^^o The Scottish JVaturaiisf. 



find him writing letters from Leith on the 4th, and that thus he 

 could not have much time to form a camp on that sequestered 

 spot on the Almond — without dwelling on this, I merely say 

 that if the Highlanders supposed to be coming to attack Perth 

 had been likely to turn out of their way, and vary their journey 

 by partly wading and i)artly swimming down the rocky and con- 

 fined channel of the Almond in that part, that small holm at the 

 foot of the cliffs was a likely spot to meet and engage them. But 

 if the Highlanders were to come by any other manner, no spot 

 could have been chosen where the soldiers of Cromwell could 

 have been better out of the way, or where they could have been 

 more defenceless had they been discovered and attacked'. The 

 word "park," added to Cromwell, is a thing of yesterday. But 

 up on the high and steeply-sloping bank we have the name 

 Cromwell applied to the farm wliich comprises the land along 

 the summit. We have Cromwell Craig, the name of a precipitous 

 cliff. Cromwell itself thus belongs to the steep banks. From 

 Dr Joyce's 'Irish Local Names,' we find there are places of the 

 same name in Limerick, where certainly the Protector is not held 

 in grateful remembrance. Dr Joyce explains the name as being 

 a pretty near approximation to the pronunciation of Crom-choill, 

 a stooped or sloping wood. 



Let any one look at the place, at the steep banks sweeping 

 down to the channel ; let him notice, also, that there is at that 

 place a bend of the stream, and a corresponding curve of the 

 cliffs ; and as he further observes the steep curved slope, clothed 

 at the present day, as of old, with wood, — he will at once recognise 

 how appropriate the old Celtic name is to the scene presented. 

 It is a word- picture of the landscape. We have in this case an 

 instructive instance of the manner in which a word, appropriate 

 and expressive, first loses its meaning ; then is misapprehended 

 and thought to refer to a modern historical personage ; and 

 finally, a legend springs up in order to account for the supposed 

 connection. Here, too, we have an instance of the permanence 

 of physical features. The landscape before us is the same that 

 the ancient Celts described so vividly by the appellation they 

 gave it. *■ 



Briefly summed up, our conclusions are these : In the higher 

 levels little or no change has been made in the physical features. 

 They are essentially the same to-day as they were wlicn tliey 

 received their Celtic descriptive names. In the lower levels 

 some change has happened since that time — a change aftect- 



