LOCHLEVEN. ARGYLLSHIRE. 77 



the scenery of this romantic district under a new aspect. Ballahulish Ferry is 

 seen in the distance, with its bold mountain barrier towering beyond ; the 

 interval filled up by the lake and its small craft, the scattered cottages that 

 enliven its banks, and the herds and flocks driven out to pasture on the green 

 wooded acclivities, which in many parts furnish an exuberant vegetation. But 

 with this brief sketch of a few and only a few of its prominent features, we 

 must here take leave of Inverness-shire, and conduct our reader into the territory 

 of Argyll. 



ARGYLLSHIRE. 



" Campbells, the modern glory of this isle, 



Their doubling fame increased in great ARGYLL ; 



A race to Caledonia always dear, 



And on whose blood their liberties appear." DEFOE'S Caledonia. 



ARGYLLSHIRE, the Argathelia of Latin authors, is a county of great extent, 

 extremely irregular in figure, and presenting an endless succession of the most 

 variegated and commanding features. The whole district is so much intersected 

 by lochs, or inlets of salt water, that it is nearly impossible to give any correct 

 estimate of its extent. It consists alternately of ranges of mountains, between 

 which the valleys are covered by the sea. The north-east division is bleak, and 

 rugged, and of a purely alpine character ; while that on the west presents a 

 coast of indefinable beauty, and indented by seven magnificent bays. The 

 soil comprises several varieties ; in the higher mountains, and along the banks of 

 rivers, which deposit their alluvial tribute brought down from these, it consists 

 of gravel and vegetable mould, with an occasional admixture of other adventitious 

 substances. The moors or heaths are extensive, most of them presenting 

 deep layers of peat-moss, which furnishes the chief article of fuel in the inland 

 districts. In general, a light loam mixed with sand, on a clay bottom, is the 

 prevailing character of the soil. On the mountain acclivities, the ordinary 

 soil is a light gravel on till; in the lower grounds, a mixture of clay and 

 moss, and at times a layer of black mossy earth.* The soil appropriated 



Another soil consists of decayed limestone a third of limestone and slate of which the former is a 

 light, the latter a stiff soil, but both fertile, and found in tracts of moderate elevation above the sea. They 

 form the great mass of the soil in the districts of Mid-Lorn, Nether-Lorn, Craignish, Src. A fifth variety, 

 formed by freestone or micaceous schist, prevails in the western parts of the country, and in some of the 

 islands. 



VOL. II. X 



