[Illustration: THE PASS.]
We soon reached the road named by the shepherd, which was made of large
loose stones. But was it a road? Scotland can boast of many good roads,
and has material always at hand both for construction and repair; but
of all the roads we ever travelled on, this was the worst! Presently we
came to a lonely cottage, the last we were to see that day, and we
called to inquire the way, but no English was spoken there. This was
unfortunate, as we were in doubt as to which was our road, so we had to
find our way as best we could. Huge rocks and great mountains reared
their heads on all sides of us, including Ben Nevis, which we could
recognise owing to the snowy coverlet still covering his head. The
country became very desolate, with nothing to be seen but huge rocks,
inaccessible to all except the pedestrian. Hour after hour we toiled up
mountains--sometimes we thought we reached an elevation of two thousand
feet--and then we descended into a deep ravine near a small loch. Who
could forget a day's march like this, now soaring to an immense height
and presently appearing to descend into the very bowels of the earth! We
must have diverged somewhat from the road known as the "Devil's
Staircase," by repute the worst road in Britain, for the track we were
on was in one section like the bed of a mountain torrent and could not
have been used even by cattle.
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