Page images
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

Invercauld House is the nearest mansion, on the west, [] when the snow was covering the fertile wheat-growing

to Balmoral, which is now one of the Royal palaces. districts of Scotland to a considerable depth in many Mr. Farquharson, of Invercauld, is "the nearest neigh- places, and brought with him specimens of our summer bour" to her Majesty, when in her Highland residence. roses, pulled from bushes quite exposed to every wind The mansion of Aberfeldy, eastward of Balmoral, is not that blows. There is no doubt that the climate of in its owner's keeping. Like many other Highland the western Highlands and Isles, and some parts of the estates, it has fallen into trust. The estate of Aber-western mainland, is far superior to many of the inland feldy is entailed; and the entail, we suppose, cannot be districts; but our business is with the inland parts of broken. An unentailed estate, adjacent to Aberfeldy, the country, and its eastern side. with its small but picturesque old mansion-house, Birk- The estates of Invercauld bulk very largely. They hill, previously belonging to the proprietors of Aber-measure many miles of length; but the productive feldy, has been recently purchased for his Royal High-land is now a narrow strip. The forests still contain ness Prince Albert, at from £13,000 to £14,000. The old and very valuable timber; and some care is disannual wanderings of the Royal family in the Highlands played in their management. The railway speculaare probably closed; and they have decided finally on tions of the last few years opened a great market for making Balmoral and Deeside their autumnal "High- the sale of young trees for sleepers; and, in many disland home." The next estate, pursuing the course of tricts of the Highlands, the woods have been greatly the river downwards, is Monalterie, on part of which thinned, and the thinnings have helped to swell many the pretty little village of Ballater has been built, chiefly slender incomes. The immense forests on the Inverfor the accommodation of summer visitors, and "pa- cauld and Fyfe estates, but especially on the former, tients" to the celebrated Pannanich wells. The ma- contain many noble trees that have witnessed all the jority of the latter class do not seem to labour under changes of centuries; and if they could have kept diaries, hopeless diseases; but wear all the appearance of people we should have had many sad and many pleasing very well satisfied with the world. Monalterie estate tales of the past, now lost for ever. The misfortune and house belong to a branch of the Farquharsons. of these Highland trees is, that they see the world The present proprietress, Mrs. Farquharson, is an aged always getting worse, and their position becoming more lady; and the estates of the next proprietor, on the and more lonely. The improvements that time brings river, the Marquis of Huntly, are also under trust. He to the Lowlands do not reach them. A young friend now resides at Aboyne Castle occasionally, but his es- of ours published a volume of poetry,* of such poetry as tates are managed for trustees. From various causes, might have been read with more advantage than twomore than half the Highland estates are under trustees. thirds of the volumes that we receive, and full of the In very few cases was the expenditure which led to thoughts of southern trees; but nobody has ever this state of things occurred on the estates. The land- brought those dark and mighty pines of the mountain owners have not been injured by injudicious improve-into the confessional, to draw from them the stories ments on their farms, or extravagant expenditure on or of their experience. around their mansions, although the latter occurred in A green terrace, with a steep sloping bank, runs some instances; but generally their property has been around the house of Invercauld, surmounting the lawn burdened in consequence of an outlay in other quar-between the house and the river, and overshadowed, ters-in the metropolis or on the continent-without the slightest advantage to their tenantry or to their district of country.

These facts give to the Highlands a deep interest in the repeal of the entail laws. The people never will be able to turn their glens and braes into the most productive account without the aid of an unburdened proprietary. All the harassing evils of a tenancy-at-will exist in the Highlands almost equally with the south and west of Ireland. Those tenants who have obtained leases are generally the parties who do not require them; being sheep-farmers, who make little or no outlay on their lands. We believe that a large portion of the Highlands should always be employed in rearing sheep and cattle; but to a far greater|| extent than at present by green-cropping, for which no district in the land is more suitable than the western Highlands and Isles. An erroneous opinion|| is very generally entertained of the capabilities of the Western Isles. A friend of ours came from one of the principal islands in this past gloomy December,

in a wintry day at noon, by the huge rocks of the Charter Chest and the Lion's Face. The woods that cover the hill at the back of Invercauld sweep down at east and west to meet and shelter the narrow corners of the bank, and form a crescent round the mansion.

Within one mile of that terrace, in September, 1715, the Earl of Mar, surrounded by minor chiefs, and thousands of vassals, struck the flag-staff of the house of Stewart in the earth, and unfurled its challenges to the Highland breeze.

