we
sauntered over after our weary walk.

Being come to the most northerly point of our destined course, we took
out the map, loth to turn our backs upon the Highlands, and, looking
about for something which we might yet see, we fixed our eyes upon two or
three spots not far distant, and sent for the landlord to consult with
him. One of them was Loch Rannoch, a fresh-water lake, which he told us
was bordered by a natural pine forest, that its banks were populous, and
that the place being very remote, we might there see much of the
simplicity of the Highlander's life. The landlord said that we must take
a guide for the first nine or ten miles; but afterwards the road was
plain before us, and very good, so at about ten o'clock we departed,
having engaged a man to go with us. The Falls of Bruar, which we wished
to visit for the sake of Burns, are about three miles from Blair, and our
road was in the same direction for two miles.

After having gone for some time under a bare hill, we were told to leave
the car at some cottages, and pass through a little gate near a brook
which crossed the road. We walked upwards at least three quarters of a
mile in the hot sun, with the stream on our right, both sides of which to
a considerable height were planted with firs and larches
intermingled--children of poor Burns's song; for his sake we wished that
they had been the natural trees of Scotland, birches, ashes,
mountain-ashes, etc.; however, sixty or seventy years hence they will be
no unworthy monument to his memory. At present, nothing can be uglier
than the whole chasm of the hill-side with its formal walks. I do not
mean to condemn them, for, for aught I know, they are as well managed as
they could be; but it is not easy to see the use of a pleasure-path
leading to nothing, up a steep and naked hill in the midst of an unlovely
tract of country, though by the side of a tumbling stream of clear water.
It does not surely deserve the name of a pleasure-path. It is three
miles from the Duke of Athol's house, and I do not believe that one
person living within five miles of the place would wish to go twice to
it. The falls are high, the rocks and stones fretted and gnawed by the
water. I do not wonder at the pleasure which Burns received from this
stream; I believe we should have been much pleased if we had come upon it
as he did. At the bottom of the hill we took up our car, and, turning
back, joined the man who was to be our