New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1889-10-06
IN THE HIGHLANDS.
THE LAND OF ROB ROY AND RoDERICK DHU.
fyrox slAYr coHREsPoyDKST or TnE TRIBUNE,
Loeb Awe Scotland, September IA.

Loeb Awe, Scotland, September IA
Under a soft gray sky and through helds that
still are slumbering in the early morning mist the
train rolls out of Edinburgh bound to the north
The wind blows gently the DIR is cool strips of
thin Heecy cloud are driving over the distant hill
tons and the birds are flying low. The track IS
by Queens Ferry Junction, and in that region
many little low stone cottages seen, surrounded
with simple gardens Of flowers. For long time
the train runs through deep ravine, with rocky
banks on either hand, but presently it energies
into pastures where the sheep are grazing, and
into fields in which the late harvest stands gar
nered in many graceful stacks Tall chimncys,
vigorously smoking, are visible here and there In
| the distant landscape The fat black rocks are
taking their morning flight, clamoring as they go.
Stone houses with red roofs glide into the picture,
and graceful church-spire rises on remote hill
top. In all directions there are trees, but they
seem Of recent growth for none of them Is large.
Soon the old town of Fall1irk springs up in the
prospect grit with fine hills and crested with
masses of white and black smoke that is poured
upward from the many tall chimneys of it's famous
| ironworks. The houses here are made of gray
stone and Of red brick, and many of them are
large, square buildings seemingly commodous and
! opulent large cemetery, hemmed In with trees
and shrubs, is to skirt the city. Carron
| Water, with its tiny but sounding cataract, is
presently passed, and at Larbert your glance rests
| lovingly upon the little gray church on the
| windy hill" North of this place and of For
sythe the country in the distance is mountainous,
while all the intermediate region is rich with har-
vest fields Bruce Castle is seen TO the eastward,
while westward n little way lies the field Of Ban
nockburn, so famous in Scottish history. Two
miles more and the train pauscs in gray Stirling,
glorious with associations of historic splendor and
! ancient romance The Castle of Stirling is not,
perhaps, as magnificent as that OF Edinburgh, but
it is a noble and venerable pile and IL is nObly
| placed, a great crag fronting the vast moun'
tains and the gloomy heavens of the North. Tie
best view Of 1t is obtained looking southwark,
and as / gazed upon it, under the cold and frown-
! ing sky, the air was darllened with hundreds of
birds that circled around its cone-shaped turrets
and lowered over the plain below, while across the
distant mountain-tops, east, west and North darl;
and ragged masses of mist driven
in wild, tempestuous flight. Speeding on
ward now, along the southern bank of
the River Forth, the traveller takes westerly
course, past Gargunnock and Kippen, seeing little
villages of gray stone cottages nestled in the hill
| gaps, distant mOuntain-sides, clad with furze and
gOrse and brackcn, dark patches of woodland and
moors of purple heather commnged with meadows
of brilliant green. The sun breaks out for few
moments and the sombre hue Of the gray sky is
| lightened with streaks of gold At Buckyrie there
is "a second pause and change, and then the course
is northwest, through banks and braes of heather.
| to peaceful Alenfoyle and the mountains of
! Monteith.
The characteristic glory Of the Scotch Highlands
| is the infinite variety and beauty Of their shapes
and the loneliness of their color. The English
mountains and lakes, in Westmoreland and Cum
| n SOft Opac
more calmly and wooingly beautiful but the Scot
tish mountains and lakes excel them in grandeur,
majesty and romance 1t would be sheer pre-
| sumption to undertake TO describe the solemn
austcrity, the lofty and lonely magnifcence, the
bleak weird, haunted isolation, and the fairy-like
| fantasy of this poetic realm but any lover of it
NAV declare his passion and speak his of it's
cnthralling and bewitching charm. Sir Walter
SCOTS spirited and trenchant lines on the eviction
| Of the patriot sang themselves over and over In
my thought, and were wholly and grandly ratified
as the coach rolled up the mountain road, ever
climbing height after height, while new and ever
newer prospects continually unrolled themselves
before our delighted eyes, on the familiar but
always novel journey from Alcnfoyle to the
Trosachs That mountain road, on its upward
course and during most part of the way, winds
through treeless pasture-and, and in every direc-
ton as your vision ram es, you behold other noun
tains equally bleak, save for the bracken and the
| heather, among which the sheep wander and the
grouse nestle in cOncealment or whlr away on
| frightened wings Ben Lomond, wrapt in stray
! Cling mists, was dimly visible far TO the west
| Ben An lowered conspicuous in the foreground
and further north Ben Ledi heayed its broad mass
and rugged sides TO heaven. Loeb Vennacher,
seen for IA few moments shone like diamond
set in emeraMs, and as we gazed we seemed TO
see the hammered barges of RoderclI Dhu and TO
hear the martial echoes of Hail to the Chief
Loeb Achray glimmered forth for an instant under
the gray sky, as when the small birds would not
sing aloud" and the wrath equally Of tempest and
of war hung silently above it, in one awful moment
| CT suspense. There a sudden and
dazzling vision of Loeb Katrinc, and then
all prospect was broken, and we ourselves, rolling
down among the thicllly wooded dwarf hills that
give the name Of Trosach to this place, were lost
in the masses of fragrant foliage that grdle Loch
Katrine and still adorn in perennial vcrdurc the
| halloycd scene of The Lady of the Lake.
| Loeb Katrne is another Lake Horizon, with a
gentlcr environment, and this-llbe all the Scot
fish lakes-has the advantage of more evenly
sharp and vigorous air, and of leaden and frown-
ing skies in which, nevertheless, there is n
peculiar, penetrating light that darken their
waters and impart to them dangerous aspect,
which yet is strangely beautiful AS we swept
along past Ellen's Island grateful 10 see
it in the mystery Of this gray light, and not in
the garish sunshine. All around this sweet lake
are the sentinel mountains, Ben Venue rising in
the south, Ben An in the east, and all the castel
lated ramparts that girdle Glen FinlaS in the
north. The eye dwclls enrapturcd upon the circle
of the hills but by this time the imagination is
so acutely stimulated and the mind is so filed
with glorious sights and exciting and ennoblins
reflections that the sense of awe is tempered with
"A kind of weary and pensive sadness, and you feel
Yourself rebuked and humbled by the final and
e6ectual lesson of mans insignifcance that is
taught by the implacable vitality of these eter