On another day of September, 1848, a royal lady, the heiress of the house of Hanover, her husband, and her children, stood, on that terrace, to receive the homage and the welcome of the descendants of those Highland chiefs, and the fragments of their tenantry still left in the land.

This was one of time's changes. But the river rolled on quietly now as then. No feature was broken

* "Man of the Woods, and other Poems," by William Macdoual, Dumfries,

The Highland games closely resemble those of the border, and consisted, in this instance, when, as in the far distant times of chivalry, Royalty presided over the exhibition, and the monarch distributed prizes to the victors, of those athletic exercises common in all parts of the country, with additions characteristic of the Highlands. Foot races on the level sward can be seen in any county, and the Highland runners did not seem to us peculiarly agile; but the race to the top of the Charter Chest cannot be imitated everywhere, because a similar hill does not enter into every landscape.

The

The London pictorial and illustrated journals published sketches of the scenery and the games. drawings and engravings were done rapidly; and all drawings fail to convey a good idea of a mountain race, through a forest here, next amongst tangled brush

in the Lion's Face, no crag was shivered from the || Highland demonstration on a great scale is now scarcely Charter Chest, and still over all the scene Loch-na-Gar possible. The kilt, as an ordinary article of daily use, looked sternly down with its dark peaks unchanged. does not come down below Castleton. It does not A century and a third had passed by. The men of reach to Lochnagar. The Celtic language is equally the past were almost forgotten. The place that knew circumscribed. It is not the common dialect beneath them once knew them now no more. The broad do- Balmoral; and on all the banks of the Dee the Engminions of the house of Mar, over which its successive lish language is quite well understood, and freely Earls ruled with a monarch's sway for many genera- spoken. tions, had passed into other hands; and the descendants of the forfeited nobles, the heirs of the sources of Dee and the Earldom, had gained distinction in other fields.|| The country that had furnished their ancestors, whenever their standard was raised, with many thousand followers, was drained to make an exhibition of Highland games before royalty. The same course had been tried in other districts, and had evidently failed. The annual Highland games were to be celebrated at Braemar; and it was supposed that a respectable gathering might be made. If the Highland aristocracy would consent to call the affair by its proper name— not a gathering, but a gleaning of men-they would approach the truth. Detachments of Highlanders in the "Ogilvie" interest, from Forfarshire, were brought through the Cortachy Glen, and of Athol Highlanders from Perthshire by the Perthshire road. The Duffs and Farquharsons collected all their avail-wood, then over and round overhanging crags or loose able followers; the Duke of Leeds had his company toppling rocks, with everywhere, unless upon the hard on the ground-and the assemblage might altogether stones, treacherous bushes of heather or long grass, have numbered three or four hundred men in the covering crevices and ditches for the reception of the Highland garb, some of them tolerably well trained incautious amongst the steeple-chasers. The race and armed. The number of persons altogether on began with the river, and then for some time it was the lawn never exceeded two thousand, although continued amongst the thick pine wood, where the they certainly contained a greater proportion of aris- runners were effectually concealed--but as they rose tocratic rank and splendour than may be often met higher on the hill, the affair became more interesting; in such a small assemblage. The reflection seemed and finally, although a good race it could not be called natural enough that all the old families still had their where the parties rather crawled than ran, yet the representatives there, with the exception of the great hill was climbed with amazing rapidity by half-a-dozen chiefs of the district. The descendants of those competitors, who left many more, wearied of the mounFarquharsons, Ogilvies, and Drummonds, who joined || tain, far below amongst its trees and crags, meditating in every revolt against the house of Hanover, joined on disappointed ambition. The dances and the music now in offering their homage to the head of that family of the Highlanders, formed also exclusive features in -the representative of the principles of the revolution their gatherings. The former are interesting-the that banished the Stuarts from the throne-in the latter somewhat noisy within doors; but the violin, a midst of their old fastnesses, in the centre of the Lowland instrument, was substituted in the tent erected mountains, where allegiance to the fallen dynasty had for the dancers, and to whom her Majesty distributed lingered longest, and been vindicated by the greatest prizes of some value. The Highlanders themselves sacrifices. This lingering shadow of feudal power was complained that the games were spoiled. They might not called up alone to welcome the monarch; but is an cast the stone or throw the hammer as they pleased, annual affair-a kind of desperate effort made under for nobody except the competitors cared for the perthe patronage of the nobility to sustain old Highland formance. The visitors had all come to see the Queen, customs without the men. The contrast between the the Prince, the Princes, and the Princess, while hamthousands who crowded round the standard of James, mers and bars were grievously neglected; and so the in 1715, when The Independence of Scotland, and more sanguine competitors felt the Royal visit in the "No Union," were the watchwords woven into the shape of a calamity-with the exception of the fortu folds of his flag; and the hundreds who welcomed nate persons who received prizes from the Sovereign's Victoria and her family, when her carriage drove up hands, and they will regard the brooches and silver to Invercauld, in 1848, rebuked the system that for snuff-boxes as most precious relics, to be decorously half a century had been followed in this country. It preserved, and handed down to future generations. was useless to expect in a land peeled and desolate- Competitors, who had been in training for twelve from a race scattered to many colonies-a great demon-months, to throw the hammer, or cast the bar, or to stration of attachment to their Sovereign. In the do any other feat of strength better than their neighlower districts of the river, where the population is bours, felt their labours lost, because nobody seemed numerous, the utmost attachment and deference had to care for them; and all the visitors turned to the been shown to the Sovereign-the most popular of her || Royal Lady on the terrace, the Prince, and their chilfamily. The same feeling was exhibited at the Inver-dren, so that the hammers might have been thrown to cauld gathering, so far as numbers admitted; but all the bridge of Invercauld without being missed. These

