up to the cave below this, and here found good anchorage. It proved feasible to work outward, and then up the corner formed by the junction of the boulder with the wall of the groove―30 feet of irreproachable climbing, rendered quite difficult by the fact that the holds had to be felt for rather than seen. This brought us out to the main gully above the pitches.

We scrambled in almost total darkness up the screes, until immediately below the final tower of Clach Glas, and then turned sharply to the left and along by the usual way to the north end of the ridge. Over the rest of the proceedings a veil may well be drawn. "There be some sports are painful," and this day of disappointments has already run to too great a length.

The West Face Climb of Clach Glas.The dip of the slabs of the Coolin is towards the centre of the gabbro area, roughly towards Loch Coruisk. This simple geological fact accounts for the outwardly sloping holds that trouble the climber on the buttresses and faces of the eastern flanks of Sgurr Dubh, and the peaks northward to Bruach na Frithe. Clach Glas is on the opposite edge of the gabbro area, and, as a consequence of this, its west face is formed of overlapping, laminated slabs (generally called "boiler-plates"), which shelve down towards Coire Dubh.

Undeterred by their forbidding aspect and geological shortcomings, Messrs. W. W. Naismith and J. A. Parker tackled these slabs from their lowest extremity, and succeeded in making a direct route up them to the top of Clach Glas. This was in 1896; since that time many parties

have repeated their climb, finishing the traverse southward along the ridge to Blaven, a course which is to be recommended in preference to the usual route from the col between Garbh-Bheinn and Clach Glas.

From the right-hand grass patch at the base of the rocks, the route goes up steep slabs, bearing slightly to the left all the way, until a wide outward-sloping rock-terrace is reached. This is grass- and scree-covered, and is about 100 feet up the face. Immediately above it is a slab, at the upper end of which is a steep rectangular rock-corner: this is the crux of the climb. Once above it, the going becomes easier; broken rocks and sundry easy slabs and cracks take one over a variety of routes to the top of the peak.

Below the steep corner a traverse can be made to the right to an easy 30-foot chimney. From the top of this the face can be crossed to the south, past the foot of a fine chimney, which ought to be climbed, and thence round the lowest point of the "impostor" to the easy ridge beyond.

In looking at Blaven from here the climber will be impressed by the tremendous walls of pinnacled cliff running downward to the left. The skyline of this has been climbed throughout, the lowest tower-about 100 feet high—and the passage from it to the next tower, affording good sport.

The eastern face of Clach Glas was climbed by Dr. Inglis Clark, by a somewhat involved route. This represents all the climbing that has been done here, if we except the passage up a

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terrace leading diagonally across the face from left to right, not unlike a reversed Jack's Rake on Pavey Ark.

Future climbers, thirsting for fresh ascents, and yearning to shine in the pages of their club journal, will here find much to interest them, and the remoteness of the locality will relieve their accounts from that close scrutiny and correction so dear to the heart of the reader of climbing literature.

CHAPTER XVII

CHIEFLY HISTORICAL AND PERSONAL

THE Coolin exercise an influence upon those who have once visited them which is quite unlike that exerted by any other of our home mountains. The hills of Wales and Lakeland, to instance two familiar groups, are so familiar and lie so near the doors of civilisation that most mountaineers take them, as it were, for granted, and do not pause to wonder how they were first discovered, or who gave them the names by which they are known. There is, however, something about the Coolin, their remoteness from popular centres, their loneliness and savage grandeur, added to their compactness, that causes climbers to take an interest in them more extensive than that merely of the rock-climbing they provide.

There are those, even in these enlightened times, who look upon climbers as men with only one idea concerning mountains, and that a restless, hurried inquiry after the steep places, followed by the eternal queries, "Have they been done?" and "Will they go?" That the ranks of climbers contain men who are climbers, and nothing more, is not to be denied, but they are in a very small minority. Much the greater number not only take an interest in the mountains amongst which they find so much health and physical enjoyment, but they appreciate their

beauty and like to read everything intimately connected with them.

For this reason I feel sure that a chapter upon the history and topography of the Coolin, with other incidental items of interest, will be welcomed by the majority of those who read this book.

Handed down from time immemorial is a certain legend relating to the Coolin, which possesses the more interest in that it contains what was for long considered the correct reason of their

name.

The legend runs somewhat to the effect that the son of one of the Irish kings of long ago, named Cuchulain, came to Skye to be trained in the hardships of military service. It seems that it was a common practice for the sons of royalty to be sent to this lonely island to learn the art of war, and that, at the end of a certain lapse of time, they were required to walk across what was called "the bridge of cliffs" in order to see if the progress they had made were satisfactory. The "bridge of cliffs" is supposed to be a certain part of the ridge of the Coolin. It is set out in the legend as being "as narrow as the hair of one's head, and as slippery as an eel of the river, and as steep and high as the mast of a ship." A ridge conforming to all these requirements would be difficult to find even amongst the Coolin. And only in a legend could have been found the man to walk across such a place. However, Cuchulain is credited with having done it at his first attempt, and the onlookers were so impressed with his agility that they did him the great honour of calling the ridge after him.

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