_Monday_, _September_ 5_th_.—After drinking a bason of milk we set off
again at a little after six o’clock—a fine morning—eight miles to
Killin—the river Dochart always on our left. The face of the country not
very interesting, though not unpleasing, reminding us of some of the
vales of the north of England, though meagre, nipped-up, or shrivelled
compared with them. There were rocks, and rocky knolls, as about
Grasmere and Wytheburn, and copses, but of a starveling growth; the
cultivated ground poor. Within a mile or two of Killin the land was
better cultivated, and, looking down the vale, we had a view of Loch Tay,
into which the Dochart falls. Close to the town, the river took up a
roaring voice, beating its way over a rocky descent among large black
stones: islands in the middle turning the stream this way and that; the
whole course of the river very wide. We crossed it by means of three
bridges, which make one continued bridge of a great length. On an island
below the bridge is a gateway with tall pillars, leading to an old
burying-ground belonging to some noble family. {187} It has a singular
appearance, and the place is altogether uncommon and romantic—a remnant
of ancient grandeur: extreme natural wildness—the sound of roaring water,
and withal, the ordinary half-village, half-town bustle of an every-day
place.
The inn at Killin is one of the largest on the Scotch road: it stands
pleasantly, near the chapel, at some distance from the river Dochart, and
out of reach of its tumultuous noise; and another broad, stately, and
silent stream, which you cannot look at without remembering its
boisterous neighbour, flows close under the windows of the inn, and
beside the churchyard, in which are many graves. That river falls into
the lake at the distance of nearly a mile from the mouth of the Dochart.
It is bordered with tall trees and corn fields, bearing plentiful crops,
the richest we had seen in Scotland.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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