any great altitude on the top of St. Fillan's
Hill, we are yet high enough to get a glimpse of that gem of Highland
lochs--Loch Earn, set literally at the feet of the hills, its waters
murmuring a never ceasing song, as if happy with their near presence,
having wooed and kissed their steep and rugged sides into silver
strands and gently curving bays from end to end; and, indeed, the very
woods, as if drawn by this music and this wooing, have come to the very
water's edge to bathe and to drink, and to watch their graceful forms
mirrored in the bosom of the loch.

I need no apology for thus dwelling upon the romantic scenery of the
place, for if, in these matter-of-fact times, the fame and reputed
virtue of the Well of St. Fillans have departed, and the days of
pilgrimage to its source are over, still the pure air, and perfect
peace, and wild and romantic surroundings remain, to minister their
undoubted healing powers to wearied minds and jaded bodies.

In writing about the Well of St. Fillans and other places of
antiquarian interest in this neighbourhood, it almost goes without
saying that much must be taken on trust. People are prone to believe
that the dirty pool of stagnant water which still remains in the driest
summer on the top of St. Fillan's Hill is the famous spring to which
pilgrims at one time resorted. Any one who examines it will not fail
to observe that it has all the appearance of an artificially built
well, and must have been kept in order and preservation for a purpose.
Tradition confirms the belief that this was at one time the well, but
not always. The Rev. Mr M'Diarmid, minister of the parish of Comrie
about the beginning of this century, gives us the following account of
it:--

"This spring, tradition reports, reared its head on the top of Dun
Fholain (Fillan's Hill) for a long time, doing much good, but in
disgust (probably at the Reformation) it removed suddenly to the foot
of a rock, a quarter of a mile to the southward, where it still
remains, humbled, but not forsaken. It is still visited by
valetudinary people, especially on the 1st of May and the 1st of
August. No fewer than seventy persons visited it in May and August,
1791. The invalids, whether men, women, or children, walk or are
carried round the well three times in a direction Deishal--that is from
east to west, according to the course of the sun. They also drink of
the water and bathe in it. These operations are accounted a