Other alleys there are, that go off at right angles with the long one; small groves, and walled gar dens, of Earl Patrick's planting, full of broadleaved elms, oaks, birch, black cherry-trees, laburnums, &c. all of great stature and size, which have not till this week begun to shew the least sense of morning frosts. The third gate delivers you into a court with a broad pavement, and grass-plats adorned with statues of the four Stuart kings, bordered with old silver firs and yew-trees, alternately, and opening with an iron palisade on either side to two square old-fashioned parterres surrounded by stone fruit-walls. The house from the height of it, the greatness of its mass, the many towers atop, and the spread of its wings, has really a very singular and striking appearance, like nothing I ever saw. You will comprehend something of its shape from the plan of the second floor, which I enclose. The wings are about fifty feet high; the body (which is the old castle, with walls ten feet thick) is near one hundred. From the leads I see to the south of me (just at the end of the avenue) the little town of Glames, the houses built of stone, and slated, with a neat kirk and small square tower (a rarity in this region.) Just beyond it rises a beautiful round hill, and another ridge of a longer form adjacent to it, both covered with woods of tall fir. Beyond them, peep over the black hills of Sid-law, over which winds the road to Dundee. To the north, within about seven miles of me, begin to rise the Grampians, hill above hill, on whose tops three weeks ago I could plainly see some traces of the snow that fell in May last. To the east, winds a

way to the Strath, such as I have before described it, among the hills, which sink lower and lower as they approach the sea. To the west, the same valley (not plain, but broken, unequal ground) runs on for above twenty miles in view: there I see the crags above Dunkeld; there Beni-Gloe and Beni-More rise above the clouds; and there is that She-khallian, that spires into a cone above them all, and lies at least forty-five miles (in a direct line) from this place.

Lord Strathmore, who is the greatest farmer in this neighbourhood, is from break of day to dark night among his husbandmen and labourers: he has near two thousand acres of land in his own hands, and is at present employed in building a low wall of four miles long, and in widening the bed of the little river Deane, which runs to south and south-east of the house, from about twenty to fifty feet wide, both to prevent inundations, and to drain the lake of Forfar. This work will be two years more in completing, and must be three miles in length. All the Highlanders that can be got are employed in it; many of them know no English, and I hear them singing Erse songs all day long. The price of labour is eightpence a day; but to such as will join together, and engage to perform a certain portion in a limited time, two shillings.

I must say that all his labours seem to prosper; and my lord has casually found in digging such quantities of shell-marl, as not only fertilize his own grounds, but are disposed of at a good price to all his neighbours. In his nurseries are thousands of oaks, beech, larches, horse-chesnuts, spruce

firs, &c. thick as they can stand, and whose only fault is, that they are grown tall and vigorous before he has determined where to plant them out; the most advantageous spot we have for beauty lies west of the house, where (when the stone walls of the meadows are taken away) the grounds, naturally unequal, will have a very parklike appearance: they are already full of trees, which need only thinning here and there to break the regularity of their trout-stream, which joins the river Deane hard by. Pursuing the course of this brook upwards, you come to a narrow sequestered valley sheltered from all winds, through which it runs murmuring among great stones; on one hand the ground gently rises into a hill, on the other are the rocky banks of the rivulet almost perpendicular, yet covered with sycamore, ash, and fir, that (though it seems to have no place or soil to grow in) yet has risen to a good height, and forms a thick shade: you may continue along this gill, and passing by one end of the village and its church for half a mile, it leads to an opening between the two hills covered with fir-woods, that I mentioned above, through which the stream makes its way, and forms a cascade of ten or twelve feet over broken rocks. A very little art is necessary to make all this a beautiful scene. The weather, till the last week, has been in general very fine and warm; we have had no fires till now, and often have sat with the windows open an hour after sun-set: now and then a shower has come, and sometimes sudden gusts of wind descend from the mountains, that finish as suddenly as they arose; but to-day it blows a hurri

X

cane. Upon the whole, I have been exceeding lucky in my weather, and particularly in my Highland expedition of five days.

4

We set out then the eleventh of September, and continuing along the Strath to the west, passed through Megill, (where is the tomb of Queen Wanders, that was riven to dethe by staned horses for nae gude that she did; so the women there told me, I assure you) through Cowper of Angus: over the river Ila; then over a wide and dismal heath, fit for an assembly of witches, till we came to a string of four small lakes in a valley, whose deep blue waters and green margin, with a gentleman's house or two seated on them in little groves, contrasted with the black desert in which they were inchased. The ground now grew unequal; the hills, more rocky, seemed to close in upon us, till the road came to the brow of a steep descent, and (the sun then setting) between two woods of oak we saw far below us the river Tay come sweeping along at the bottom of a precipice, at least one hundred and fifty feet deep, clear as glass, full to the brim, and very rapid in its course it seemed to issue out of woods thick and tall, that rose on either hand, and were overhung by broken rocky crags of vast height; above them, to the west, the tops of higher mountains appeared, on which the evening clouds reposed. Down by the side of the river, under the thickest shades, is seated the town of Dunkeld; in the midst of it stands a ruined cathedral, the towers and shell of the building still entire: a little beyond it, a large house of the Duke of Athol, with its offices and gardens, extends a mile beyond

the town and as his grounds were interrupted by the streets and roads, he has flung arches of communication across them, that add to the scenery of the place, which of itself is built of good white stone, and handsomely slated; so that no one would take it for a Scotch town till they come into it. Here we passed the night; if I told you how, you would bless yourself.

Next day we set forward to Taymouth, twentyseven miles farther west; the road winding through beautiful woods, with the Tay almost always in full view to the right, being here from three to four hundred feet over. The Strath-Tay, from a mile to three miles or more wide, covered with corn, and spotted with groups of people, then in the midst of their harvest; on either hand a vast chain of rocky mountains, that changed their face and opened something new every hundred yards, as the way turned, or the clouds passed: in short, altogether it was one of the most pleasing days I have passed these many years, and at every step I wished for you. At the close of day we came to Balloch,* so the place was called; but now Taymouth, improperly enough; for here it is that the river issues out of Loch-Tay, a glorious lake fifteen miles long and one mile and a half broad, surrounded with prodigious mountains; there on its north-eastern brink, impending over it, is the vast hill of Lawers; to the east is that enormous creature, She-khallian (i. e. the maiden's pap) spiring above the clouds: directly west, beyond the end of the lake, Beni-More, the great moun

* Mr. Pennant, in his tour in Scotland, explains this word "the Mouth of the Loch."