The Scotch lakes form the one element of repose in a landscape which, in almost every other feature, suggests the most terrific activities of nature. Excelling all in size, beauty, and romantic interest is Loch Lomond, in Rob Roy’s country. It is the pride of the Scottish inland waters, as Cayuga is the gem in the chain of finger lakes in central New York.

On our first visit neither railway nor other tourist-bringing facilities, except steamboats, existed. Nor had the necessity of making the lochs of Scotland the drinking-glasses of towns near by yet arisen in so large a measure as to threaten to blot out some of the strands and beaches famous in song and story.

Exquisite are the islands—about thirty in number and lying chiefly in the southern part—that dot the surface, such as Inch Cailliach, the Isle of Women, or Place of the Nuns; Inch Tarranach, or Monk’s Isle; Inch Fad, or Long Island; Inch Cruin, or Round Island. One of the largest of these is a nobleman’s deer park. Inch Loanig, or Yew Isle, where Robert the Bruce planted yew trees for his bowmen, and where the wood of the fiery cross was grown, and others that have associated with their names ancient romance or modern utility, possess a double charm. Geologically, the loch is the remnant of an (amputated) arm of the sea, and usually but a few feet above the level of the great deep.

One of the dales near Loch Lomond, at whose entrance are the ruins of an old castle, is Glen Fruin, the Glen of Sorrow. Here a terrible battle was fought between the Macgregors and the partisans of the Laird of Luss, the head of the family of Colquhon, in which the Macgregors were victorious and the Colquhons almost annihilated. There is also a Holy Pool of St. Fillan known, where incantations used to be made to secure the influence of the saint for the recovery of insane persons.

It seems a literary outrage not to read, as a preparation, Scott’s “Lady of the Lake,” before going through the Trossachs, or riding over the ridge from Loch Lomond to Loch Katrine. This romantic defile, whose Gaelic name means the “Bristled Country,” in allusion to its shaggy physical features, is very narrow and beautifully wooded. Properly speaking, the Trossachs extend from Loch Achray to Loch Katrine. They are continued thence, by a strip on the northeastern shore to a point above the now submerged Silver Strand, opposite to Ellen’s Isle, a distance of less than three miles.

A stage-coach was waiting for us at Inversnaid, and we were so fortunate as to get a seat in front on the top near the driver, who was very intelligent, and showed us among other places the woods in which Roderick Dhu’s men are supposed to have retired for their coronach, or wailing over the loss of their great leader. On one side are the steep green slopes of Ben Venue to the southwest, while on the northeast are the precipitous crags of Ben A’an. Wood, water, rock, and hill make a harmonious blending of lovely scenery. It was Sir Walter, the “Wizard of the North,” who made this ravine the Mecca of tourists. In his day there was no easy entrance or exit. The only access to the lake was by means of a ladder, formed out of the branches of trees and roots.

Scott’s lines tell that

In a word, the Trossachs remind one of that wonderful geological fault in the Helderbergs, in New York State, named “Indian Ladder,” this term recalling the old method of entrance. One of the finest passes and glens in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, as well as the canyons of the West, now so well known and enjoyed, was shut up at one time by Nature in like manner.

Some of the romance of the Trossachs neighborhood has been spoiled, as has the scenery of the Catskill region, by the necessity of a neighboring great city’s practice of the virtue which is next to godliness. The vicinity of that ever-thirsty conglomeration of humanity, that needs refreshment, cleansing, and mill-power, has modified the scenery. The Glasgow Water Company had to raise the banks of the lake several feet, to form a reservoir for the supply of the mills on the Teith River. Among the sites thus desecrated were the silver shore, where stood Ellen, “guardian naiad of the strand,” before the royal Knight of Snowdon, and the spot where Roderick Dhu challenged Fitz-James to single combat. Coilantogle Ford long invited the fisherman to try his luck and the tourist to survey the ruins near by. Then there is the Loch Vennachar, with its lovely island of Inch Vroin, which breaks its mirror-like surface. On the hillside overlooking the loch is a hollow on the left of the road called “Lanrick Mead,” a flat meadow which was the gathering-ground of the Clan Alpine. A mile beyond Loch Menoca, as the road slopes toward the Brig of Turk, we have a varied and extensive prospect, including Ben Venue.

A sudden bend in the road winding around the margin of Loch Achrae discloses the spur of the mountain forming the entrance to the Trossachs. Slight wonder that this, one of the finest views to be met with on the way, was selected by the artist Turner for his illustration of “The Lady of the Lake.” He visited Scotland for his book on “Provincial Antiquities,” for which Scott furnished the letter-press.

Entering this wonderful defile of the Trossachs there is revealed a scene of

Somewhere near the entrance of the gorge, Fitz James lost his “gallant gray” horse. Perhaps, even without a silver suggestion, our guide might show the exact spot where the poor creature’s bleaching bones once lay! The rocks are verdure-clad and we catch a glimpse of Ben A’an rising above the wooded precipices on the north.

Suddenly emerging from the wild mountain rocks and woods, we behold, as Fitz James did,—

When on the steamer we passed by Ellen’s Isle, we might have easily thrown a stone to drop in the place where lovely Ellen first looked upon the Knight of Snowdon. What painter could make the scene more lifelike than do the words of Scott?

