Blair Collection > Celtic magazine > Volume 3

THE CELTIC MAGAZINE. 435
THE LAND OF SANTA MAREE.
By J. E. MuDDOCK, Author of "A Wingless Angel/' " As the Shadows
Fall," "The Mystery of Jasper Janin," "Lovat, or
Out in the '45," &c., &c.
If I were to commence this article by a statement that last year her
Majesty the Queen spent a week at the Loch-]\Laree Hotel, my readers
might be inclined to imagine that I had only just awoke from a Piip Van
"VVinklish sleep, and that I was at least twelve months behind my time.
If, on the other hand, I were to ask three persons out of every five I met,
" "Where is Loch-Maree ?" I might be pested with a dubious stare and a
stammered reply, " Loch-Maree is — oh, well, let me see, why, in Scotland
of course." It will be understood that this imputation, if such it can be
called, applies only to those who dwell to the south of the Grampians, for I
cannot think it possible that any man whose home is north of the Perth-
shire range can be ignorant of the enchanted region which I have been
pleased to term " the Land of Santa Maree." If there be such a man in
existence let him hide his shameless head and be heard no more.
Being a Sassenach and a brain worker and in search of health and
repose, it was but natural that my C|uest should lead my footsteps to a
land which gave birth to a Burns and a Scott, and whose every hill and
every glen is hallowed by poetry and song. I had heard that in the far
western corner of Eoss-shire was a glorious, and island studded loch some
eighteen mUes in length, and guarded on all sides by a mighty barrier of
shaggy mountains. Being a worshipper at the shrine of nature, and having
a passionate love for mountains, I determined to make a pilgrimage to
Loch-Maree. My pilgrimage, however, was not one in which the flesh
was mortified and the spirit galled, foT in the luxury of one of the saloon
carriages of the Highland Railway Company, I was enabled to contemplate
at mine ease the marvellous beauties through which this railway passes.
Grand though the Highland Railway route be, it cannot, I think, be comj^ared
to the Dingwall and. Skye line, which is not only a marvel of engineering
skill, but runs through a country that, for wUdnesS and grandeur, cannot
be equalled in the whole of the United Kingdom. It is not my intention
here to describe this line, much as I am tempted to do so, but I wiU con-
tent myself with saying that no man or woman should boast of having
"done" the Rhine, or Switzerland, the South of France,^or Italy, until he
or she has travelled from Inverness to Strome Ferry, and if he or she does
not then say that the scenery through which the line passes is equal to
anything the much vaunted Continent can offer, that man and that woman
will be deserving of synipatliy inasmuch as they will prove that they are
lacking in that appreciation of the aesthetic, which is one of the chief
characteristics of intelligence.
Achnasheen is a quiet little station on the Dmgwall and Skye route,
and here, those who are journeying to the Land of Santa jMaree break the
journey. They will find a weU-appoiated coach waiting to take thein on