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

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A mile from the village of Eaglesham the road begins to rise. And here we are reminded that if the early summer is the time of hope, it is the time of strife as well. For here is, first, a dead mole; and secondly, a couple of living larks. The mole and a brother of his had been fighting for a wife; he had been wounded, his body ripped up, and a part of his entrails eaten by the conqueror. The larks, a couple of male birds, were now fighting, and the weaker was being worsted; and if he had stuck to his guns as did the mole he would in all probability have met with the mole’s fate. Halfway up the ascent on the left is the road to Lochgoin, but we keep on the highway to Kilmarnock. As we near the top we leave behind us, at the height of 800 feet above the level of the sea, almost every sign of cultivation, and enter upon the moor, in which the villagers have the right of casting peats and pasturing a single cow. When we have reached the summit nearly another mile of table-land lies before us, and Ballagioch is close upon us on the right. The hill rises before us to the height of perhaps 200 feet from the road, but our Ordnance map tells us that it is 1094 from the level of the sea. This, however, is no great height for a Scottish hill, and therefore we require no “guide, philosopher, and friend” to show us the way to the top; we simply need to remember the short but pithy address of the Highland officer to his men in the face of the foe, “There’s the enemy, gentlemen, up and at them.”