SCOTLAND. 



REMARKABLE SCENERY NATURAL CURIOSITIES. 



The comparatively irregular surface of Scotland, 

 or, as a geologist would remark, its being more 

 generally formed of the primitive and early rocks, 

 has caused the existence of much picturesque and 

 romantic scenery, the attractions of which have 

 been greatly heightened by the works of the native 

 poets and novelists, particularly Sir Walter Scott. 

 The Highlands may be said to form one wide 

 tract of such scenery, though some parts are con- 

 siderably more beautiful than others. The finer 

 scenery in Scotland generally lies along the basins 

 of lakes or the vales of rivers. 



Stirling, Callander, and the Trossachs. From 

 Edinburgh to Stirling is a two hours' journey by 

 rail. Here the tourist ought to halt ' The country 

 round Stirling,' says Alexander Smith, ' is interest- 

 ing from its natural beauty, no less than from its 

 historical associations. Many battles were fought 

 in the seeing of its castle towers. Stirling Bridge, 

 Carron, Bannockburn, Sauchieburn, Sheriffmuir, 

 Falkirk those battle-fields lie in the immediate 

 vicinity. From the field of Bannockburn you 

 obtain the finest view of Stirling. The Ochils 

 are around you. Yonder sleeps the Abbey Crag, 

 where, on a summer day, Wight Wallace sat. 

 You behold the houses climbing up, smoke 

 feathered, and the wonderful rock in which the 

 grace of the lily and the strength of the hills are 

 mingled ; and on which the castle sits as proudly 

 as ever did rose on its stem. Eastward from the 

 castle ramparts stretches a great plain, bounded 

 on either side by mountains ; and before you the 

 vast fertility dies into distance, flat as the ocean 

 when winds are asleep. It is through this plain 

 that the Forth has drawn her glittering coils a 

 silvery entanglement of loops and links a watery 

 labyrinth. Look in the opposite direction, and the 

 aspect of the country has entirely changed. It 

 undulates like a rolling sea. Heights swell up 

 into the blackness of pines, then sink away into 

 valleys of fertile green. At your feet the Bridge 

 of Allan sleeps in azure smoke . . . Beyond are the 

 classic woods of Keir, and ten miles further, what 

 see you ? A multitude of blue mountains climbing 

 the heavens. The heart leaps up to greet them 

 the ramparts of a land of romance, from the 

 mouths of whose glens broke of old the foray of 

 the freebooter ; and, with a chief in front, with 

 banner and pibroch in the wind, the terror of the 

 Highland war. Stirling, like a huge brooch, 

 clasps Highlands and Lowlands together.' Stir- 

 ling to Callander is about half an hour's journey by 

 rail. ' Callander,' says the same writer, ' sits like 

 a watcher at the opening of the glens, and is a 

 rendezvous of tourists. To the right is the pass of 

 Leny, well worthy of a visit. You ascend a steep 

 path, birch trees on right and left ; the stream 

 comes brawling down, sleeping for a moment in 

 black pools beloved by anglers, and then hastening 

 on in foam and fury to meet her sister in the vale 

 of Menteith below. When you have climbed the 

 pass, you enter on a green, treeless waste, and 

 soon approach Loch Lubnaig, with the great 

 shadow of a hill blackening across it. The loch 

 is perhaps cheerful enough when the sun is shining 

 on it, but the sun in that melancholy region is but 

 seldom seen. Leaving Callander, you cross the 

 waters of the Leny, and walk into the country 



made immortal by the Lady of the Lake. Every 

 step you take is in the footsteps of Apollo, and 

 speech at once becomes song. There is Coilan- 

 togle Ford ; Loch Vennachar, yonder, is glittering 

 in windy sunshine to the bounding hills. Passing 

 the lake, you come on a spot where the hillside 

 drops suddenly down on the road. On this hill- 

 side Vich-Alpine's warriors started out at the 

 whistle of their chief; and if you travelled on the 

 coach, the driver would repeat half the poem, with 

 curious variations, and point out the identical rock 

 against which Fitz-James leaned ... At a turn of 

 the road, Loch Achray is before you. Beyond 

 expression beautiful is that smiling lake, mirroring 

 the hills, whether bare and green, or plumaged 

 with woods from base to crest. At every step the 

 scenery grows wilder. Loch Achray disappears. 

 High in upper air tower the summits of Ben-Aan 

 and Ben-Venue. You pass through the gorge of 

 the Trossachs, whose rocky walls, born in earth- 

 quake and fiery deluge, the fanciful summer has 

 been dressing these 1000 years ; clothing their feet 

 with drooping ferns and rods of foxglove bells, 

 blackening their breasts with pines, feathering 

 their pinnacles with airy birches, that dance in 

 the breeze like plumage on a warrior's helm. The 

 wind here becomes a musician. Echo sits babbling 

 beneath the rock. The gorge, too, is but the pre- 

 lude to a finer charm ; for before you are aware, 

 doubling her beauty with surprise, there breaks on 

 the right the silver sheet of Loch Katrine, with a 

 dozen woody islands, sleeping peacefully on their 

 shadows.' 



The view of the lake, on approaching it on the 

 east, is rather confined ; but from the top of the 

 rocky and woody mount above, the prospect is 

 more extensive, and of that singular beauty which 

 Scott in his Lady of the Lake has described : 



Gleaming with the setting sun, 

 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, huge Ben-venue 

 Down on the lake its masses threw 

 Crags, knolls, and mounds, confusedly hurled, 

 The fragments of an earlier world ; 

 A wildering forest feathered o'er 

 His ruined sides and summit hoar ; 

 While on the north, through middle air, 

 Ben-an heaved high his forehead bare. 



Loch Earn, The route from Edinburgh to 

 Loch Earn is the same as to the Trossachs, as far 

 as Callander, the roads diverging about a mile 

 beyond that village. There is now a railway from 

 Callander to Loch Earn Head, but the tourist will 

 probably prefer to drive or walk, the road being 

 a picturesque one by the margin of Loch Lubnaig ; 

 a loch which, despite of the high authority from 

 whom we have been quoting, we think an exceed- 

 ingly beautiful one. The scenery at the head of 

 Loch Earn is very tame. In spring and autumn 

 there is tolerable fishing in the lake, and boats are 

 to be had at moderate charges. The streams in 

 the neighbourhood are, as well as the loch, open 

 to the public, and abound in small trout. As you 







