Leaving Stirling and Bannockburn and all their memories behind us, we can now embark upon the Forth, and follow its broadening stream towards the open sea. The fat carse-lands are still on either hand, rimmed in on one side by the furrowed flanks of Dunmyatt and the Ochils, and bounded on the other by the Campsie Fells, crowned, far off, by Earl's Seat; while beyond, on a clear day such as we have bespoken for our readers, the Bens grouped around the sources of the Forth and Teith lift themselves into view, fronted effectively by the towers of Stirling and the Abbey Craig. As we face now east, now west, now north, now south, on our devious way, these objects shift place bewilderingly, and more and more the "foot-hills" of the Ochils come down to take their place and give a bolder character to the foreground scenery of the Forth. [Illustration: ALLOA PIER.] Very beautiful, at all seasons and in all lights, is this historic range, with its wonderful variety of form and play of shadows. As tales of wild Highland foray and _stieve_ Lowland endurance are mingled in its annals, so the pastoral and mountainous combine in this its southern aspect; and the result is harmony. From the summit of Ben Clench, the highest of the Ochils, and from other coigns of 'vantage, you can gaze down into peaceful, secluded glens, familiar only to the sheep and the curlew, or into busy valleys lined by thriving villages and factory stalks, from which arises the smoke of the bleaching, spinning, and other manufacturing industries that have long had a home in the heart of these hills. Or you can look abroad and take in at one sweeping glance the whole breadth of the country from Glasgow to Dundee--from the Lammermoors and the North Sea to Ben Nevis and the hills of Arran. But the greatest of the glens of the Ochils is that followed by the "clear-winding Devon," over many a rocky scaur and past many a busy mill-wheel, on its way to join the Forth at Cambus. It would take a volume to do justice to the beauties, wild and soft, of the Devon Valley, and to the associations, warlike and peaceful, that have gathered around its noted places; to attempt to describe Crook o' Devon and Rumbling Bridge, the "Devil's Mill" and the "Cauldron Linn," and Dollar and Alva Glens; to collect the memories that cluster about Tillycoultry and Alva, and Menstry and Tullibody; to dwell upon the attractions of its excellent trouting streams; or to peer among the shadows that appropriately shroud the ruins of Castle Campbell--the "Castle of Gloom"--overlooking the "Burn of Sorrow," harried in revenge against Argyll for the burning of the "Bonnie House o' Airlie." [Illustration: SALMON-FISHING NEAR STIRLING.]