HIGHLANDS OF PERTHSHIRE. 37 



what less walking than we incurred. There is a road to Glen 

 Lyon branching off the Killin and Lawers road, about two or 

 three miles from the former place. By walking along the Glen 

 Lyon road till opposite the summit of Ben Lawers, the mountain 

 would have been reached in less time than we spent in walking 

 to Lawers from Killin. The Glen Lyon road may be compared 

 to the hypothenuse of a right-angled triangle, and we should have 

 walked by this line instead of by the two sides of the same : it is 

 a mathematical axiom that any two sides of a triangle are greater 

 than the third side, and consequently the way from Killin by 

 Lawers to the mountain is somewhat longer than that by the 

 Glen Lyon road : quod erat demonstrandum. But as few roads 

 are made as straight as mathematical lines (no Highland roads 

 are so), it is not easy to calculate the distance that might be saved 

 by adopting any assumed line of travel. Time is the sole prac- 

 ticable measurement of distance where there are no roads, or only 

 defective or partial ones ; and as we did not go the Glen Lyon, 

 but the Lawers road, the saving which would have been the re- 

 sult of going straight from Killin to Ben Lawers cannot be truly 

 stated. While at the former place we heard that it was no un- 

 usual feat to walk from Killin to Ben Lawers and back again in 

 a day : women did it. We did not hear if botanists did it. The 

 distance is said to be eight or nine miles ; but as the Scotch, like 

 the Irish, give good measure of distances, especially when the 

 quality of the road is but indifferent, we will estimate the dis- 

 tance from Killin to the summit of Ben Lawers at ten miles. 

 This distance and back we could easily have accomplished ; but 

 our object, of course, was somewhat more comprehensive than 

 the reaching of the summit, and trying to see Edinburgh and 

 Stirling, and the German Ocean and Aberdeen, and Ben Nevis 

 and the Islands of the far West. 



About ten hours would have been requisite for botanical purposes, 

 and in that space of time we should have walked about twenty miles 

 more. This, with the journey back to Killin, would have required 

 more muscular exertion than we could safely undertake, and more 

 time than even a summer's day could supply. The ascent from 

 the inn at Lawers is not perhaps the nearest (shortest) course 

 that could be selected from the road. There is a point, a mile or 

 so on the Killin side of Lawers, which appears to be nearer to the 

 summit than the inn is ; but here there is no resting-place for 