lands. The benefits conferred by them are excessively paltry. The payments to the benefit fund are a few shillings annually-a mere pennyworth of bread for a gallon of sack and nonsense.

societies are more harmful than beneficial to the High-popular word in many parts of Scotland then; and it was a wise boon for Mar to offer. "No Union," except for the hatred borne to the Stuart race by the Scottish Whigs, who had trusted them and suffered by them so often, would have been a successful quarrel. Ireland now bears but a faint resemblance to Scotland then, in its opposition to the Union. The party of rebels on Slievenamon were not weaker in personal in|| fluence compared to the chieftains of Lochnagar, than is the Irish Repeal cause when contrasted with the intense hatred to the Scottish Union in the first part of the last century. Gradually that feeling died out.

The utter extinction of all preconceived notions of Royalty in the minds of some of the ancient Highland matrons and men, by the visit to Invercauld, was in tensely amusing. Forlorn links, between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, had all their great ideas utterly routed and put to flight. Intensely old and venerable ladies, in caps and plaids-whose fathers mustered on Balmoral haugh to fight for Charles Stuart-Men learned to work the Union for their benefit. were utterly put out of all their calculations by the Absenteeism and entails fought against the interests appearance of the Queen and the Prince. A plain gentle- of the nation-its representation was a chartered liemanly man, in a dark surtout, and a dark hat, without its local institutions were reduced-its commerce was any gold or diamonds glistening on his belt-because limited; but the commonalty set themselves to the belt he had none-and wearing nothing that would not improvement of their condition-beat down all the nahave become a parish minister, could not be a Prince.tural and artificial obstacles to its improvement, and The Queen, in their minds, had always carried a Gol-achieved for themselves a standing place in the empire conda of diamonds on her brow, and appeared publicly-for their country a surer independence than it ever under ornaments of gold and silver like an oriental exchanged for incorporation. princess of the ancients; so that when a lady in a plain white bonnet and a tartan shawl was declared to be their Queen, they were all indignant at the cheat which was, as they believed, attempted to be palmed on them, for they would not have considered the bonnet and the shawl good enough for a Queen's scullery-maidand, finally, one reasoning matron put the matter down by exclaiming, "Hoo can she be the Queen, wha's nae The Bridge of Invercauld is built after the old sae braw's the lady o' Innercaul'?" At last their con- fashion-narrow, and bent like a bow. It forms an victions and doubts were overcome, and they were as-important link in the great road from south to north, sured that the Monarch's claims were not to be invali- and crosses the river at a point where the hills on dated by reason of the white bonnet; and the Royal either side almost meet, and its channel is torn and Stuart shawl was rather in their favour. The bless-rugged. The peace of the Dee is broken again; and, ings of old ladies, bowed with eild, and patriarchs, with for many miles, it never re-assumes the quiet placidity their grey straggling hair, whose ancestors lifted the of its course through this upland valley from the sword against her predecessors, were exhausted in Linn to Invercauld. favour of "the sweet lady" of the land-a greater personage by unimaginable degrees than 'the lady of Invercauld," and she had been the greatest in their esteem hitherto.

