physical and mental which the world
has produced, and whose friendly face greeted us as we emerged from the
dark valley into a brilliantly lighted hotel--stand up for old Scotland,
and question if there were any thing, even in the gorgeous vale of
Chamouni itself, to excel our purple mountains and narrow glens. But if
we should be disposed to give the preference to the Alps, on that
principle of politeness, which actuated an Aberdeen fisherman, who had
found his way under the dome of St Paul's, to exclaim--"Weel, that jist
maks a perfect feel o' the Kirk o' Fitty"--we think there is something
inexpressibly interesting in beholding, in the middle of this busy
island of steam-engines and railways, of printing machines and spinning
jennies, one wide district where nature is still as supremely lord of
all--where man feels as much separated from all traces of the
workmanship of his fellows, as in the forests of Missouri, or the upper
gorges of the Himalayas. But it is not true that the Cairngorm range of
mountains is a distant place to tourists. It is in the very centre of
their haunts. They swarm in the valleys of the Spey and the Tay, at
Laggan, Blair Athol, and Braemar, and want but enterprise or originality
enough to direct their steps out of the beaten paths which have formed,
since Scottish touring became fashionable forty years ago, the regular
circles in which these creatures revolve. They care not in general to
imbibe the glories and the delights of scenery, but confine themselves
to the established Lions, which it is good for a man to be able in
society to _say_ that he has seen. "Well, I can say I have seen it,"
says your routine tourist--whereby, if he knew the meaning of his own
words, he would be aware that he conveyed to mankind a testimony to his
folly in having made any effort to look at that which has produced no
impression whatever on his mind, and in looking at which he would not be
aware that he saw any thing remarkable, unless the guide-book and the
waiter at the inn had certified that it was an object of interest. It is
true, that to see our friends the Cairngorm hills, one must walk, and
that somewhat stiffly--but this is seldom an obstacle in any place where
pedestrianism is not unfashionable. In the Oberland of Switzerland, we
have seen green-spectacled, fat, plethoric, gentlemen, fresh from
'Change, wearing blouses and broad straw hats, carrying haversacks on
their shoulders, and tall alpenstocks in