and in the centre of the scene, set among ample lawns and magnificent walks and avenues, backed by the high, dark curtain of Drummond Hill, and looking towards the pine-clad heights opposite, stands Taymouth Castle, the princely seat of the Breadalbane family. Famous even among their sept for their politic ability and acquisitiveness, the Campbells, Lords of Glenorchy, who became Lords of Breadalbane, are said to have chosen this site, at the eastern limit of their vast possessions, with the hope of "birzing yont" into richer lands further down the Tay. To this day, the Breadalbane estates extend for a hundred miles westward of Taymouth, to the Atlantic Ocean. Behind Drummond Hill is Glen Lyon, and a vista of its mountains--Schiehallion lording it over the minor heights--opens up at the Vale of Appin, where the Lyon falls into the Tay. A long journey this tributary makes, among savage and solitary hills, and past haunts of Ossian's heroes and of the "Wolf of Badenoch," before it reaches the sylvan beauties assembled round Glenlyon House and Sir Donald Currie's Castle of Garth. But the most venerable of all the objects on the banks of the Lyon--not excluding the reputed birthplace of Pontius Pilate--is the "Old Yew of Fortingal," perhaps "the oldest authentic specimen of vegetation in Europe." [Illustration: BIRNAM, FROM BIRNAM HILL.] [Illustration: DUNSINANE HILL.] On nothing quite so venerable as this does the next outstanding eminence by the Tay--the "Rock of Weem"--look down. But Castle Menzies, for four centuries the home of the Menzies of that ilk, lies surrounded by fine woods at its base; further off is the site of the old Abbey of Dull; and beyond the Bridge of Tay--first place of assembly of the gallant "Black Watch," or 42nd Highlanders--are the Falls of Moness and the "Birks" of Aberfeldy. Mountain ash and pine have to some extent replaced the hazels and birches about which Burns so sweetly sings; but tourists come in larger flocks every season to Urlar Burn and to the pretty village near by. Grandtully Woods, and the old Castle of the Stewarts, which has been said to resemble more closely than any other baronial seat the picture drawn by Scott of Tully-veolan, attract many admiring eyes. Balleichan recalls memories of "Sir James the Rose;" and all down Strathtay, before and after the junction with the Tummel--at Logierait and Kinnaird, Dowally and Dalguise--the enchantments of a romantic past and of superb scenery combine to induce the traveller to linger over every mile of the valley.