The Irish middle class must work out the same conclusion. They have advantages that the Scotch did not possess. Their influence in the Legislature is nominally greater, is real and efficient. They have come into a richer copartnership; and they must labour to take their share of the proceeds for themselves and their land.

The view from this bridge is peculiarly fine and extensive. The valuable forest of Ballochmore comes down to the water's edge. On the north side, the young wood is kept with all the tact and precision of an English park, and the lodges are specimens of neatness. But to the east, the mountain tops break out from masses of dark pines-grey and cold, except the blue summits of Lochnagar, that seem to bend over the valley; and, to the west, far away, the long ridges of Bennavon, spotted with snow in summer time, and the "grisly cliffs that guard the Dee," look down into this beautiful recess amongst the mountains.

There was more interest, certainly, in the remarks of the two thousand old and young representatives of the Highland population, than in their games. Factors, under-factors, keepers, and keepers'-men, were quite a treat to see and hear. The importance of the factorage was raised enormously in their own esteem, and utterly || obliterated in that of their neighbours-who believed that, in the presence of the highest authority in the land, all the injunctions of subordinate authorities might be despised—and so it came to pass that the lawn was forsaken, and the terrace occupied by patricians and plebeians in one body, the Monarch seemingly quite as much amused with her curious subjects as they were corrected in all their notions of sovereignty. The first object of interest on the south side is the Still back, back, ever pressing on the mind, came burn of the Garrawalt, which falls into the Dee nearly the Countess of Mar's standard, with The Independ- two miles east from the Bridge of Invercauld. ence of Scotland and "No Union" sewed into its Garrawalt has some of the finest falls on the river. Its heavy folds by her own hands; and welcomed with a whole course resembles more closely one continued shout that startled eagles on the rocks, and rung far fall than the progress of an orderly composed Lowland up the Cluny into Perthshire, was echoed and re-echoed burn; but this Garrawalt is a wild, thoughtless stream from Lochnagar to Mount Kean, down the ladder to from its infancy, ever sacrificing its peace and rest to the valleys of the Esks and Forfarshire, and raised the the production of a noise in the world, which few come war-cry through all the Highlands to Argyle against near it to hear; for in the deep solitudes of this forest the dynasty of the Revolution. "No Union" was awe remember only one house, on the south side of the

The road on the north side of the river runs from this point to Aberdeen uninterruptedly; and a road is ||also carried down the south side of the river, for the greater part of its course. The north road is generally followed, but the south to Ballater is most interesting.

The

a sportsman. At that period, the late Lord Kennedy, the son of the Earl of Cassilis, subsequently the first

river, from the Erskine's Stane to the Invergelder, a distance of six to eight miles. The Garrawalt is a considerable stream, but it lives so fast, hurrying al-Marquis of Ailsa, led the squirearchy of the northways sheer down a little precipice, or over a rock at a sharp angle, as if it had to drive a dozen of cotton mills, that it hardly obtains credit for its real magnitude. A path has been cut for some distance up its steep banks, a bridge erected, and a small fog-house built in the neighbourhood of the principal fall, by the late Mrs. Farquharson, of Invercauld; who was fond of the huge trees in her forests, and the wild scenery of the Garrawalt. The banks above the channel of the water are often steep and high, covered with thriving trees hanging over the cascades and whirlpools of the little stream, and thickly carpeted with long forest grass, or the small berry-bushes of the hills, interspersed with many curious wild flowers, and in some quarters with the richest heath. The Garrawalt is certainly a beautiful stream, but the ascent is steep, and the forest scene is dark and lonely.

eastern counties a complete round of sporting feats, that terminated in the embarrassment of many proprietors. His Lordship was a gay, open, generoushearted man, the possessor of a large fortune, and the heir of immense estates. His personal energy was almost indomitable, and, if it had been directed into a better channel, might have been productive of great and good achievements, for he was endowed with very considerable talent; but the country was at peace; the political world was apathetic and dead; the Whig party, to whom he belonged, were out of office and hopeless; even India was in a state of torpor; and agricultural interests were deemed beneath the attention of the nobility and gentry, whose means were entirely dependent upon agriculture. Those noble enterprises, journeyings, and yachtings to foreign and distant lands, in strange and almost unknown seas, which have recently and happily become an outlet for the activity of many of the young aristocracy, and have produced some of the most popular, successful, and useful literary efforts in our language, had not then commenced. The new crusades of the Normans in search of knowledge had not been preached. The world, to rich young Whigs especially, was the abode of ennui and idleness; and we can scarcely wonder that they were drawn into the pursuit of costly pleasures that embar rassed many old and noble houses. We are not the advocates of a predominant aristocracy, or of the exclusive privileges of any caste or class; yet, as honest gossipers and tale bearers, we are bound to say that, in the character of their pursuits, and in the cultivation of their opportunities and talents of usefulness, no class of the community have improved more within the last quarter of a century than the British aristocracy. There are many blotches on the body still-too many; but it has also many ornaments, whose energy and genius would honour any class of society.

