CHURCH GATE AT FOULIS

PREFACE

This book has been written in connection with a Bazaar held in Crieff
in the month of August, 1896, for the better endowment of the Parishes
of ARDOCH, CRIEFF WEST, GLENDEVON, and MONZIE. The Editorial Committee
venture to hope that the contents will be of some interest to the
dwellers in Strathearn, especially those within the bounds of the
Presbytery of Auchterarder. The warm thanks of the promoters of the
Bazaar are due to the ladies and gentlemen who composed the various
Committees. To them, as representing many hearty sympathisers and
willing workers, the "CHRONICLES OF STRATHEARN" is respectfully
dedicated.

In name of the Editorial Committee,

JOHN HUNTER, M.A., CRIEFF.
HUGH M. JAMIESON, MONZIE.

INTRODUCTION

THE OPENING UP OF STRATHEARN

By Rev. JOHN HUNTER, M.A., Crieff

Quite recently it was said to me by a man who had been holiday-making in
Switzerland, that he greatly missed the Alps in every home landscape.
The remark was made on the Knock of Crieff, one beautiful afternoon in
the late autumn, when the sun was setting and the after-glow lay like a
purple semi-transparent mist all along Glenartney from Ben Ledi to
Comrie. I felt rich enough in the enjoyment of the surpassing loveliness
of our own Strath to say "Laich in"--(I would not hurt any person's
feelings for the world)--"Plague take your Alps, with their sky-scraping
ridges and peaks and winding sheets of snow,--we don't want them here;
they would simply spoil a scene like that before us." I don't know, and
may never know, the meaning my companion read into my silence. Having
shortly before made the frank confession that I had never seen the Alps,
he may have intended to excite envious feelings within me, and imagined
he had succeeded. But I can deny the fact with a good conscience, and
until some benevolent person shall give me the opportunity of making a
comparison between home and foreign landscapes, I shall continue to
assert--happy in my ignorance, it may be, but still happy--that there is
no fairer prospect upon earth than the Strath of Earn from the Knock of
Crieff. "Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise."

Let me adventure to describe it. Right opposite to the south-west is
Turleum--rising to the height of 1300 feet--the highest hill in Scotland
wooded to the top, as our local boast was--shorn of its beauty somewhat
in recent years, but, although bare, still