Another one of the scenes described in “The Lady of the Lake,” and pointed out by the cicerone, is the dread Goblin’s Cave. On the other side of the hill is “the pass of the cattle,” by which the kine taken in forays were conveyed within the protection of the Trossachs. In those days the defile was used by the Highlanders for other than strictly æsthetic purposes.

When we realize how true it was of the Highlanders, as of the sons of Jacob, that their chief trade was in cattle, it is hardly to be wondered at that many of the American highlanders of East Tennessee, with their Caledonian ancestry, concerning the property of the cotton planters long held the view of Roderick Dhu. Nor is it strange that so many sturdy Scotch youth have been allured to our own Wild West to become cowboys!

Yet, although it is the Highland black ox that figures so largely in both poetry and economics, it was the goat that furnished the consecrated blood in which the flames of the fiery cross were extinguished. This terrible war-gospel and signal with anathema for assembling the clans, with its ban of death upon all faint-hearted or recalcitrant, furnished the final test of loyalty to the chief. It bade the bridegroom leave his bride, the mourner his bier, the only son his widowed parent, the smith his forge, and the fisherman his nets—all to buckle on the sword. Scott, in a few lines of his “Lady of the Lake,” pictures its awful significance.

No law-book or learned treatise can portray the old Highland life of the clan—when the one tie of society was loyalty to the chief and its symbol the sword—as do the writings of Sir Walter Scott. In old Japan, in which I lived, I saw before me a mirror of Celtic Scotland.

Yet to-day, while one may “hear his own mountain-goats bleating aloft” and thousands of the capricious creatures are domesticated and available for milk and meat, there are thousands more that are as wild as if their species originated in heather land. Their keenness of vision and scent makes it nearly impossible for hunters to get within shot of them.

In addition to the Lowlander’s domestic cattle, systematically “lifted” during the centuries by the Gaels or clansmen, there was a distinct breed of Highland cattle called “Kyloe.” These creatures, in prehistoric and Roman times, ran wild over the Scottish peninsula and were especially numerous in the forest regions. Some few herds, that are considered descendants of the ancient wild oxen, are kept in Scottish noblemen’s parks as curiosities, much as are the bisons—survivors of the old herds which once, millions strong, roamed our Western prairies. These of the Chillingham breed are of a creamy white color. Graceful in form, with short horns but slightly curved, they are smaller than the domestic breeds. The West Highland cattle are like these, but almost always of a black color.

Many scientific men hold that the Chillinghams, or reputed wild cattle, are albinos. Apart from opinion, it is a fact that when the black calves are born, they are carefully sorted out and sold for their veal. The true Highland cattle, which we meet in herds on the moors and see painted lovingly by artists, are hardy, imposing, and well fitted to their climatic environment. With short, muscular limbs, wide and deep chests, long horns and short muzzle, and their coats of shaggy hair, they are noticeable in the landscape. They furnish much of the famed “roast beef of Old England.” The milk of the cows is very rich, though too scant in measure to make dairying profitable.

It seems now fairly well agreed that the original ancestor of these local and most of the domestic breeds of cattle in northern Europe was the auroch, or European bison, contemporary of the mammoth and cave man, which became extinct about the beginning of the seventeenth century.

Although Lochs Lomond and Katrine and the Trossachs are not in the Highlands, yet, since the majority of visiting Americans do not cross the boundary separating the Azoic and Crystalline rocks from the fertile lowlands, they accept this romantic portion of heather land as typical of the whole. It is not the oldest part of Scotia, yet, in a sense, this tourist’s route is typical of the entire peninsula, in suggesting the effect of Nature’s face and moods upon the human spirit.

One coming first to Scotland from a visit to Ireland asks questions.

Most striking in the history of mankind is the influence of the scenery of a country upon the national temperament. Compare, for example, the two peoples of the same race, the Celtic Irishmen and the Highlanders. The islander’s home has a mild climate, good soil, and a fairly level country, where men have been able to live without extreme toil. In spite of all the Irishman’s troubles, whether coming to him from within or without, he has maintained through the ages the traits of his ancestors. He is naturally buoyant in spirit, impulsive, excitable, rich in wit and good humor, but alleged to be without that profound conception of the claims of duty which mark some other races.

On the contrary, the Highlander is rather reserved, self-restrained, not merry or witty, but often sullen and morose. Yet he is courteous, dutiful, persevering, faithful as an ally and brave as a foe. Surely the differing environments explain, to a large extent, this differentiation between two peoples of the same original stock. The Highlander has lived in a glen, narrow, rocky, separated from his neighbors in the next glen by high and rugged hills. On a niggardly soil, stony and wet, and in a cold and uncertain climate, he has battled for ages with the elements, facing Nature in her wilder moods and has not played a winning game. Often he is near starvation, for on his little field much rain and little sunshine falls. His seed often rots in the soggy soil. The noise of storm and tempest, of whirlwind and swollen waters, is ever in his hearing. He cannot be mirthful and light-hearted like the Celt, but is often stolidly obstinate; or, it may be, undauntedly persevering. No one who has heard his music but has noted that melancholy which breathes like an undertone throughout his songs and bagpipe melodies, even when they cheer and inspire to duty. Nevertheless, the proud Scot will boast of his land so full of barren mountains. “Iron them all out flat, and Scotland will be found to be as large as England,” was the assertion, with triumphant air, of a native who loved the heather.