"The charmed sunset linger'd low adown, In the red west;" or lazed away a whole day on the sand beaches of Arisaig Point gazing towards Rum and Skye, lying light blue on the horizon, and across a sea brilliant in colour as the Mediterranean amongst the Ionian Islands; or lingered at the head of Loch Coruisk till the last pale light has faded out of the heavens behind Sgurr Alasdair, and only the murmur of the streams breaks the stillness of the night air-those who have thus seen the Coolin will know that they are beautiful. But to the climber who wanders in the heart of this marvellous mountain land the Coolin has more pleasures to offer. He can spend hour after hour exploring the corries or threading the intricacies of the broken and narrow rock edges that form so large a part of the sky-line. From the summits he can watch the mists sweeping up from below, and hurrying over the bealachs in tumbled masses of vapour, or he can dreamily follow the white sails of the boats, far out to sea, as they lazily make for the outer islands; then clambering down the precipitous faces he can repose in some sheltered nook, and listen to the sound of a burn perhaps a thousand feet below echoed across from the sheer walls of rock on the other side of the corrie; there is always something new to interest him, it may be a gully that requires the utmost of his skill as a mountaineer, or it may be a view of hill, moor, and loch backed by the Atlantic and the far-off isles of the western sea. Nowhere in the British Islands are there any rock climbs to be compared with those in Skye, measure them by what standard you will, length, variety, or difficulty. Should any one doubt this, let him some fine morning walk up from the foot of Coruisk to the rocky slabs at the foot of Sgurr a' Ghreadaidh. There he will see the bare grey rocks rising out from the heather not 500 feet above the level of the loch, and these walls, ridges, and towers of weather-worn gabbro stretch with hardly a break to the summit of the mountain 2,800 feet above him. Measured on the map it is but half a mile, but that half-mile will tax his muscles; he must climb up gullies that the mountain torrents have worn out of the precipices, and over slabs of rock sloping down into space at an angle that makes hand-hold necessary as well as foot-hold; he must creep out round edges on the faces of perpendicular cliffs, only to find that after all the perpendicular cliff itself must be scaled before he can win back again to the ridge that is to lead him to the topmost peak. There are many such climbs in the Coolin. The pinnacles of Sgurr nan Gillean, the four tops of Sgurr a' Mhadaidh, and the ridge from Sgurr Dearg to Sgurr Dubh are well known, but the face climbs have been neglected. The face of Sgurr a' Mhadaidh from Tairneilear, the face of Sgurr Alasdair from Coire Labain, are both excellent examples of what these mountains can offer to any one who wants a first-rate scramble on perfect rock. Sgurr a' Coir' an Lochain, on the northern face, gives a climb as good as one could anywhere wish to get, and it is only a preliminary to the giants Sgurr Alasdair and Sgurr Dearg that lie behind. Yet splendid though the climbing in the Coolin may be, it is only one of the attractions, possibly a minor attraction, to these hills, and there are many other mountain ranges where rock-climbing can be found. It is the individuality of the Coolin that makes the lover of the hills come back again and again to Skye, and this is true also of other mountain districts on the mainland of Scotland. To those who can appreciate the beauty of true hill form, the everchanging colour and wonderful power and character of the sea-girt islands of the west, the lonely grandeur of Rannoch Moor, the spacious wooded valley of the Spey at Aviemore, backed by the Cairngorm Mountains, wild Glen Affric, prodigal of gnarled pines, abounding in strange curves of strength, or the savage gloom of Glen Coe-all these scenes tell the same tale, and proclaim with no doubtful manner that the Scotch mountain land in its own way is able to offer some of the most beautiful mountain scenery in the world. The Highlands of Scotland contain mountain form of the very finest and most subtle kind-form not so much architectural, of which Ruskin writes, " these great cathedrals of the earth, with their gates of rock, pavements of clouds, choirs of streams and stone, altars of snow, and vaults of purple traversed by the continual stars," but form where the savage grandeur, the strength, and the vastness of the mountains is subordinated to simpler, yet in a way more complicated structure. Scotch mountains have something finer to give than architectural form. In their modelling may be seen the same beauties that in perfection exist in Greek statuary. The curving lines of the human figure are more subtle than those of any cathedral ever built. The Aiguilles round Mont Blanc are architectural in the highest degree, but the mighty summit rising up far above them into the blue sky, draped in wonderful and sweeping lines of snow and ice, marvellously strong, yet full of moderation, is far more mysterious, far more beautiful than all the serrated ridges and peaks that cluster round its base. It is in the gentleness of ascent in many of the Highland hills, in the restraint and repose of the slopes “full of slumber," that we