Produced by Susan Skinner and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net _LITERARY TOURS_ Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland By D. T. Holmes, B.A. "Gaudia, discursus, nostri est farrago libelli" --_Juvenal_, i. 74 _PAISLEY: ALEXANDER GARDNER_ Publisher by Appointment to the late Queen Victoria 1909 * * * * * _To_ _James Coats, Junr., Esq.,_ _Ferguslie House, Paisley._ _You, but for whom I'd never been Much further north than Aberdeen; Whose mandate sent my willing feet To realms of heather, broom, and peat: Accept this record of my tours As something less my own than yours._ _D. T. HOLMES._ _PREFACE._ _White stands the long Kilpatrick row Of hills with deep and dazzling snow, And eastward, in a glimmering haze, Stretch to the Forth the Campsie Braes._ _But see! beyond the Clyde, a stain Of smoke that runs across the plain, And flecks for miles the vivid gleam: It is the tireless steed of steam._ _An old acquaintance! Ben and Strath Daily behold his thunderous path, That ceases not, until he feels The breeze of Mallaig cool his wheels._ _And Memory, fondly gazing back On many a journey by that track Of splendour, would, at home, retrace The charms and lore of every place;_ _Yea, pass, in thought, to storied Skye, Where all the glens in glamour lie; And, lightly scorning gust and spray, Leap o'er the Minch to Stornoway._ _And many a northern beach besides, Splashed by the foam of racing tides, Rises in thought: from here to there, Let Fancy's coinage pay the fare,--_ _Fancy, that wafts us o'er the main To utmost Thule and home again, Through mingled din of sea and sky, Even in the twinkling of an eye._ _D. T. H._ _Ingleholm, Bridge of Weir, 16th January, 1909._ CONTENTS. PAGE CHAPTER I.--INTRODUCTORY, 9 Village libraries--Difficulties of travel--Literary Societies in the Highlands--Gaelic books--Happiness and geniality of natives--Oban to Gairloch--Winter sailing--A crofting village--Horrors of the Minch--Notes on Lewis--Highland doctors--Hotels and anglers--Recent books--Military--Moray Firth--Among the miners--Handloom weaving--Professor Blackie and the Highlands. CHAPTER II.--MUSIC, SPEECHES, AND LITERATURE, 60