rst plunge of the salmon in the Rowan-tree Pool. There again he
shoots into the air, white as silver, fresh run from the sea! For
Loch-Etive, you must know, is one of the many million arms of Ocean, and
bright now are rolling in the billows of the far-heaving tide. Music
meet for such a morn and such mountains. Straight stretches the glen for
leagues, and then, bending through the blue gloom, seems to wind away
with one sweep into infinitude. The Great Glen of Scotland--Glen-More
itself--is not grander. But the Great Glen of Scotland is yet a living
forest. Glen-Etive has few woods or none--and the want of them is
sublime. For centuries ago pines and oaks in the course of nature all
perished; and they exist now but in tradition wavering on the tongues of
old bards, or deep down in the mosses show their black trunks to the
light, when the torrents join the river in spate, and the moor divulges
its secrets as in an earthquake. Sweetly sung, thou small, brown,
moorland bird, though thy song be but a twitter! And true to thy
time--even to a balmy minute--art thou, with thy velvet tunic of black
striped with yellow, as thou windest thy small but not sullen horn--by
us called in our pride HUMBLE-BEE--but not, methinks, so very humble,
while booming high in air in oft-repeated circles, wondering at our
Tent, and at the flag that now unfolds its gaudy length like a burnished
serpent, as if the smell of some far-off darling heather-bed had touched
thy finest instinct, away thou fliest straight southward to that rich
flower-store, unerringly as the carrier-pigeon wafting to distant lands
some love-message on its wings. Yet humble after all thou art; for all
day long, making thy industry thy delight, thou returnest at shut of
day, cheerful even in thy weariness, to thy ground-cell within the
knoll, where as Fancy dreams the Fairies dwell--a Silent People in the
Land of Peace.

And why hast thou, wild singing spirit of the Highland Glenorchy, that
cheerest the long-withdrawing vale from Inveruren to Dalmally, and from
Dalmally Church-tower to the Old Castle of Kilchurn, round whose
mouldering turrets thou sweepest with more pensive murmur, till thy name
and existence are lost in that noble loch--why hast thou never had thy
Bard? "A hundred bards have I had in bygone ages," is thy reply; "but
the Sassenach understands not the traditionary strains, and the music of
the Gaelic poetry is wasted on his ear." Songs of war and of love are