Page:A Companion and Useful Guide to the Beauties of Scotland.djvu/375

Rh and deep dark glens, covered with foaming torrents as far as the eye could see. At the top of the hills, between Loch Awe and Inveraray, I perceived many grand cataracts; but one above the rest struck me with astonishment; it is the river I had crossed at Cladich, amongst the mountains, at least three miles from the road. I discovered it by its noise, and even at the distance of three miles it was prodigiously fine; what then must it be when near to it? I never in my life experienced such a day of rain; it was as though every floodgate, both above and below, was opened to deluge the earth; and during the whole of the fifteen miles between Dalmally and Inveraray, particularly for the last ten, it was the noise of a constant rushing violent cataract. No sooner had I quitted the torrents running to Loch Awe, than numberless others appeared, gushing from every cliff and from every chasm, rolling from rock to rock to form the river Aray; and as the chaise descended to that river under hanging precipices, down which came every ten yards tearing foaming cataracts, spouting as it were from the sky (so high are the mountains) that the water and spray of them continually dashed against the windows of the carriage, sufficiently to