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In the Macgregor country the Caledonian line crosses its rival the West Highland Railway, that from Helensburgh turns northward up the shores of Loch Long and Loch Lomond to mount into the wilds of Perthshire, the great Caledonian Forest of old, still showing a wide waste, the Moor of Rannoch, about which lay hid Charles Edward in fact, as Stevenson’s David Balfour in fiction slunk before the redcoat dragoons over that naked moorland, crawling on all fours from patch to patch of heather among its moss bogs and peaty pools. Above the loftiest point of the line stands a shooting lodge which used to boast itself the highest habitation in Britain, but has been far overtopped by the Observatory on Ben Nevis, round whose snow-streaked flanks the railway turns west at Fort-William towards its terminus on the coast.

ABERDEEN FROM THE HARBOUR ENTRANCE

This is bound to be a somewhat flat chapter, in which one can merely hint at the landmarks of rapid routes to the Inner Highlands, most of them by scenery already traversed in Bonnie Scotland. From Ben Nevis there is a straight way to Inverness by the bed of the Caledonian Canal. To that “capital of the Highlands,” the high-road from the centre of Scotland is by the famed Highland Railway over the wilds of Atholl and Badenoch. Other lines lead less directly from the south to Inverness. The Caledonian through Strathmore, and the North British over the Firths of Forth and Tay, unite to reach Aberdeen by the rocky coast on which stands out Dunottar Castle, that old Scottish Gibraltar, honoured with the custody of the Regalia, and accursed by the cruel confinement of Covenanters. At Aberdeen, close to the rounded and trimmed beauties of Deeside, avenue for Balmoral and Braemar, one has a choice of routes to Inverness, over a fine half-Highland, half-Lowland country, or along the rocky coast of the Moray Firth. From Inverness a single line runs on to the far north, with a branch to the ferries of Skye, rivalled now by the West Highland extension to Mallaig. Half a century ago Dean Stanley declared it easier to get to Jerusalem than to Skye. Jerusalem to-day has its railway; while Skye is reached by steamers from Oban, besides the easy crossings for which cyclists wind upon good roads through the bens and glens beyond Inverness.