]\0 SCOTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 



is an excellent school in Tarbert, supported by the Edinburgh Society for the 

 Propagation of Knowledge, and some of the heritors of the place. 



Continuing our route towards Loch-long, the eye and mind are continually 

 refreshed by a succession of wild and romantic landscapes, which open and shut 

 at almost every turn of the road, and present the most inviting subjects for the 

 pencil. At the head of Loch-fine, the road winds gently through Glenfinglas, 

 a fine pastoral valley, watered by a beautiful stream, and encircled by green 

 hills that rise in smooth acclivities to a great height, and then, throwing off 

 their verdant mantle, terminate in crests of naked ronk. Crossing the Kinglas, 

 the road bends off to the right, and winding through an interval in the hills into 

 Glenlochan, opens on the celebrated Pass of Glencroe, which, in its prominent 

 features, bears a close resemblance to that of Glenco. On one hand, the 

 mountains present a range of noble precipices of mingled, dark, overhanging 

 rock, interspersed with patches of green pasture, and terminated by a bold, 

 sharp, and serrated outline. The descent through Glencroe is rapid ; but 

 for those who come in the opposite direction, it is a toilsome march. By the 

 wayside is a semicircular stone seat, erected at the summit of the pass, bearing 

 the inscription, " Rest, and be thankful " an exhortation which commemorates 

 its formation in 1748, by the military then occupying the pass. Twenty years 

 later, it was repaired by the twenty-third regiment, as recorded in the same 

 inscription. This road, though in general well made, is injudiciously laid down, 

 and on that account, it has been proposed to form a new line from the head 

 of Loch-long, in a more northern direction, and thereby obviate the necessity 

 of passing through Glencroe. But, without a parliamentary grant, this very 

 desirable improvement must fall to the ground. Whoever has read Livy's 

 description of the Pass of Tempe, in Thessaly, will remark how nearly it 

 corresponds with that of Glencroe.* The phenomenon of a thunder-storm in 

 such a situation as this, presents a truly sublime, and even terrific spectacle ; 

 and the occasions for such a treat are neither " few nor far between." 



One of the caverns in this savage glen might have passed, says Stoddart, " for 

 the grotto of a Naiad, designed with peculiar fancy. At one end the sun-beams, 

 admitted through different apertures, played upon the water ; at the other, 

 a small cascade glanced at intervals through the gloom ; the sides are wrought 

 into various odd forms by the whirlpools ; and, in one part, a natural chair is 

 scooped out of the rock." This glen, savage and dreary as it now appears, was 



Sunt enim Tempe saltus transitu difficiles, nam praeter angustias per quinque millia, qua exiguum 

 jumenti onusto iter est, rupes utrinque ita abscissae sunt, ut despici vix sine vertigine quadam simul 

 oculorum animique possit. Lib. xliv. c. 6. 



