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Past Linlithgow first we sped,
Where the Palace rears its head,
Then on by Falkirk, till we pass
The famous valley and morass
Known as Bannockburn in story,
Brightest scene of Scottish glory.
On pleasure and instruction bent
We made the Stirling hill ascent,
And saw the wondrous vale beneath,
The lovely valley of Monteith,
Stretching under sunlit skies
To where the Trossach hills arise.
Thence we turned our willing car
Westward ho! to Callander,
Where childish memories awoke
In the wood of ash and oak,
Where in days so long gone by
I heard the woodland pigeons cry,
And, consternation in my face,
Legged it to some safer place.

Next morning first we viewed a mound,
Memorial of some saint renowned,
And then the mouldered ditch and ramp
Which marked an ancient Roman camp.
Then past Lubnaig on we went,
Gazed on Ben Ledi’s steep ascent,
And passed by lovely stream and valley
Through Dochart Glen to reach Dalmally,
Where on a rough and winding track
We wished ourselves in safety back;
Till on our left we gladly saw
The spreading waters of Loch Awe,
And still more gladly truth to tell —
A very up-to-date hotel,
With Conan’s church within its ground,
Which gave it quite a homely sound.
Thither we came upon the Sunday,
Viewed Kilchurn Castle on the Monday,
And Tuesday saw us sally forth
Bound for Oban and the North.

We came to Oban in the rain,
I need not mention it again,
For you may take it as a fact
That in that Western Highland tract
It sometimes spouts and sometimes drops,
But never, never, never stops.
From Oban on we thought it well
To take the steamer for a spell.
But ere the motor went aboard
The Pass of Melfort we explored.
A lovelier vale, more full of peace,
Was never seen in classic Greece;
A wondrous gateway, reft and torn,
To open out the land of Lome.
Leading on for many a mile
To the kingdom of Argyle.

Wednesday saw us on our way
Steaming out from Oban Bay,
(Lord, it was a fearsome day!)
To right and left we looked upon
All the lands of Stevenson —
Moidart, Morven, and Ardgour,
Ardshiel, Appin, and Mamore —
If their tale you wish to learn
Then to “Kidnapped” you must turn.
Strange that one man’s eager brain
Can make those dead lands live again!
From the deck we saw Glencoe,
Where upon that night of woe
William’s men did such a deed
As even now we blush to read.
Ben Nevis towered on our right,
The clouds concealed it from our sight,
But it was comforting to say
That over there Ben Nevis lay’.
Finally we made the land
At Fort William’s sloping strand,
And in our car away we went
Along that lasting monument,
The good broad causeway which was made
By King George’s General Wade.
He built a splendid road, no doubt,
Alas! he left the sign-posts out.
And so we wandered, sad to say,
Far from our appointed way,
Till twenty mile of rugged track
In a circle brought us back.
But the incident we viwed
In a philosophic mood.
Tired and hungry but serene
We settled at the Bridge of Spean.

Our journey now we onward press
Toward the town of Inverness,
Through a country all alive
With memories of “forty-five.”
The noble clans once gathered here,
Where now are only grouse and deer.
Alas, that men and crops and herds
Should ever yield their place to birds!
And that the splendid Highland race
Be swept aside to give more space
For forests where the deer may stray
For some rich owner far away,
Whose keeper guards the lonely glen
Which once sent out a hundred men!
When from Inverness we turned,
Feeling that a rest was earned.
We stopped at Nairn, for golf links famed,
“Scotland’s Brighton” it is named,
Though really, when the phrase we heard,
It seemed a little bit absurd,
For Brighton’s size compared to Nairn
Is just a mother to her bairn.
We halted for a day of rest,
But took one journey to the West
To view old Cawdor’s tower and moat
Of which unrivalled Shakespeare wrote,
Where once Macbeth, the schemer deep,
Slew royal Duncan in his sleep,
But actors since avenged his death
By often murdering Macbeth.
Hard by we saw the circles gray
Where Druid priests were wont to pray.