122 GLEN SANNOX. 



that of an orphan girl who had been drowned while bathing. 

 Passing the churchyard — there was once a church at the place, 

 but all trace of it, save one stone built into the wall of the 

 churchyard, has long passed away — we came upon a brawling 

 stream, which led us up to the ruins of what had been a Barytes- 

 miU. The stones lay around in great masses, as if they had 

 been suddenly undermined by the passing stream, and had fallen 

 cemented as they stood. In a year or two they will be grown 

 over with weeds, and in a century hence some persons may in- 

 geniously speculate on the ruins, and give a learned disquisition 

 as to the building that once stood there, and its uses. My friend 

 and I wondered what it had been, but an old man told us aU 

 about it ; and strange to say, in the course of conversation, we 

 found this old resident reciting scraps of Ossian's poems. He 

 told us, too, that the bard had died in the very parish in 

 which we were standing. He believed Ossian to have been a 

 priest and teacher of the people, and this was an idea that was 

 quite new to us. We had heard before, or rather read, that 

 the poet was by some esteemed a great warrior, and by others a 

 necromancer — perhaps to esteem him a teacher is right enough ; 

 his poems, at any rate, were at one time as familiar in the 

 mouths of the West Highlanders as household words. 



The scenery of Arran would certainly inspire a poet. As we 

 penetrated into Glen Sannox it became most interesting, whether 

 we noted the brawling and bubbling brook, or the rich carpet of 

 heath and wild flowers upon which we trod. The luxuriance of 

 its wild flowers is remarkable, and of its rabbits equally so. As 

 we proceed up the glen, the lofty hills with their granitic scars 

 frown down upon us, and one with a coroneted brow looks kingly 

 among the others, as the mists float upon their shoulders, like 

 a waving mantle, and with their bold and rugged precipices they 

 seem as. if they had just been suddenly shot out from the bosom 

 of the earth. Glen Sannox is sublime indeed ; its magnitude 

 is remarkable, and it is so hemmed in with hills as to look at 

 once, even without anj? details, or the aid of history, a fitting 

 hiding-place for the gallant Bruce and his devoted followers. 

 About three miles north from this glen we can view — and, we 

 venture to say, not withoixt astonishment — the falling frag- 

 ments of the broken mountain; a stream of large stones 

 that lie crowded on the declivity of the hill, till they in 

 one long trail reach the ocean. But to enumerate a tithe 

 even of the scenic and antiquarian beauties of the island would 



