THE LAKES OF SCOTLAND. 55 



scene under every possible advantage. The projecting headlands 

 and retiring bays, which are numerous and of various shapes and 

 sizes, with the rich covering of wood, of Nature's planting, which 

 adorns both sides of the lake, and the woods and vales, and hills and 

 dales in the distance, are all, without effort, taken in at one glance. 

 In fine, the scenery adjoining Loch Ness must be one of the happiest 

 efforts which Nature ever made at the grand and beautiful. 



Loch Ness is celebrated for its historical associations as well as 

 its magnificent scenery. Culloden, where the battle was fought 

 which crushed the rebellion of 1746, is only a few miles distant from 

 it ; and it was in the humble cottage of a poor kilted peasant, on its mar- 

 gin, that Prince Charles found a place of concealment after his defeat 

 on Culloden Moor though the friends of Government carried on, in 

 the immediate neighbourhood, a most rigorous search during the ten 

 days he was there secreted. It required great moral courage as well as 

 attachment to the Pretender, in the Highland cottager, to harbour the 

 unfortunate Prince in the face of the consequences threatened by 

 Government ; but the most extraordinary proof of virtue and fidelity, 

 on the part of the peasant, was the fact of his protecting the Prince 

 though he knew that by giving him up he would entitle himself to 

 the reward of 30,000 offered for the person of Charles. The fate 

 of the poor Highlandman, whose name was Kennedy, was melan- 

 choly in the extreme : he was hanged a few years afterwards at 

 Inverness for stealing a cow ! He was impelled to the crime by the 

 most urgent want ; and yet he possessed so generous a soul, that not- 

 withstanding his great poverty, not even the reward of 30,000 could 

 induce him to betray a fellow-being who, in the hour of misfortune, 

 had entrusted his safety to him. The records of ancient Greece or 

 Rome do not contain a more splendid example of true nobleness of 

 mind. The north side of Loch Ness is also celebrated as the place 

 to which General Wade, of " Highland road-making memory," is 

 known to have been more enthusiastically attached than to any 

 other spot in Great Britain, and as possessing one of the finest roads 

 in Europe, made by that General in the face of physical difficulties 

 such as, perhaps, were never before or since overcome. 



If there was any qualification to the pleasure we enjoyed while 

 luxuriating among the matchless beauties of the scenery around the 

 Scottish lakes, it arose from the reflectio that they should be, 

 comparatively, so little frequented. There are thousands of our 

 countrymen who every successive summer quit their homes in quest 

 of picturesque scenery ; but the great majority of them seek for 

 that scenery on foreign shores, though much more beautiful is to be 

 seen in their own country. The taste, if such it can be called, 

 which thus induces men to visit far-distant lands for the purpose of 

 viewing their most interesting scenery, while scenery still more 

 interesting and beautiful is to be witnessed in their own, is at once 

 vicious and expensive. 



J. G. 



