Читать книгу Our Western Hills: How to reach them; And the Views from their Summits. By a Glasgow Pedestrian онлайн

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Looking to the south and east, and not at all far away, we have hill range upon hill range. They are neither very grand, nor rugged—they might almost be termed bleak and bare; and yet they have a beauty all their own. With few exceptions they are wanting in vegetation, and although to one accustomed to the rugged grandeur and rich variety of the northern Highlands, they may seem tame and uninteresting, there is a charm in their peaceful slopes and rounded summits which is not to be found in the stern beauty of their northern neighbours. “Their beauty is not revealed at first sight; it grows on the eye, which never tires of gazing on their grassy slopes and watching the ever-changing play of light and shade.”

On a clear day the hills in the north of England, and even the north coast of Ireland, can be easily seen. We did not see them ourselves, but we have seen a man who has seen them. We could see the infant Clyde, made up of several streams, all rapid, noisy, and wildly frolicsome, differing as much from the broad, calm, useful river at Glasgow as the most capering and crowing baby differs from the gravest sage. We could see it almost from the place where it takes its rise near the sources of the Tweed and the Annan, and could follow it winding like a silver thread along the bottom of a narrow dell, down to a broad and splendid band of crystal through a diversified country, now washing the skirt of a romantically situated Roman camp, now through pleasant pastures and charming corn lands, and now skirting the base of Tinto in a sweep so great and circuitous that a distance of more than 20 miles is run between points which in a straight line are not farther apart than 7½ miles. We only lose sight of it when, after tumbling over Cora Linn, it runs down beyond Lanark into what might well be said to be at once the most beautiful and fruitful valley in Scotland.