Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1893-09-02

This led to discovery of 6 peculiar do
mestic feature of Oban during the busy
summer months. Huge daughters of the
Western Island crofters come here and en-
ter service In the rudsr vocstions of scul-
lery and kitchen maids, though rome are
employed as ohsmbermsids. Few can
speak English, but they are very apt and
docile, and prove the beet servants that
can be found. They no not spend q pen
ny of their earpings during the entire sea-
son, and their only pleasures are found In
their occasional evening celidh (pro-
nourced "kailey'1 or gossiping party, in
the kitchens of boarding houses and inns,
and the Sabbath GAELIC services which are
held for this class and the Oban fishermen
In the Free church. When the season is
over they sail away to Lewis or Skye, bare
legged, are-hesded, singing their songs of
home going rapturously, the hsppiest folk
In all the world that they msyhap carry
with them enough sovereigns to rescue
their parents from want against bad crops
or ill-luck with the fishing boats. The en-
tire years rent of the little croft is often
thus paid; aud when 1 knew their story
and the humble heroism of their lives l
was glad that chance had brought me to
an inn so modest that the revelation had
its sourcs through q scullery maids Gaelic
song.
But Oban has Its princely hotels. It's su-
perb inns, its sristocratic boarding houses
and its beautiful villas. Ii IL q winsome
town, almost wholly composed of these,
nearly in the heart of the western High
lands, Just at the edge of the vast maze of
Western Islands, sounds and lcchs, and
strung like necklace of pearls along the
edge of O semi-circulsr bay, so beautiful,
60 shut away from the thunderous Firth
of Lorne and the sea by the rocky Isle of
Herrera, and still so tenderly within the
arm of Ben Cruschsn and other Highland
peaks, that from any point of view Ii ap-
peals to sight and sentiment with a sense
of restfulness and repose.
A number of other almost indehnable
features and characteristics altogether rem
der 0ban peculiarly attractive. In the
| FIRST place bs 1t known no Scottish cum
mer resort or watering-place is like any
similar retreat in England or America
Scotland is truly one vast and almost in.
| divlsible summer resort. Everywhere are
lofty mountains, glorious glens, festhery
waterfalls, noble streams, winsome braes,
misty corries, vast or tiny shadowy lcchs
All of these attract and charm and hold.
Families settle In little neighborly num-
bsrs at this or that beautiful spot. Thou
sands of British noblemen aud gentry
haunt the vast game preserves. And the
tourist throngs move hither and thither,
tarrying for but day or an hour. count
less bright and colorful human threads
and interlacings across the sunny land.
| But there is nowhere place in Scotland
like the American Long Branch, Coney Is
land, Newport, Nantucket or Bar Harbor,
or like England's Southport, Bourne
mouth, Brighton, Margate, Ramsgste oil
Scarborough, where bawling, BabelbiS
crowds jostle and perspire while bands
blare and fakirs roar. Straihpeffsr away
north In Rosshire, Rothessy In Butte neal
the mouth of the Clyde, and oban here In
the Western Highlands, are the neares
approach to what may be termed gre.
watering places. Strathpeffer Ii distinctl,
. spa and is exceedingly aristocratic
Rothesay Ia chiefly the summer home o
Glasgow's wealthy families. oban Ia spa
seaside resort and the great temporAr,
halting place of British and foreign tour
ists in their journeys to and from tn
Highlands and islands; while fully tw