can trace all the more subtle and delicate human lines, and it is due to the strength of these lines that the bigger mountains seem to rise without an effort from the moors and smaller hills that surround them. To many people the Cairngorm Range is composed of shapeless, flattopped mountains devoid of character. They do not rise like the Matterhorn in savage grandeur, yet the sculptured sides of Braeriach, seen from Sgoran Dubh Mhor, are in reality far richer in beautiful intricate mountain sculpture than the whole face of the Matterhorn as seen from the Riffel Alp. The individuality of the Coolin is not seen in their summits, which are often almost ugly, but in the colour of the rocks, the atmospheric effects, the relative largeness and harmony of the details compared with the actual size of the mountains, and most of all in the mountain mystery that wraps them round: not the mystery of clearness, such as is seen in the Alps and Himalayas, where range after range recedes into the infinite distance till the white snow peaks cannot be distinguished from the clouds, but in the obscure and secret beauty born of the mists, the rain, and the sunshine in a quiet and untroubled land, no longer vexed by the more rude and violent manifestations of the active powers of nature. Once there was a time when these peaks were the centre of a great cataclysm; they are the shattered remains of a vast volcano that ages since poured its lavas in mighty flood far and wide over the land; since then the glaciers in prehistoric time have polished and worn down the corries and the valley floors, leaving scars and wounds everywhere as a testimony of their power; but now the fire age and the ice age are past, the still clear waters of Coruisk ripple in the breeze, by the loch-side lie the fallen masses of the hills, and the shattered debris left by the ice, these harbour the dwarf hazel, the purple heather, and the wild flowers, whilst corrie, glen, and mountain-side bask in the summer sunlight. But when the wild Atlantic storms sweep across the mountains; when the streams gather in volume, and the bare rock faces are streaked with the foam of a thousand waterfalls; when the wind shrieks amongst the rock pinnacles, and sky, loch, and hill-side is one dull grey, the Coolin can be savage and dreary indeed; perhaps though the clouds towards the evening may break, then the torn masses of vapour, tearing in mad hunt along the ridges, will be lit up by the rays of the sun slowly descending into the western sea, “robing the gloom with a vesture of divers colours, of which the threads are purple and scarlet, and the embroideries flame; " and as the light flashes from the black rocks, and the shadows deepen in the corries, the superb beauty, the melancholy, the mystery of these mountains of the Isle of Mist will be revealed. But the golden glory of the sunset will melt from off the mountains, the light that silvered the great slabs will slowly fail, from out the corries darkness heralding the black night will creep with stealthy tread hiding all in gloom; and last of all, behind the darkly luminous, jagged, and fantastic outline of the Coolins the glittering stars will flash out from the clear sky, no wind will stir the great quiet, only the far-off sound, born of the rhythmic murmur of the sea waves beating on the rock-bound shore of lonely Scavaig, remains as a memory of the storm. CLIMBING CONSIDERED IN ITS PHYSIO- BY A. ERNEST MAYLARD, B.S. THE interest attached to any pastime centres primarily upon the purely pleasurable effects produced by its pursuit. Our enjoyments may possess no obvious or appreciable connection between the means and the end. We indulge in some kind of recreation and we enjoy its immediate and remote effects, without being in any sense conscious of the various connecting links lying between the ends of the chain which metaphorically holds the cause and the result. To many, however, some knowledge of these various intermediate links redoubles the interest attached to any pastime, and increases the pleasure with which it is pursued. While, fortunately, the knowledge of the reasons for our joys constitutes no necessary part of them, nevertheless the analysis of these reasons certainly tends to, or rather should tend to, add to the pleasure of indulgence. That we do not all care for the same kind of pastime, and that those of us who do pursue the same source of pleasure do so with very variable degrees of zest, opens up for the inquirer many interesting questions, and affords a field for investigation which is only limited by the bounds of human knowledge in anatomy and physiology. For after all it is in the structure of the human frame and its innumerable functions that we must seek for the reasons why, in the first place, we enjoy ourselves; and why, in the second, each of us individually does so more by indulging in one pastime than in another. That the nervous system, and more particularly that part of it comprised by the brain, plays a prominent, and possibly in most instances a predominating part in the enjoyment of any pursuit, is of course certain; and it is impossible to say wherein lies the explanation of the difference which exists in individuals in this respect, equally as it is impossible to explain the various other differences that constitute mental characteristics. It is, however, possible |