Travel
The Road Round Scotland
WHAT do they know of Scotland who only Oban know ? Tlirow in the Trossachs and Princes Street in Edinburgh, and that for too many is about all the memory of Caledonia that conies south with the returning English. It is not enough. The petrol-engine and those wonderful roads through the Central Highlands, for which the name of the English General Wade is still deservedly blessed even by his former enemies, spread out a feast of nature which the English Lakeland cannot surpass and which, say, on the Moor of Rannoch where -the ancient fir-roots lift gnarled grey fingers above the peat-hags, far outrivals in savage loneliness the dark majesty of Ullswater, Nature, then, in her grim and solitary moods, more often than with her smiling face, is Scotland's chief gift to the traveller. LoOk across the Moor of Rannoch and see The Shepherds guard- ing the entrance to Glencoe, the Glen of Weeping—still a scene of eerie and mist-wrapped desolation despite the stupid new and unnecessary motor-road which flares through it. •
Outside the Edinburgh High Street, that historic causeway which culminates so gloriously in the crag-perched Castle ; outside a bit or two of Montrose, Aberdeen and Dundee And, of course, Stirling Castle that has so long kept watch over the raiding Caterans from the North ; outside the varied and unforgettable charm of St. Andrews with its castle, abbeys and grey square tower Of St. Regulus—the past and the life of man as displayed in towns is not what one goes to Scotland to see. Churches there are : the stately Cathedral of Glasgow; the beautiful Dunblane Cathedral which looks down on Allan Water, its glory the west window than which Ruskin knew " nothing more perfect in its simplicity " ; the good Norman of Leuchars Church in Fife—these and others remain to delight lovers of ecclesiastical architecture. But in the South the tale of destruction, and destruction wrought by Scotland's auld enemy of England, is long and sad. Fair Melrose, and Dryburgh where sleep the great Sir Walter and Lord Haig. lie in ruins. The remains of Kelso, Roxburgh and Coldingham Abbeys testify to the presence of the same ruthless hand and not to the reforming zeal of the followers of John Knox, which destroyed St. Andrews Cathedral. As befits a land so often scourged by war, both of her own making as of that brought to her from the South, Scotland can boast many magnificent examples of the mediaeval castle. The thirteenth-century Castle of Caerlaverock in Dumfriesshire comes perhaps before them all. Grimly on the East frown the strongholds of Tantallon and Dunnottar, where through the Troubles so many Covenanters lay fast bound in misery and iron. On the WeSt stand Castle Duart, the chief hold of the Macleans in Mull, and the lofty walls of Dmastaffnage ; whilst those whose eyes rest on Kismul Castle in Barra, the ancient seat of the Mae- Neills in the soft light of a Hebridean summer evening have enjoyed a picture of the sweetest dreaming beauty. And from Dunvegan the Chieftains of Macleod have for centuries watched the sun setting to rise upon another Continent.
So; after all, we come back to nature—to corrie, crag and mountain peak—the sharp cone of Schiehallion or the massive hill-shoulders where the dotterel nests above Loch Edda-- and to the glorious peat-brown river in which over so much of Scotland trouting can be had free or by permission which is seldom refused. If the fancy turns to mountain-climbing, there is Ben Nevis (which an infant can ascend, though there is work there for the expert alpinist aswell), Ben Lowers over- looking Loch Tay where the rarest of alpine flora may be found, and the lonely Cairn Gorm group, haunt of the golden eagle.
Within the limits of a column or so the plotting-out of many definite routes cannot be expected. To see the N.E. of Scotland it would be no bad plan for those with a bent for history to follow the marches and countermarches of Montrose in his Annus Mirabilis of 1044.5. Or making Aberdeen his starting-point, the visitor can work up the Dee to Braemar. south past the Spital of Glenshee and thence through Kirk- michael on the Ardle (crammed with small trout) and Pitlochry, down the Tay to Perth (140 miles). Or from Aberdeen again he can hold west and north-west for about the same distance to Inverness, the capital of the Highlands, whence the Cale- donian Canal opens some of the finest forest, lake and moun- tain scenery in Scotland. The Central West can be best seen over the West Highland railway froth Oban, past Dalmally and Tyndrum to the brown tumbling rapids of the Spean and so to Fort William nestling under the stern shelter of Ben Nevis. On from Fort William to Malthig, there lies, according to Mr. Compton Mackenzie, one of the finest bits of scenery in the world. The foot-traveller can leave Fort Augustus on the Caledonian Canal and hold S.E. over the Corrvarriek Pass in the footsteps of Prince Charles when, in 1745, he was hurrying southwards to the capture of Edinburgh. Aviemore, with several convenient walker's hostels round about it, is, however, probably, the best centre for the pedestrian, who can tackle the thirty boulder-strewn miles to Braemar over the desolate Lang Gruh Pass, while coveys of ptarmigan flutter confidingly almost from his very feet. Grassed to their' summits, t'heSeiutliern UpIan& have their own charm, and pilgrimages should be made to Scott's House of Abliotsford on the silver Tweed and to the country hallowed by and to the memory of Burns, round Ayr and Dumfries. Of the islands—especially of Skye—we can say nothing, but those who go there still be dull of soul indeed' if they do not say a great deal. And throughout, in the matter of feeding, are not the breakfasts of Scotland famous the world over? But the haggis should be approached with reverential Care.
M. J. C. MiznmEsousr.
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