Scotland/Scots > Black's picturesque tourist of Scotland

542
INVERNESS TO WEST COAST AND ROSS-SHIRE.
Inverness, by the Aird to the falls of Kilmorack as far as
Eilan Aigas, is a very favourite one. A long day’s journey of
more than forty miles may be made to Struy on one side, and
home by the opposite side of the river. But a tour of two
and a half days to Glenstrathfarrer, Strathglass, Loch Affrick,
and Loch Bennevian, is now not unfrequent—the small inn of
Struy, for want of a better, being the resting-place at night
—while pedestrians may find their way across the country to
Loch Duich and Skye. In either case, Beauly forms a con¬
venient stage.
The Falls of Kilmorack and the country beyond are reached
by a road that strikes off at Beauly Bridge. The lower falls
are two miles from Beauly, and are descried from the public
road. They are not high but picturesque. Above them, the
river, for about half-a-mile, works its way in boiling cauldrons
and broken cascades, between high rocky banks crowned by
birch and pine trees. A pathway leads from a summer-house
in the minister’s garden along the edge of the cliffs. Where it
rejoins the public road, a longer reach, called the Drhuim, is
presented, of the river threading its way for two or three miles
between more open banks, partly cultivated, and the hill sides
clothed to their summits with weeping birches. Fantastic
islets and pinnacles of rock jut out in the bed of the river.
At the top of the Drhuim the road brings us in front of a
round rocky hill in the midst of the valley, beautifully festooned
with birches, on both sides of which the river is seen pouring
itself down in rocky channels which again exhibit a series of
elegant cascades. This eminence is the island of Aigas, and is
adorned by a picturesque shooting lodge, in which the late Sir
Robert Peel passed a few quiet months during his last summer’s
visit to the Highlands. The horses of a party here returning
had better be baited at the public-house of Crask of Aigas. An
open glen succeeds, ornamented at the lower end by the man¬
sion-house of Eskadale (Thomas Fraser, Esq.), and the pinnacles
of a Roman Catholic chapel, erected by Lord Lovat. About
four miles on is the high old castle and the wooden grounds
of Erchless, the seat of “ The Chisholm,” whose domains
stretch far inland, and embrace great mountainous ranges of
fine pasture.
Struy Inn, about ten miles from Beauly, and twenty miles