The late nobleman, whose name we have mentioned, as for a time, now long past, the leader of the north

The trade of the district takes the north side of the river, and some distance further on the small burn of Inver falls into the Dee. A considerable population skirts its north bank, from the inn of Inver down to Crathie bridge; and that side has a broad strip of cultivated land often stretching well up on the hills, with a sharp and early soil. The harvest, in this part of the country, was, in the past year, earlier than in some of the districts nearer the sea; and considerably earlier than in the medium tracts in some of our southern counties. There is a remarkable cairn a short distance from the road, and closer to the river, which was once the rendezvous of the Farquharsons-Cairn-a-quheen|| is its name, and was their slogan, or war-cry. Peace has been long established in the land, and the plaided warrior's steps are never turned now to Cairn-a-quheen, which has been more profitably covered by young timber. The little village of Monaltrie, belonging once to the same powerful sept, is a short distance from the Cairn-a-quheen; and as the mansion of Monaltrie once stood near the village, the presumption is not unnatural that the Farquharsons of Monaltrie were deemed the head of the clan, which is now represented by the Far-eastern sportsmen, in some respects resembled the dequharsons of Invercauld, who bear the name by permission, and not of right, instead of Ross, their family name. The mansion-house of Monaltrie was long ago built at the mouth of the pass of Ballater, ten miles beneath the street or village of Monaltrie; and that branch of the family is now also extinct. Monaltrie estate, as we mentio ed previously, is in the possession of Mrs. Farquharson, for her life. Mr. Farquharson of Monaltrie died in Switzerland many years ago; and the monument erected to his memory on a hill near the river, beneath the present mansion, by his lady, serves to perpetuate the remembrance of a family who must have exercised, for good or evil, a paramount influence over an immense range of country, and, at one time, over a numerous population. The estate of Monaltrie falls into the family of Invercauld. The estates of Towards the middle of the last century, a young Finzean and Lumphanan, many miles lower on the river and clever artisan left Deeside for one of the colonies. than Monaltrie, were long held by a branch of the In-His determination to go thus forward in the world was verey Farquharsons. The late Mr. Farquharson of Finzean was one of the largest proprietors on Deeside, and had acquired the valuable estate of Blackhall, in addition to his multitude of old paternal acres. He was at one time, twenty or twenty-five years since, celebrated as

ceased, and very justly lamented, leader of the country party in the House of Commons, Lord George Bentinck. The resemblance was very incomplete; but there is no reason to doubt that both of these noblemen entered sporting circles from want of a better occupation. The superior talent of the one was strikingly exhibited before he died; and the latent talent of the other wanted only opportunities, which it failed to make. A truly great mind makes its opportunities, || but many influential men require to have the first step taken for them.

The connection of the western noble with the eastern district of the country was formed in a manner somewhat singular, and of links not altogether unconnected with the Dee.

at the time more remarkable, because emigration to the colonies was deemed disreputable. Devices were then pursued at Aberdeen to obtain emigrants for the plantations, that differed little in their nature from those now adopted in Africa to gain slaves for the Brazils or Cuba.

