12 



SCOTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 



slept for ages in their native wilderness. But when the report spread, that within 

 this rugged girdle of rocks and chasms, a fairy-land was embosomed the charms 

 of which poetry itself could hardly exaggerate curiosity was excited taste and 

 genius were attracted to the spot, and the scene was found to justify the enthu- 

 siastic encomiums in which the writers had indulged. Native pride was flattered 

 by the arrival of strangers, who came to admire this new " el Dorado ;" and 

 the fame of the district was finally immortalized by the publication of the 

 " Lady of the Lake." A commodious road was constructed, and views which, 

 by climbing precipices and crossing ravines, the hunter, or hardy mountaineer, 

 had only ventured to indulge, were now rendered alike accessible to all. The 

 lake and its scenery as disclosed from the precipice where they first burst 

 upon the eye of Fitz-James, in all the glory of an alpine sunset are so 

 finely sketched in the poem, that we shall here give the extract in preference 

 to every other. 



" The western waves of ebbing day 



Rolled o'er the glen their level way ; 



Each purple peak, each flinty spire, 



Was bathed in flood of living fire.". . . . 

 " One burnished sheet of living gold, 



Loch-Katrine lay beneath him rolled; 



In all her length, far-winding lay 



With promontory, creek, and bay, 



And islands that, empurpled bright, 



Floated amid the livelier light ; 



And mountains, that like giants stand, 



To sentinel enchanted land. 



High on the south bold Benvenue 



Down to the lake in masses threw 



Crags, knolls, and mounds, confus'dly hurled, 



The fragments of an earlier world ; 



A wildering forest feathered o'er 



His ruined sides and summits hoar, 



While on the north, through middle air, 



Benan heaved high his forehead bare." Lady of the Lake, Canto I. 



Travellers who wish to see as much as they can of the wonders of Loch-Catrine 

 generally sail westward,* on the south side of the lake, to the rock and " Den of 

 the ghost," whose dark recesses the imagination of the natives conceived to be 

 the habitation of supernatural beings. f 



* See Dr. Graham's Sketches of Perthshire. 



t A gentleman who possessed a farm immediately above the den, going home one evening at a late hour, 

 beheld, in passing through the haunted spot, a figure glide swiftly past him, and instantly drew his sword 



