurr Sgumain which sweep over into Corrie Lagan are in two sections, the lower of which is a magnificent precipice of great steepness. This is separated from the upper section by a long couloir, full of great boulders and screes, which is known as the Sgumain Stone Shoot. To the ridge of the lower section has been given the name Sron na Ciche; the great precipice itself is unnamed, but is generally referred to as the Precipice of Sron na Ciche.1 And a wonderful

1 See illustration facing p. 234.