guide, who seemed a good, simple-hearted young fellow, made me smile by calling it "a gay fashious burn.” A little while after, when he saw a solitary howan tree, he cried out-"That's gay cold place for a tree to grow in." Here, as in Cumberland, the word gay seems to be used in the sense of uncommonly. I have generally remarked that the country people here have a great deal of quaint simplicity about them. They seem quite innocent, if I may use the expression, and have melancholy voices with a sort of sing-song utterance. They are an ugly race, but the expression of their countenances is usually good. I have not found them grasping, but, on the contrary, contented with whatever one chooses to give them. But, to continue, never was I more glad to get out of a place than out of this wearisome morass. Had the ground been all one kind of badness, one might have endured it; but it was never the same for two minutes together: and, had we been but gifted with wings, we should doubtless have varied our mode of progress as frequently as Milton's Satan when he scrambled through chaos. You remember the passage? "The Fiend "O'er bog, or steep, through straight, rough, dense, or rare, At length, after a weary journey, we came in sight of Loch Ard, and here we parted with our guide, of whose services we had no longer any need, as the road was now plain before us to Aberfoyle. It leads along the banks of the two Loch Ards, Upper and Lower, two as lovely lakes as I ever beheld. They have the noble form of Ben Lomond, which here assumes its happiest character, for a back-ground, rising with double-pointed summit above the meaner mountains. There is something of Italian softness and richness about these lakes; Lower Loch Ard especially, the heights about which are beautifully wooded. It is divided in two by a singular isthmus of land, which gives it a pleasing peculiarity. In the shallow waters of the clear basin nearest to us, a group of variously-colored cattle were cooling themselves. Claude would have rejoiced in such a landscape. And then, farther off, was a feature in the scene, to which the genius of Scott, peopling indeed all this region with memories, has added a sort of historic interest. I refer to the rock, from which the wretched Morris was precipitated at the command of Helen Macgregor. As we past underneath it a little before, and looked up at its impending mass, we could not but vividly recal that magnificent description of the coward's death-agony— the unavailing struggle—the sullen plunge, when the miserable unit of mortality was withdrawn for ever from the sum of human existence. We now entered the Pass of Aberfoyle, a narrow wooded vale, the shade of whose graceful trees was extremely acceptable to us, for the day had become dazzlingly hot. But we soon emerged from this luxurious region upon an unsheltered tract of country, desolate without grandeur. In my mountain travels I have frequently observed how suddenly at times one seems to turn away from the hills, to lose all sight of them. It is as if the earth had suddenly swallowed them up; and yet, after a short time, another turn may as suddenly bring one again into the very heart of mountain scenery. We had now to admire a phenomenon of this nature; for, when we reached the Clachan of Aberfoyle, there neither seemed to be trace of the uplands we had past, nor intimation of any to come. I own that I was disappointed in this, for I had placed the scene of Baillie Nichol Jarvie's adventures in a wild and Salvatorial pass, whereas all the view commanded by the said Clachan is a green common, more dear to geese than grateful to men. The Clachan itself is but a miserable fifth-rate inn,-not wretched enough to be picturesque, the very look of which made us abandon our first intention of passing the night there. Indeed we had more than enough of it during the half hour we spent in a very fusty room, waiting for something to eat and watching by way of amusement the lading of a market cart, the only object that relieved the desolate expanse of the common, and which at length departing at a tortoise pace slowly disappeared in the infinite distance. At length, the not very gracious landlady condescended to bring us some cold lamb, which tasted almost as mustily as the room smelt, and some vinegar not quite as sour as her own looks. This despatched, we were glad to get astir again; and now commenced a very pleasant part of our day's journey. It was seven o'clock, and the extreme heat had gone off. After a little while we found ourselves amongst the mountains again, by what natural magic I could not exactly divine. The track ascended steeply up a solitary pass, wild rocky and heathery. When we had nearly reached the summit, Loch Dronkie came in sight, a lake which though not beautiful is rather peculiar, from the manner in which it is held in, at a considerable elevation, by low ridges. But for what we were to behold from the top of the pass, nothing had prepared us. Such a burst of mountain grandeur-so illuminated by the setting sun-I never beheld. We shouted aloud with wonder and delight, and then, "From the grassy mountain's open side "We gazed, in silence hush'd, with eyes intent Half the horizon was filled with mountains, tossed and tumbled about like an ocean arrested in its wildest rage, and the greater part of these were flooded with golden mist, blending them, like an unsubstantial pageant, with the glories of the western sky. Earth and heaven seemed interfused and molten together; while, in front of the radiance, Ben-venue and Ben-an stood dark and frowning over the lustrous waters of Loch Katrine and Loch Achray. "Oh 'twas an unimaginable sight!" It was impossible, on looking on it, not to recal that most glorious passage in the Excursion, where the Wanderer, touched by a similar spectacle was "Rapt into still communion that transcends "The imperfect offices of prayer and praise. " Descending now to the shores of Loch Achray, we passed along the head of it, under the cliffs and woods of the Trosachs. But what are the Trosachs? you will say. The word means a bristly and entangled region, and such they are, a rough defile, all bristled with rocks, between Loch Achray and Loch Katrine, held in by Benvenue on one side, while, on the other "Ben-an heaves high his forehead bare." The peculiarity of the Trosachs consists in the suddenness with which their steep and complicated rocks arise, like a line of ramparts, from the flat meadows of Loch Achray. On the farther side of the valley we arrived at a prettylooking inn with the break-tooth name of Ardchincrocan. Pretty-looking as it is, however, I think that its external appearance assimilates ill with the surrounding scenery. It is got up too ornately, in the cottage style, and has just the look of a regular tourist's inn, which indeed we soon found it to be, and, malgré its rustic roof, its porches and its creepers, we could not but prefer the solid comforts of plain Rowardennan. Of course, it is not fair to quarrel with the want of accommodation caused by the fulness of the place, but one may lawfully vent one's spleen upon the fecklessnessness of the head-waiter,that important personage on whom so much of a traveller's comfort depends. The creature regularly supplied the tea-pot with cold water, never brought a thing one asked for, and his dry toast was as hard as tiles. Then we had to eat our comfortless meal in a stuffy room, with some dozen precious bodies in it. Moreover, our threatened companion, Mr. R—, was there talking nonsense as weak and wretched as the tea. He seemed particularly to pique himself on never having been to see Ellen's Isle, and magnanimously declared he never should. That he cares nothing for the associations |