1857.] TOUR IN SCOTLAND. 87 



The most celebrated passes visited by us were the two at Dun- 

 keld; the western one between Inver and Craigie Barns, and 

 the eastern between Birnam and Capnth Hills. The former is 

 the most celebrated, and deservedly. Another noticeable pass is 

 that of Leny (Lenie), near Callander. Concerning the latter 

 Dr. Macculloch writes : " No one who has seen the pass of 

 Leny (Lenie) will ever forget it ; but he who has seen it will 

 forget the rest of Strathire, Kilmahog, and all : the river is 

 broad and majestic, while rapid, and rocky, and fringed with 

 wood suited to the breadth and elevation of the noble precipices 

 of Ben Ledi," etc. (vol. i. p. 149). Strathire is not much altered 

 since the Doctor wrote, and Kilmahog (Kilmaig) is probably in 

 the same neglected or forgotten state. But when the railway is 

 extended to Callander from Stirling, the pass of Leny, Loch 

 Lubnaig, Kilmaig, Strathire, and all, may attract some of the at- 

 tentions and admiration now exclusively la^^shed on the Tro- 

 sachs and Loch Katrine. 



On our homeward journey from Perth to Carlisle, we passed 

 through one of the most fertile districts in Scotland : Stratherne, 

 which is bounded by the Highland Hills on the north-west, and by 

 the Ochils, or by spurs of them, on the south-east, and which is 

 watered by the Erne, yields in productiveness to few straths of 

 Scotland. Long ere we reached the Border, the darkness pre- 

 vented our viewing the scenery. The only scenes very conspicu- 

 ous were the furnaces and fires of the smelting-houses, of which 

 there are many between Glasgow and Carlisle. 



The absence in Scotland of the common wayside plants of the 

 south and centre of England, is a feature which arrests the atten- 

 tion of the wayfarer in the northern districts of Britain. There 

 are, even in Surrey and Hants, tracts as dreary and barren as 

 the moors of Rannoch and Breadalbane ; and the vegetation is 

 very scanty on such places, both in Devon and Perthshire, and 

 there the difference is not very obvious. But about the streams 

 and near villages the number of plants begins to increase, and 

 then the botanical pedestrian in the North is reminded that he is 

 not in England. In passing through a Scottish village, he fails 

 to see our two common Mallows, M. sylvestris and M. rotundi- 

 folia : Ballota nigra and Lamium album are also absent. The 

 common climbing hedge-plants of England, both the Bryonies, 

 the white and the black, the large white Convolvulus, the Sola- 



