The Project Gutenberg EBook of Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands
of Scotland, by Daniel Turner Holmes

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Title: Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland

Author: Daniel Turner Holmes

Release Date: June 20, 2009 [EBook #29178]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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_LITERARY TOURS_

Literary Tours in
The Highlands and
Islands of Scotland

By D. T. Holmes, B.A.

"Gaudia, discursus, nostri est farrago libelli"
--_Juvenal_, i. 74

_PAISLEY: ALEXANDER GARDNER_
Publisher by Appointment to the late Queen Victoria
1909

* * * * *

_To_
_James Coats, Junr., Esq.,_
_Ferguslie House, Paisley._

_You, but for whom I'd never been
Much further north than Aberdeen;
Whose mandate sent my willing feet
To realms of heather, broom, and peat:
Accept this record of my tours
As something less my own than yours._

_D. T. HOLMES._

_PREFACE._

_White stands the long Kilpatrick row
Of hills with deep and dazzling snow,
And eastward, in a glimmering haze,
Stretch to the Forth the Campsie Braes._

_But see! beyond the Clyde, a stain
Of smoke that runs across the plain,
And flecks for miles the vivid gleam:
It is the tireless steed of steam._

_An old acquaintance! Ben and Strath
Daily behold his thunderous path,
That ceases not, until he feels
The breeze of Mallaig cool his wheels._

_And Memory, fondly gazing back
On many a journey by that track
Of splendour, would, at home, retrace
The charms and lore of every place;_

_Yea, pass, in thought, to storied Skye,
Where all the glens in glamour lie;
And, lightly scorning gust and spray,
Leap o'er the Minch to Stornoway._

_And many a northern beach besides,
Splashed by th