A Walk from London to John O'Groat's by Elihu Burritt
page 271 of 313 (86%)
page 271 of 313 (86%)
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exhilarating occupation every rod of the distance from Kinross to
Perth. The road via Glenfarg would be a luxury of the first enjoyment to any tourist with an eye to the wild, romantic and picturesque. Debouching from this long, winding, tree-arched dell, you come out upon Strathearn, or the bottom-land of the river Earn, which joins the Tay a few miles below. The term strath is peculiarly a Scottish designation which many American readers may not have fully comprehended, although it is so blended with the history and romance of this country. It is not a valley proper, as we use that term; as the Valley of the Mississippi or the Valley of the Connecticut. If the word were admissible, it might be called most descriptively the land-bay of a river, at a certain distance between its source and mouth, such for instance as the German Flats on the Mohawk, or the Oxbow on the Connecticut, at Wethersfield, in Vermont, or the great onion-growing flat on the same river at Wethersfield in Connecticut. These straths are numerous in Scotland, and constitute the great productive centres of the mountain sections. They are generally cultivated to the highest perfection of agricultural science and economy and are devoted mostly to grain. As they are always walled in by bald-headed mountains and lofty hills, cropped as high as man and horse can climb with a plough and planted with firs and larches beyond, they show beautifully to the eye, and constitute, with these surroundings, the peculiar charm of Scotch scenery. The term is always prefixed to the name of the river, as Strathearn, Strathspey, etc. I noticed on this day's walk the same singular habit that struck me in the north part of Yorkshire; that is, of cutting inward upon the |
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