, 1890-10-30

sleep and dreams with the one
thought above all: That the far
away world and It's grinding nc
tivities hold naught In all their
mighty possibilities like the blessed
content, peace and fnith beneath the
roof Of this ono lonely Highland
manse.
GAELIC NAMES.
There IL something positively be-
witchlng In digging out the mean
Ing of the old Gaelic names Of
things and places, still retained In
the everyday topography of Scot.
land. The beauty and ex pressiveness
of their application are remarkable.
Take the single word strath az an
example. Strath is English for the
Gaelic Srath. 1t means valley.
But 1t means still more. II Is a
valley confined by hills or mount
aims on either side, through which
river runs. Then to any one who
has lived, or wandered lovingly, In
Scotland, how perfect in descrip.
ton, covering whole necessary sen.
fences In our own language, are the
compact suIll xes. Stranraer, in Wig
town, from Srath.an-radhair, Is the
valley Of good grass or pasture.
Strathgroy, In Perthshire, from
Srathdhruldh, Is the valley where
the ID. ulds dwell. Strachur, in Ar
gyle, was once Srath-a-choire, or
valley of the ravine. Strathcroin-
bel, In Ross-shire, Is from Srath-
crom-beul, or the valley of the
curved opening, an exact descrlp-
ton In the lowest possible words.
Then there Is Strathearn, or Srath-
ear.an, I'm Perihshire, the valley of
the east-running river. Strath brock,
In Linlithgow-shire, IL from Srath-
a-bhruic, tho valley of the badgers.
Strathbran, found both In the shires
of Perth and Ross, was I'm Gaelic
Srath-Craoi n, or valley of the drop
ping or drizzling showers. Again,
In Perthshire, Is Strathhallen, from
Srath-aluinn, the fair and beautiful
valley, and sStrathtummel, corrupted
from Srath-teth-thuil, Is the valley
OF the fierce stream or torrent. And
here, away In the ragged northern
edge of the shire of Inverness, Is this
wonderful Strathglass, to the Gaels
Srathglas, their "gray valley" gray
In the skies above II, gray In its val.
ley-bed where the stubble-fields,
banks of clay and dreamful river
blend; gray, despite the splotches of
crimson laid by the pencils of the
frost; gray In the masses of birch, in
the myriads of lichened crags; and
gray In the very mists of its count
less waterfalls.
Not ], 900 people in all Scotland
know OF the existence of this grand
GRAY VALLEY.
Not 100 families can be found
within 1t from end to end. No
murray" or "Black" has ever PEN
etrated its depth to describe 1t. The
old Highlanders look at me curious.
ly from the doors Of their crofts and
doubt that l am from so far a land
as America. To their ken am the
first American to know Strathglass.
And what thrill comes to one ut
the consciousness of possibly be-
Ing the first American to he
seen, nearly at the threshold of the
twentieth century, anywhere on the
fnce of this great earth! The noble
strath opens to the German ocean at
Beauty, and with q gradual ascent
cleaves straight and true through
the mist -wreathed mountains for
nearly thirty miles to the south
west, and then breaks into two
western chasms, Glen Cannich and
Glen Affrlc, which nearly equal
Strathglass in beauty and grandeur.
1t Is all one region. And across the
the seventy or eighty miles from
sea to sea there are just two estates,
that of the Chisolus of Chisolm,
and Kintail, of Ross-shire. These
cover the straths and glens, reach
ing far over upon the mountains to
the north and SOUTH and from 600
to 500 square miles of laud are pos
sessed by these two families. More
than one-half of this Is enclosed as
game preserve, and Is controlled
through rental as such by one man.
That means that down through
the past century thusands of
people, who, through the III
herent rights of clanship had
precisely the same original
right to lands they occupied AZ had
the heads of the clans themselves,
have been driven from their homes,
that one man, able to pay GlO, 900
per year rentals, G10,0O0 "a year i'm
the expenses of hunting-lodges.
gamekeepcrs and gillies, and us
much more in litigation, could come
here once year and butcher red
deer; and those red deer as tame,
from the absence of humankind, as
the mild-eyed cows that stand in
in crofters' byres.
There is little of human interest
In this magical Gray valley: The
interininable
SCENES OF SPLENDoR
are what would bring you again
and again to 1t when you had once
known 1t. Indeed it may be called
so close a preserve that one commits
trespass In entering it, un less your
feet are kept within the track of the
two roads, which thread the valley.
These wind along the mountain
bases above and at either side of the
river Glass, and finally branch into
bridle-paths among the western
fylpua PASSING lin tho atrnth fro.s.