LOCH LEVEN 83 



Loch Leven is not such a cockney place as 

 the majority of men who have not visited it 

 imagine. It really is larger than the Welsh Harp 

 at Hendon, and the scenery, though not like that 

 of Ben Cruachan or Ben Mohr, excels the land- 

 scape of Middlesex. At the northern end is a 

 small town, grey, with some red roofs and one or 

 two characteristic Fifeshire church-towers, squat 

 and strong. There are also a few factory chim- 

 neys, which are not fair to outward view, nor 

 appropriate by a loch-side. On the west are 

 ranges of distant hills, low but not uncomely. 

 On the east rises a beautiful moorland steep, 

 with broken and graceful outlines. When the sun 

 shines on the red tilled land, in spring ; when the 

 smoke of burning gorse coils up all day long into 

 the sky, as if the Great Spirit were taking his 

 pipe of peace on the mountains ; when the islands 

 are mirrored on the glassy water, then the artist 

 rejoices, though the angler knows that he will 

 waste his day. As far as fishing goes, he is bound 

 to be ' clean,' as the boatmen say — to catch no- 

 thing ; but the solemn peace, and the walls and 



