COUNTRY ESSAYS. 



fresh from Indian luxury, and had early paid the penalty of his 

 rashness. At Tyndrum we had been driven ignominiously to 

 the coach, and thence made our way to Oban, where, instead 

 of reading its historical or antiquarian history from the guide- 

 books, we found ourselves smiling at the Princess of Thule's 

 amazement when she landed at so fine a town, and at so great 

 a distance from " Sty-ornoway." Such glamour has Mr. Black 

 flung over these grey western seas." 



If I trust myself to speak of Glencoe, and Macaulay's ex- 

 aggerations of its scenery, my readers will never reach Glen 

 Roy, so they must be contented to ascend the Caledonian 

 Canal in the very last passenger boat of the season. The hotel 

 at Bannavie must have closed as we left ; at any rate we ate 

 for breakfast the very last rasher of bacon which it contained 

 (very rusty it was), and brought away the waiter on board ; 

 while at one little station where the steamer stopped all the 

 furniture of the waiting-room (one deal form) was put on board 

 to go into winter quarters at Inverness. 



Leaving the steamer at Laggan, and driving to Invergarry to 

 obtain letters, a piteous disappointment ensued. They had 

 all gone north to the Isle of Skye. A melancholy lunch in a 

 dark room hung with the portraits of Methodist divines and 

 prints of the Battle of the Nile, was not improved by the view 

 from the window, where torrents of rain were falling through 

 half-stripped lime-trees, showing the Garry tearing along in full 

 spate behind them, and over all the mist-wrapped cone of Ben 

 Tigh. But a walk of sixteen miles lay before me, and that in 

 heavy marching order, for like Balbus, that friend of ingenuous 

 youth, I carried omnia mea mecum. Half-an-hour after noon 

 saw me trudging to the shores of Loch Oich, and thence along 

 the south side of Loch Lochy, which recalled pleasant memories 

 of the friends on board the distant Gondolier, in which we 

 have travelled down the lake earlier in the day. Hills rose on 

 the left ; but, with the exception of sheep and an occasional 