Young boys were undoubtedly kidnapped and trepan- || are more mischievous, or more abundant, a few miles ned from their homes, and shipped to the plantations || beneath this part of the river; and the tenants of the as a speculation, even by wary and money-making Dee have often reason to doubt the gentleness of bailies, whose interest, as merchants, overcame their ladies' hearts. Some of the lady visitors at Ballater duties as magistrates and men. As in similar cases, are successful followers of Izaak Walton, and several the dread of these practices was more annoying than allege broadly that the art belongs properly to them; the extent to which they were really carried; but for gentlemen have the heath, the hill, and their guns. there is distinct evidence that we are not quite a cen- The south side of the river, in this part of its course, tury yet removed from a small slave trade of our own. has no greater variety of scenery than is afforded in The young tradesman was, however, determined to push the sweep of a very fine forest, and the high hills his own way in the world; and he succeeded. After reared to the south-Craigspanie and Craigstrone. These many years he returned home immensely rich-a mountains make those regular cups in the river's course miniature, and yet by no means a small, Hudson. He that we have already mentioned as so remarkable, and purchased a very fine estate, married, and had one so long continued, for they may be very easily traced daughter, the heiress of his fortune, who, remarkable for until within 20 miles of its entrance into the ocean. her beauty, accomplishments, and wealth, married into At every gorge through which the Dee passes out one of the most aristocratic families in Scotland, and of one of these great bowls into its successor, the hills was the link that connected the western noble with || plant their feet close upon or into its waters, and it the east. Years came and went, bringing with them becomes chafed and irritated with the interruption. many changes; and the estate of the old West Indian The forest scenery, though monotonous to many, has merchant has passed long since into the hands of an- its own charms and its claims to magnificence. From other family. the north side of the river, the appearance of the trees, This little history is not very intimately connected rising in regular terraces up the steepest sides of the with Monaltrie; but when people become garrulous, mountains, and sometimes, when the wind is wild and the lengths they can run on is wonderful. Farquharson high, shaking their strong arms as if in triumph that of Finzean was one of the leading liberals of the dis- they had gained and crowned the summit of the rock, trict. Unlike many of the landowners, he was under- is singularly striking. The forest road itself is so stood to be, in his latter years, friendly to the princi- marvellously still and quiet, that for once or twice one ples of the Non-Intrusion party in the Established || likes it well; but the prospect on each side is bounded Church; and, like Farquharson of Monaltrie, he died by a few yards of great trunks of trees and long lank childless. His large estates fell to an aged gentle-herbage, with now and then some bushes of heather, man, a distant relative, and it seems not improbable and on the banks some very sweet wild flowers, growthat those old chiefs who occupied so large a portioning beneath the shadow of a great rock, or the wild on the Dee, will soon have no direct representative in all their old possessions. Many old families have met a similar fate, and, like the Erskines and the Farquharsons, have no representative in those possessions that are still connected with their name.

cranberry bushes, planted there to feed the ravens when the autumn gatherings have been finished; except at times when a low murmur to the north turns the eye in that direction, and there the Dee is gleaming and glimmering almost at one's feet, through the screen of pretty green leaves thrown over it by the birks, which fringe its waters everywhere in this country. There is but one house in the forest-the lonely house of the keepers-neat and pretty enough, if there were any one to see it, for nine months of the year; but it is alone-all alone from friendly neighbourhood and kindly sympathy-with its trophies of the woods--the wild birds of the crags and the antlers of the forest monarch-nailed to every tree. But the forest is broken at last; opposite Monaltrie a rapid stream

The old house of Monaltrie was burned in 1745. Its site, and that of the village, is supposed to have been inhabited since the days of the Druids, on account of some remains which were believed to be the ruins of a Druidical temple upon very slender evidence, although there can be no doubt that this district was peopled at the distant period when the worship of the Druids was common in the land. The study of the faith and observances of the Druids is calculated to throw a considerable light, not merely on the condition, but the origin of the ancient Britons. The ele-enters the Dee from the south. This stream, the ments for forming a judgment on the subject are scanty and disjointed, but they warrant the opinion that the original inhabitants of Britain travelled westward at a time when the east had degenerated from the faith of the patriarchs, but not so widely as in the classic | period of poets and fables.

The Dee, while we have been slowly winding down the northern road, has been more rapidly making its way—here, in a broad channel, brawling amongst small rocks; and there, in a deep, narrow, and dark course, with high banks, fringed with birks hanging over the stream, and the pines of the dark southern forest throwing dancing shadows over the clear waters, putting the poor trouts out of all their calculations, and exposing them in a very dangerous way to the delusive temptations, and the dangerous machinations of amateur fishing men and fishing ladies. The latter

[ocr errors]

Gelder, drains the west side of Lochnagar, which at this point is six miles from the river. The farm of Invergelder breaks the monotony of forest land which has extended over so many miles on the south side. The Gelder is a small, rapid stream, which enjoys only a small portion of the business of Lochnagar. namesake, the Geldie, some miles further on, has its origin in the same mountain; and a considerable part of the Muick is gathered from Lochnagar.

Its

The river at this point makes a slight curve to the northward, and the grounds of Balmoral Castle occupy the space thus rounded off by the Dee, when it again turns to the south and east. Immediately west of the Balmoral gates, there is a mountain view unequalled on the Dee, or probably in any other quarter of this country. Looking westward, the eye grasps at once, and in nearly a circle, many of the largest mountains in

« PreviousContinue »