in consequence. I have seen us sitting in broad sunshine on the
Ross, and the rain falling black like crape upon the mountain. But
the wetness of it made it often appear more beautiful to my eyes;
for when the sun struck upon the hill sides, there were many wet
rocks and watercourses that shone like jewels even as far as Aros,
fifteen miles away.

The road that I followed was a cattle-track. It twisted so as
nearly to double the length of my journey; it went over rough
boulders so that a man had to leap from one to another, and through
soft bottoms where the moss came nearly to the knee. There was no
cultivation anywhere, and not one house in the ten miles from
Grisapol to Aros. Houses of course there were - three at least;
but they lay so far on the one side or the other that no stranger
could have found them from the track. A large part of the Ross is
covered with big granite rocks, some of them larger than a two-
roomed house, one beside another, with fern and deep heather in
between them where the vipers breed. Anyway the wind was, it was
always sea air, as salt as on a ship; the gulls were as free as
moorfowl over all the Ross; and whenever the way rose a little,
your eye would kindle with the brightness of the sea. From the
very midst of the land, on a day of wind and a high spring, I have
heard the Roost roaring, like a battle where it runs by Aros, and
the great and fearful voices of the breakers that we call the Merry
Men.

Aros itself - Aros Jay, I have heard the natives call it, and they
say it means THE HOUSE OF GOD - Aros itself was not properly a
piece of the Ross, nor was it quite an islet. It formed the south-
west corner of the land, fitted close to it, and was in one place