Crossing the Teith we found ourselves in Doune, a Highland village, just
before entering which we passed a throng of strapping lasses, who had just
finished their daily task at a manufactory on the Teith, and were
returning to their homes. Between Doune and Callander we passed the woods
of Cambus-More, full of broad beeches, which delight in the tenacious
mountain soil of this district. This was the seat of a friend of the Scott
family, and here Sir Walter in his youth passed several summers, and
became familiar with the scenes which he has so well described in his Lady
of the Lake. At Callander we halted for the night among a crowd of
tourists, Scotch, English, American, and German, more numerous than the
inn at which we stopped could hold. I went out into the street to get a
look at the place, but a genuine Scotch mist covering me with water soon
compelled me to return. I heard the people, a well-limbed brawny race of
men, with red hair and beards, talking to each other in Gaelic, and saw
through the fogs only a glimpse of the sides of the mountains and crags
which surrounded the village.

The next morning was uncommonly bright and clear, and we set out early for
the Trosachs. We now saw that the village of Callander lay under a dark
crag, on the banks of the Teith, winding pleasantly among its alders, and
overlooked by the grand summit of Benledi, which rises to the height of
three thousand feet. A short time brought us to the stream

"Which, daughter of three mighty lakes,
From Vennachar in silver breaks,"

and we skirted the lake for nearly its whole length. Loch Vennachar lies
between hills of comparatively gentle declivity, pastured by flocks, and
tufted with patches of the prickly gorse and coarse ferns. On its north
bank lies Lanrick Mead, a little grassy level where Scott makes the tribe
of Clan Alpine assemble at the command of Roderick Dhu. At a little
distance from Vennachar lies Loch Achray, which we reached by a road
winding among shrubs and low trees, birches, and wild roses in blossom,
with which the air was fragrant. Crossing a little stone bridge, which our
driver told us was the Bridge of Turk, we were on the edge of Loch Achray,
a little sheet of water surrounded by wild rocky hills, with here and
there an interval of level grassy margin, or a grove beside the water.
Turning from Loch Achray we reached an inn with a Gaelic name, which I
have forgotten how to spell, and which if I were to spell